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A portrait ofWolfe Tone

Protestant Irish Nationalistsare adherents ofProtestantism in Irelandwho also supportIrish nationalism.Protestantshave played a large role in the development of Irish nationalism since the eighteenth century, despite most Irish nationalists historically being from theIrish Catholicmajority, as well as most Irish Protestants usually tending towardunionism in Ireland.Protestant nationalists (orpatriots,particularly before the mid-19th century)[citation needed]have consistently been influential supporters and leaders of various movements for the political independence ofIrelandfromGreat Britain.Historically, these movements ranged from supporting the legislative independence of theParliamentof theKingdom of Ireland,to a form ofhome rulewithin theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,to complete independence in anIrish Republicand (since thepartition of Ireland) aUnited Ireland.

Despite their relatively small numbers, individual Protestants have made important contributions to key events in Irish nationalist history, such asWolfe Toneduring the1798 rebellion,Charles Stewart Parnelland theHome Rule movement,andErskine Childersand the 1916Easter Rising.

In Northern Ireland, the vast majority ofUlster Protestantsare unionist and vote for unionist parties. In 2008, only 4% of Protestants in Northern Ireland thought the long-term policy for Northern Ireland should be unification with the Republic of Ireland, whereas 89% said it should be to remain in the United Kingdom.[1]

All the various denominations of Protestantism in Ireland have had members involved in nationalism. The AnglicanChurch of Irelandand thePresbyterian Church of Irelandare the largest Protestant churches, and this remains the situation across the island of Ireland. The largest Protestant denomination is the Church of Ireland (having roughly 365,000 members,[2]making up around 3% of the population of the Republic of Ireland, 15% of Northern Ireland, and 6.3% of the whole of Ireland), followed by the Presbyterian Church, with a membership of around 300,000,[3]accounting for 0.6% of people in the Republic and 20% in Northern Ireland (6.1% of Ireland's population).

Pre-Union background

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Henry Grattan

In the eighteenth century the first attempt towards a form of greater Irish home rule under the British Crown was led by theIrish Patriot Partyin the 1770s and 1780s, inspired byHenry Grattan.

TheAge of Revolutioninspired Protestants such asWolfe Tone,Thomas Russell,Henry Joy McCracken,William Orr,Lord Edward Fitzgerald,the brothers Sheares,Archibald Hamilton Rowan,Valentine Lawless,and others who led theUnited Irishmenmovement. At its first meeting on 14 October 1791, almost all attendees werePresbyterians,apart from Tone and Russell who were bothAnglicans.Presbyterians, led by McCracken,James Napper Tandy,and Neilson would later go on to leadUlster ProtestantandCatholicIrish rebels in theIrish Rebellion of 1798.Tone did manage to unite if only for a short time, at least, some Anglicans, Catholics andDissentersinto the "common name of Irishmen", and would later go on to try to get French support for a rising, first manifested in the failed FrenchBantry Bay landingof 1796.

At that time, the French republicans wereopposed to all churches.Such people were inspired byThomas Paineof theAmerican Revolution,who disapproved of organised religions inThe Age of Reason(1794–1795) and preferred adeistbelief. Although the United Irish movement was supported by individual priests, the Roman Catholic hierarchy was opposed to it, because of a growing rapprochement between Rome and London (one example of which was the funding of the newseminary in Maynoothby the British government in 1795).

During the 1798 rebellion the military leaders were also largely Anglicans. After the initial battles inCounty Kildarethe rebels holding out in theBog of Allenwere led byWilliam Aylmer.In Antrim and Down the rebels were almost all Presbyterians, and at theBattle of Ballynahinchthe local CatholicDefendersdecided not to take part. InCounty Wexford,which remained out of British control for a month, the main planners wereBagenal HarveyandAnthony Perry.Joseph Holtled the rebels inCounty Wicklow,andSir Edward Crosbiewas hanged, having been wrongfully accused of leading a rebel force inCounty Carlow.Only inCounty Mayo,where there were few Protestants, was the rebellion led entirely by Catholics, and it only developed there because of the landing by a French force underGeneral Humbert,who was assisted byCaptain Bartholomew Teeling.The disarming ofUlstersaw several hundred Protestants tortured, executed and imprisoned for their United Irish sympathies. The rebellion became the main reason for theActs of Union,which passed in 1800.

From Emmet to the Fenians

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In 1803Robert Emmet,brother ofThomas Addis Emmet,attempted an insurrection in Dublin.Jemmy Hopetried to raise the districts of the north where the Presbyterian spirit of republican resistance had run strongest in the 1790s, but found no response.

The democratic and non-violentRepeal Associationled byDaniel O'Connellin the 1830s and 1840s was supported by a number of Protestants; the most eminent beingJohn Gray,who later supported Butt and Parnell (see below), and others such asJames Haughton.Several younger Protestant Repealers, grouped aroundCharles Gavan Duffy's paper, theNation,were disaffected: wary of O'Connell's ready identification of Catholicism with the nation, and of the broader clericalism of the national movement. Referred to contemptuously by O'Connell as "Young Irelanders"[4]--a reference toGiuseppe Mazzini'sYoung Italywhich in 1849 had briefly imposed arepublic on the Pope in Rome--they includedThomas Davis,John Mitcheland leader of the abortive1848 rebellionWilliam Smith O'Brien.

In 1845 Davis famously clashed with O'Connell over "the Liberator's" denunciation of the "Queens Colleges", a "mixed" or non-denominational scheme for advanced education in Ireland. When Davis pleaded that "reasons for separate education are reasons for [a] separate life", O'Connell accused him of suggesting it a "crime to be a Catholic". "I am", he declared, "for Old Ireland, and I have some slight notion that Old Ireland will stand by me".[5][6]

In the election of 1852 John Gray, then editor of theFreeman's Journal,at the urging of the ReverendDavid Bellstood on the platform ofTenant Right LeagueinMonaghan.Bell found his appeals for unity in support of Gray could not prevail against calls of the Union in danger, and "No Popery". Of the 100 of his fellow Presbyterians who had signed the requisition asking Gray to stand, only 11 had the courage to vote for him. Despairing of constitutional means, in 1864 Bell was inducted into theIrish Republican [ "Fenian" ] BrotherhoodbyJeremiah O'Donovan Rossa.[7]Escaping arrest, from 1865 he was in exile in the United States where, in contrast toJohn Mitchelwho, already in Ireland, had defendedAmericanslavery against theabolitionismofDaniel O'Connell,[8][9]Bell tried to associate physical-force Irish republicanism with theRadical [U.S.] Republicanagenda of black enfranchisement andReconstruction.[10]

Home Rule era (1870–1914)

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Politicians

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Charles Stewart Parnell

The newHome Government Associationwas founded byIsaac Buttin 1870, who died in 1879.William Shawpresided over the convention held to found its successor, theHome Rule League,of which he was chairman. He was followed byCharles Stewart Parnell,the founder of theIrish Parliamentary Party(IPP).H. H. Asquithcalled Parnell one of the most important men of the nineteenth century andLord Haldanecalled him the most powerful man that theParliamentof theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Irelandhad seen in 150 years. Parnell led theGladstonianconstitutionalistHome Rule movementand for a time dominated Irish and British affairs. However, at the height of his power he was to be dethroned by theO'Sheadivorce affair and died soon afterwards.

Other Protestant Nationalist members of parliament were:Sir John Gray,Stephen Gwynn,Henry Harrison,Jeremiah Jordan,William McDonald,J. G. Swift MacNeill,James Maguire,Pierce Charles de Lacy O'Mahony,Isaac Nelson,John Pinkerton,Horace PlunkettandSamuel Young.

In 1903, withThomas Sloan,IndependentMPforSouth Belfast,R.Lindsay Crawfordco-founded theIndependent Orange Order.For Crawford, who became the new order's Grand Master, this, in the first instance, was a protest against co-optation of the establishedOrange Orderby theUlster Unionist Partyand its alignment with the interests of landlords and employers.[11]But he also saw it as an opportunity for Irish Protestants to "reconsider their position as Irish citizens and their attitude towards their Roman Catholic countrymen". His commitment in the Magheramorne Manifesto (1904) to an "extended form of self-government" for Ireland proved too much for Sloan and his supporters, and Crawford was expelled. As a journalist in Canada and the United States Crawford was committed to the cause of Irish self-determination, and in the 1920s served as the Irish trade representative in New York.[11]

Several Protestant figures in the earlyNorthern Ireland Labour Partywere nationalists. These included MPsJack Beattie,Sam KyleandWilliam McMullenand labour leadersJames BairdandJohn Hanna.[12]Meanwhile, trade unionistVictor Halleywas a member of theSocialist Republican Party.

Artists

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While not active nationalist supporters, authors who wrote about Irish life and history, such asWilliam Wilde,Whitley Stokes,Standish James O'GradyandSamuel Fergusonhelped to develop nationalist sentiment.

From 1897 the artist and mysticGeorge Russell(also known as "Æ" ) helpedHorace Plunkettto run theIrish Agricultural Organisation Society.[13]The IAOS rapidly grew into the main Irish ruralco-operativebody through which Irish farmers could buy and sell goods at the best price. Plunkett was also a cousin ofGeorge Noble Plunkett,father ofJoseph Mary Plunkett.Horace Plunkett's home inCounty Dublinwas later burned down in 1922 byanti-treatyIrish republicansduring theIrish Civil War,as he had been appointed a Senator in the firstIrish Free StateSenate.

Russell was also involved in the "Irish Literary Revival"(or Celtic Twilight) artistic movement, that provided an intellectual and artistic aspect supportive of Irish nationalism. This was also largely started and run by Protestants such asW. B. Yeats,Lady Gregory,Seán O'Casey,Alice Milligan,andJM Synge,who also founded the influential but controversialAbbey Theatrethat opened in 1904. "An Túr Gloine"(The Glass Tower) had a similar membership.

The archetypal work of art that commemorated the 1916 Rising, though sculpted five years before the rising, is the statue of the dying mythical warriorCuchullain,sculpted byOliver Sheppard,a Protestant art lecturer in Dublin who had been a moderate nationalist for decades. Cast in bronze, it was unveiled at theGPOin 1935.

Independence era (1916–1922)

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Countess Markieviczon stage, probably in theAbbey Theatre

Sam MaguireinductedMichael Collinsinto theIrish Republican Brotherhood(IRB) in 1909. From 1928 the main prize for Irish football awarded by theGaelic Athletic Associationhas been theSam Maguire Cup.

In 1908Bulmer HobsonandConstance Markieviczfounded theFianna Éireann,intended as a nationalist Boy Scout movement. TheIrish Volunteerswere a paramilitary organisation established in 1913 by Irish Nationalists and separatists includingRoger Casement,Bulmer Hobson andErskine Childers,all Protestant Irish nationalists (although Casement, who had been secretly baptised a Catholic by his mother, officially converted to Catholicism just before he was hanged in 1916). The Irish Volunteers were formed in response to the formation of theUlster VolunteersbyEdward CarsonandJames Craig.The Ulster Volunteers were aUnionistparamilitary movement who feared a Dublin-centric, anti-Protestant Home Rule parliament in Dublin.

TheIrish Citizen Armyexisted from 1913–1947 and one of its creators wasJack Whitefrom Ulster, son of General George White. On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, 220 of the group (including 28 women) took part in theEaster Rising.Most of the rifles and ammunition used in the Rising had been imported fromGermanyin July 1914 byErskine Childerson his yachtAsgardalong withConor O'Brien,Alice Stopford Green,Mary Spring Rice,Darrell Figgisand the formerQuakerBulmer Hobson. The rest of the rifles were shipped bySir Thomas Myles,at the suggestion of the barristerJames Meredith,and were landed atKilcoole.In 1913 Hobson had swornPatrick Pearseinto the IRB; Pearse was one of leaders of the Rising. A prominent signatory to theAnglo-Irish Treatyin late 1921 that followed theAnglo-Irish warwasRobert Barton,a cousin of Childers. A cousin of both, David Lubbock Robinson, was in the IRA and interned. He later became a Fianna Fáil Senator.[14]

In the subsequentIrish Free StategovernmentsErnest Blythe,a former member of the Irish Volunteers, held various ministerial posts.Seán Lesterwas aLeague of Nationsdiplomat. The founder of theGaelic Leagueand firstPresident of IrelandwasDouglas Hyde.Dorothy Macardleopposed the 1921 Treaty and was a lifelong supporter ofÉamon de Valera,writing his view of history inThe Irish Republic(1937), but also refusing his suggestion to convert to Catholicism on her deathbed in 1958. Some like the Revd.Robert Hilliardfought in the Spanish Civil War in 1936–1939.

Following independence, southern Protestant unionists accepted the new reality and worked with the new Free State from its difficult start in 1922–23. These included judges such asLord Glenavy,whose suggestions for a new law courts system was enacted as theCourts Act 1924,and twenty accepted nominations to thenew Senate,such asLord Mayo.

1940s

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In 1941, writerDenis Ireland,son of a wealthy manufacturer and steeped in Unionist tradition, described himself as "a son of the Ulster Protestant industrial ascendancy". He founded the Ulster Union Club in Belfast to purportedly "recapture, for Ulster Protestants, their true tradition as Irishmen",[15]it advertised a range of activities including weekly discussions and lectures on current affairs, economics, history and theIrish language,as well as dancing and music classes.[16]A number of pamphlets were published and under its auspices Ireland contributed to various magazines, newspapers and radio programmes in Belfast and Dublin.[17]

The Club was mainly frequented by Protestants but, as the authorities soon discovered, it was a source of recruits to theIRA.UUC meetings were being attended byJohn Graham,a devout member of theChurch of Ireland,who, at the time of his arrest in 1942, was leading a "Protestant squad", an intelligence unit, that was preparing the armed organisation for a new "northern campaign."[18]In 1944, underNorthern Ireland Special Powers Act,the UUC was suppressed. The club's premises, and the homes of Ireland and other prominent members (among them Presbyterian clergymen, teachers and university lecturers) were raided byRUC Special Branch.[19]

Along withGeorge Gilmore,andGeorge Plant,Graham had been amongst a handful of Protestants who had come to the IRA through the minorityRepublican Congress.[12]Plant was executed in 1942 by the Irish government for the murder of a suspected informer.[20]

In 1948 Denis Ireland entered theSeanad Éireann,the Irish Senate, for therepublicanandsocial-democraticClann na Poblachta.As a senator, Ireland was the first member of theOireachtas,the Irish Parliament, to be resident inNorthern Ireland.[citation needed]

Duringthe Troubles

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In the North, Protestants participated in the early years of the nationalistSocial Democratic and Labour Party(SDLP).Ivan Cooperwas among its co-founders in 1970.

Billy Leonard,a formerSeventh-day Adventistlay-preacher andRoyal Ulster Constabulary(RUC) reservist, whose wife and children are Catholics, was elected in 2001 toColeraine Borough Councilas an SDLP representative for the Skerries area.[21]Citing lack of emphasis on Irish unity he joinedSinn Féinin 2004. The party nominated him to succeedFrancie Brollyas an MLA for East Londonderry in 2010.[22]But citing disagreements "over support arrangements for MLAs' wages and expenses",[23]and complaining that "the tentacles of the[IRA] Army Councilstill run throughout "the republican party he soon resigned.[24]

Ronnie Bunting,son ofRonald Bunting,a close associate ofIan Paisley,became a member of theOfficial IRAin the early 1970s and was a founder-member of theIrish National Liberation Army(INLA) in 1974. He was assassinated by theUlster Defence Associationin 1980.[25][26]

Also assassinated by the UDA in 1980,John Turnley,scion of a wealthy Protestant family and a former British Army officer, joined in SDLP in 1972. At the time he was killed, Turnley was chairman of theIrish Independence Party,co-founded withFrank McManus(formerUnityMP forFermanagh & South Tyrone) andFergus McAteer(son of the formerNationalist PartyleaderEddie McAteer).,[27]and a leading member of the National H-Blocks Committee supporting the IRAblanket protest.

Jim Kerr, born into a middle-class Protestant family inEnniscorthy,County Wexford, joined the IRA in the late 1930s and wasinternedat theCurragh CampduringWorld War II.Kerr, a socialist and member of theConnollyStudy Group at the Camp, like other left-wing IRA members, signed himself out to join theRoyal Air Force(RAF) afterNazi GermanyinvadedtheSoviet Union.Kerr was active in theBorder Campaignof the late 1950s and became a close ally of young IRA memberSeamus Costello.Kerr was employed as a blasting engineer at the Mogul Mines atSilvermines,near Nenagh, County Tipperary and was ashop stewardwith theIrish Transport and General Workers Union(ITGWU), involved in several industrial disputes in the early 1970s. Kerr, then a member of the Ard Comhairle ofOfficial Sinn Féin,left with others in late 1974 to help found theIrish Republican Socialist Party(IRSP) and INLA. In 1975 Kerr was arrested for stealing gelignite explosive from Mogul Mines for the INLA and went on the run in continental Europe, building ties with left-wing militant groups and allegedly helping to transport weapons supplied by thePalestinian Liberation Organisation(PLO) to the INLA.[28]

Noel Jenkinson, from aCounty MeathProtestant background, emigrated to London in the 1950s and became involved in communist andMaoistpolitics. In 1969 he joined the IRA in London and in 1972 he was sentenced to thirty years in prison for the Official IRA'sbombing of the headquartersof the16th Parachute Brigadein retaliation forBloody Sunday.[29]

David Russell was a ProtestantProvisional IRAvolunteeroriginally from Ramelton in Donegal and a Presbyterian. He was killed due to a premature bomb explosion in 1974 at a supermarket inDerry.[30]Tom Berry was anOfficial IRAvolunteer with Protestant background. He was killed by the Provisional IRA in east Belfast during the intra-republican feud in 1975.[31][32][33]Harry Murray was aProvisional IRAvolunteerfromTiger's Baywho had served in theRoyal Air Force(RAF).[34]Ronald Spence, nephew ofUlster Volunteer ForceleaderGusty Spence,joined an auxiliary unit of the Official IRA and was later charged with involvement in a punishment shooting carried out in 1977. Spence had married a girl from the predominantly CatholicShort Strandarea of Belfast when he was seventeen and joined a republican social club.[35]

Republic of Ireland

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Martin Mansergh,a member of theChurch of Ireland,has been influential in formulatingFianna Fáil's policy onNorthern Irelandsince thepeace processbegan in the 1990s. Sinn Féin TD for ClareViolet-Anne Wynneis Protestant. Presbyterian Fine Gael TD Heather Humphreys has referred to herself as a republican and nationalist on several occasions.[36]

Protestant nationalist converts to Roman Catholicism

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A number of Protestant nationalists also converted to Catholicism, for a variety of reasons:

See also

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References

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  1. ^"Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2008".Ark.ac.uk. 4 June 2009.Retrieved9 January2010.
  2. ^"World Council of Churches".Oikoumene.org. Archived fromthe originalon 5 September 2011.Retrieved9 January2010.
  3. ^"Presbyterian Church of Ireland".Presbyterianireland.org. Archived fromthe originalon 27 September 2009.Retrieved9 January2010.
  4. ^Dennis Gwynn,O'Connell, Davis and the Colleges Bill,Cork University Press, 1948, p. 68
  5. ^Macken, Ultan (2008).The Story of Daniel O'Connell.Cork: Mercier Press. p. 120.ISBN9781856355964.
  6. ^Mulvey, Helen (2003).Thomas Davis and Ireland: A Biographical Study.Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press. p. 180.ISBN0813213037.
  7. ^Bell, Thomas (1967)."The Reverend David Bell".Clogher Historical Society.6(2): 253–276.doi:10.2307/27695597.JSTOR27695597.S2CID165479361.Retrieved3 October2020.
  8. ^Duffy, Charles Gavan (1883).Four Years of Irish History, 1845-1849.Dublin: Cassell, Petter, Galpin. pp. 500–501.Retrieved4 September2020.
  9. ^Gleeson, David (2016) Failing to ‘unite with the abolitionists’: the Irish Nationalist Press and U.S. emancipation.Slavery & Abolition,37 (3). pp. 622-637. ISSN 0144-039X
  10. ^Knight, Matthew (2017)."The Irish Republic: Reconstructing Liberty, Right Principles, and the Fenian Brotherhood".Éire-Ireland (Irish-American Cultural Institute).52(3 & 4): 252–271.doi:10.1353/eir.2017.0029.S2CID159525524.Retrieved9 October2020.
  11. ^abCourtney, Roger (2013).Dissenting Voices: Rediscovering the Irish Progressive Presbyterian Tradition.Belfast: Ulster Historical Society. pp. 286–287.ISBN9781909556065.
  12. ^abMichael Farrell,Northern Ireland: The Orange State
  13. ^*Plunkett Foundation historyArchived15 May 2008 at theWayback Machine
  14. ^"Directory of Members - 1919 - 2018 - Houses of the Oireachtas - Tithe an Oireachtais".oireachtas.ie.
  15. ^"Ulster Union Club. A new Protestant movement."Irish Times,19 February 1941.
  16. ^Ulster Union Club.What is the Ulster Union Club?Belfast, Ulster Union Club. 1941).
  17. ^Guy Woodward (2015),Culture, Northern Ireland and the Second World War.Oxford University Press. p. 221
  18. ^Coogan, Tim Pat (2002).The IRA.London: Macmillan. p. 178..
  19. ^Boyd, Andrew (2001).IRepublicanism and Loyalty in Ireland.Belfast: Donaldson Archives. p. 45.
  20. ^Moroney, Michael (1988)."George Plant & The Rule of Law: The Devereux Affair (1940–42)".Tipperary Historical Journal:1–12.Retrieved13 March2012.
  21. ^"Coleraine Council Elections 1993-2011".ark.ac.uk.
  22. ^"Ex RUC man becomes Sinn Fein MLA",BBC News,19 November 2009.
  23. ^How Orange RUC man joined and left Sinn Fein,Belfast Newsletter, 25 July 2012.
  24. ^"IRA still have a big say in Sinn Fein says ex MLA and RUC man",belfasttelegraph.co.uk, 21 June 2012; retrieved 11 August 2012.
  25. ^Beresford, David(16 October 1980)."Leading Republicans Killed in Belfast".The Guardian.London. p. 1.
  26. ^"Beginning of the End".Irishdemocrat.co.uk.Retrieved9 January2010.
  27. ^Irish Independence PartyIrish Election Literature
  28. ^"The life of Republican Socialist Jim Kerr",Sam McGrath,30 June 2021.
  29. ^Brian Hanley and Scott Millar,The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party.Penguin UK, 2009.
  30. ^Sutton, Malcolm."CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths".cain.ulst.ac.uk.
  31. ^"Two Are Shot Dead in Belfast As Factions in the I.R.A. Feud".The New York Times.November 1975.
  32. ^Hanley, Brian; Millar, Scott (3 September 2009).The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party.Penguin UK.ISBN9780141935010– via Google Books.
  33. ^McDonald, Henry; Holland, Jack (29 June 2016)."I.N.L.A - Deadly Divisions".Poolbeg Press Ltd – via Google Books.
  34. ^"Humiliating the IRA was a fatal mistake".12 November 2020.
  35. ^The Belfast Telegraph,3 February 1981.
  36. ^"Heather Humphreys: 1916 commemorations belong to all".Irish Times. 31 March 2015.Retrieved4 October2021.
  37. ^"Aodh de Blacam notes".Ricorso. 15 September 1991.Retrieved9 January2010.
  38. ^Profile,GoneButNotForgotten.ie; accessed 3 June 2020. Archived16 July 2007 at theWayback Machine
  39. ^Flanagan, Eimear (12 September 2019)."My grandfather helped form the Provisional IRA".BBC News.
  40. ^Fagg, Morgan."'The IRA was formed in my grandad's sitting room'".The Irish Times.
  41. ^Katie Gifford: "Born 28 February 1875 at 12 Carlisle Avenue, Donnybrook, Co. Dublin, second child of Frederick and Isabella Gifford. She graduated from the RUI with an honours BA (1898), one of the first generation of Irish women to receive university education. A gifted linguist, she was fluent in several languages. She married (1909) Walter Harris Wilson, six years her junior, and went to live with him in his native Wales; they had no children. She converted to Roman catholicism [sic] on her marriage. After his death in the 1918 influenza epidemic, she returned to Ireland and became active in Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan. As registrar of the first dáil loan, she worked closely with the finance minister, Michael Collins. She stood unsuccessfully in a north Dublin ward in the 1920 municipal elections. She was arrested in early 1923 during the civil war, because, according to family tradition, she was mistaken for her better known and more politically active sister Grace; however, she continued to be detained after Grace's arrest. Imprisoned in Kilmainham jail and the North Dublin Union, Katie, probably owing to her education, maturity of years, and skills in negotiation, was appointed a prisoners' CO, serving on the Cumann na mBan prisoners' council. She was released in September 1923, one month after Grace's release."
  42. ^"Seán MacStiofáin".The Telegraph.18 May 2001.

Sources

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  • O'Broin, Leon; Protestant Nationalists in Revolutionary Ireland, Barnes & Noble 1985,ISBN978-0-389-20569-2
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