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The Fire at the Four Courts

TCD MS 7890/1/37r

This startling and hitherto unreproduced image of the Dublin Four Courts ablaze was taken on the night of 1 July 1922. The fire signalled the end of the ‘battle of the Four Courts’, the first engagement of the Irish Civil War. The factions involved were those that supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 and those that opposed it. It also resulted in the devastating destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland, part of the Four Courts Complex, which housed seven centuries of Ireland’s historical record.

The photograph (TCD MS 7890/1/37) comes from the Library’s extensive Childers family archives. Little is known about this image other than the inscription on the back which reads ‘Taken, from here, the night after the surrender. I suggested the photograph. G Cleary’. This is most probably Fr Gregory Cleary, a correspondent of the Childers family and admirer of Robert Erskine Childers (former Secretary General of the Irish delegation at the treaty negotiations, who had subsequently sided with De Valera and the Anti-Treaty faction, and was executed by Pro-Treaty forces in November 1922).

TCD MS 7890/1/37v

Fr Cleary was resident at the Friary on Merchant’s Quay at the time of the battle – a building directly facing the Four Courts from the opposite side of the river Liffey. It was here that the image was taken and it was then sent to Molly Childers, Robert’s widow, sometime later. Other Capuchin brothers were known to have engaged with the Anti-Treaty forces occupying the Four Courts, especially those from the community based in Church Street on the north side of the Liffey.

The dramatic red colouring of the small photograph is the result of underexposure due to the low light levels at the time it was taken, necessitating the intensification of some chemicals during the developing process. This has caused a red colour-cast, or discolouration, as the photograph has aged.

The Library also hold records originating from the opposite side of the conflict during this period, most notably a file of correspondence, telegrams and records of phone messages between Michael Collins (commanding the Pro-Treaty National Army forces) and Winston Churchill (at the time a British cabinet minister and co-signatory of the treaty). The file contains copies of Collins’ telegrammed requests for ammunition. It also contains a selection of messages from Churchill to Collins written down by Alfred Cope, (Assistant Under Secretary in Dublin and intermediary between the British and Irish governments), which were recorded on scraps of now defunct ‘parliamentary questions’ paper. One such message to Collins, stamped 30 June 1922, and signed off in Churchill’s name reads ‘… the archives of the Four Courts may be scattered but the title deeds of Ireland are safe’ (TCD MS 11399/15).

The devastating legacy of the destruction of the nation’s archives has formed the basis of the work of our colleagues at Beyond2022. The Library is a core partner of the Beyond2022 project and also a participating institution, donating records to the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. The latter is a vast compilation of items recovered or copied from documents that were once housed in the Four Courts. The project is the culmination of six years of collaboration with archives across the globe. We congratulate the team on the launch of such an ambitious and critical project for the future of Irish historical research.

Estelle Gittins

With thanks to Andrew Megaw and Caroline Harding

Photographs of the funeral of Thomas Ashe by Elsie Mahaffy

TCD MS 2074 f182r

Funerals of patriots have often proved to be pivotal moments in Irish history. The funeral of Thomas Ashe (1885-1917) is a particularly poignant case. In life he was a popular and cultured school teacher, a founding member of the Irish Volunteers  and leader of the 1916 Rising in Ashbourne, Co Meath. In death he came to epitomise the struggle and suffering of his generation for Ireland’s cause. He died aged 32 on 25 September 1917 in the Mater Hospital after incarceration in Mountjoy Prison, a hunger strike and botched force feeding. The tragic brutality of his death, coming after the protracted executions of the other 1916 leaders the year before, resulted in an upsurge of support for the republican movement.

TCD MS 2074 f182r

TCD MS 2074 f182r

The funeral on 30 September 1917 therefore presented an opportunity for a pageant of political propaganda along the lines of the funerals of O’Donovan Rossa and Parnell. It also provided a significant challenge for the Volunteers and other republican forces who had lost men and arms and were struggling for cohesive leadership. However, the opportunity was defiantly seized and a large funeral procession to Glasnevin cemetery was planned involving various republican forces along with the Dublin Fire Brigade and around 30,000 members of the public who had travelled from across Ireland to line the streets. City Hall was also seized from British forces for the lying in state. The graveside oration was delivered by the young Michael Collins who, after a volley of shots, took inspiration from Pearse’s oration at the graveside of O’Donovan Rossa  and proclaimed ‘Nothing additional remains to be said. That volley which we have just heard is the only speech which it is proper to make above the grave of a dead Fenian’. A statement of intent for the years to follow.

One unlikely observer from the side-lines was Elsie Mahaffy, the daughter of Trinity College provost John Pentland Mahaffy, who kept a careful record of the 1916 Rising and aftermath, in a scrapbook which includes diary entries, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, photographs, postcards and other collected memorabilia.

TCD MS 2074 f179r

Whilst holding firmly to her unionist point of view (describing his death as ‘suicide’, and the procession as being ‘attended by thousands of armed rebels’) Elsie was clearly mesmerised by the press coverage of Ashe’s death and funeral. The type and amount of material she collected on the funeral in particular displays an awareness of this as a key event in the evolution of contemporary Irish politics. The most remarkable items are three photographs of the cortege and procession, which indicate that Elsie was sufficiently fascinated to join the crowds herself and to take the images as the procession passed her. We would welcome any further information on the location or participants in any of these photos.

The scrapbook also includes newspaper clippings detailing the funeral arrangements and order of procession, as well as numerous  clippings from after the event. In addition Mahaffy has also pasted in a memorial card and a copy of ‘Let me carry your cross for Ireland, Lord’ the poem written by Ashe in Lewes jail. She devotes a number of pages to a description of the circumstances of his death, the government reaction, his lying in state in City Hall, and the ‘huge funeral’.

TCD MS 2074 f179a

Whilst captivated by the tragic story and unfolding public reaction, we cannot know if this had any effect on her politics. However, she may have held the same view as General Sir Bryan Mahon, then head of British forces in Ireland, who commented that republican forces were now ‘exhibiting discipline to a degree which is perhaps the most dangerous sign of the times.’

A fuller account of Elsie Mahaffy’s scrapbook, written by Lucy McDiarmid, can be found on the Library’s 1916 digital resource ‘Changed Utterly’. The scrapbook has been digitised in its entirety and is available on the Library’s Digital Collections site.

Estelle Gittins