Ada English was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 revolutionary politician and psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

.

English was born in Caherciveen, County Kerry

County Kerry

Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...

, to Patrick and Nora (née Malvey or McCandle) of Mullingar

Mullingar

Mullingar is the county town of County Westmeath in Ireland. The Counties of Meath and Westmeath Act of 1542, proclaimed Westmeath a county, separating it from Meath. Mullingar became the administrative centre for County Westmeath...

, County Westmeath

County Westmeath

-Economy:Westmeath has a strong agricultural economy. Initially, development occurred around the major market centres of Mullingar, Moate, and Kinnegad. Athlone developed due to its military significance, and its strategic location on the main Dublin–Galway route across the River Shannon. Mullingar...

. She had four siblings, including two brothers, Pierce (who became a doctor in Castlerea

Castlerea

Castlerea is located in the west of County Roscommon, Ireland. It is the second largest town in the county with a population of 3,055 . Roughly translated from Irish, Castlerea can mean Brindled Castle or King's Castle...

) and Frank (who became a bank official). Her father was a pharmacist and a member of the Mullingar Town Commissioners while her grandfather, Richard, had been Master of the Old Castle Workhouse in the town.

Medical career

She was educated at the Loreto Convent in Mullingar and graduated from the Royal University of Ireland

Royal University of Ireland

The Royal University of Ireland was founded in accordance with the University Education Act 1879 as an examining and degree-awarding university based on the model of the University of London. A Royal Charter was issued on April 27, 1880 and examinations were opened to candidates irrespective of...

 (she attended Queen's College Galway) in 1903, reputedly as one of the first female psychiatrists in Ireland. She served at the Mater, Richmond, and Temple Street hospitals in Dublin. For a short period, she had an appointment at a London hospital before, in 1904, taking the position of assistant RMS

RMS

-Science and technology:* Root mean square, a concept encapsulating the "average", in some sense, of a quantity. Frequently encountered in statistics, the physical sciences and electronics...

 at Ballinasloe Lunatic Asylum (now St Bridget's Hospital), Ballinasloe, and also worked part-time in Castlerea Mental Hospital. She developed occupational therapy

Occupational therapy

Occupational therapy is a discipline that aims to promote health by enabling people to perform meaningful and purposeful activities. Occupational therapists work with individuals who suffer from a mentally, physically, developmentally, and/or emotionally disabling condition by utilizing treatments...

 to a high degree and under her direction Ballinasloe was the first mental hospital in Ireland to use electric convulsive therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...

. In October 1914, she was appointed to a lecturership in mental disease in University College Galway, a position she retained until February 1943. In 1921, she was offered the position of RMS of Sligo

Sligo

Sligo is the county town of County Sligo in Ireland. The town is a borough and has a charter and a town mayor. It is sometimes referred to as a city, and sometimes as a town, and is the second largest urban area in Connacht...

 Mental Hospital by Austin Stack

Austin Stack

Austin Stack was an Irish revolutionary and politician.-Early life:Stack was born in Ballymullen, Tralee, County Kerry. He was educated at the Christian Brothers School in Tralee. At the age of fourteen he left school and became a clerk in a solicitor's office. A gifted Gaelic footballer, he...

, Secretary of State for Home Affairs, but she decided to stay in Ballinasloe, where she was later appointed, in 1941, to the position of RMS. She retired from this position in December 1943.

Political career

Through her contacts with people like Thomas McDonagh, Patrick Pearse

Patrick Pearse

Patrick Henry Pearse was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916...

 (who had once tutored her in the Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

), Arthur Griffith

Arthur Griffith

Arthur Griffith was the founder and third leader of Sinn Féin. He served as President of Dáil Éireann from January to August 1922, and was head of the Irish delegation at the negotiations in London that produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.-Early life:...

 and Liam Mellows

Liam Mellows

Liam Mellows was an Irish Republican and Sinn Féin politician. Born in England, Mellows grew up in County Wexford in Ireland. He was active with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Irish Volunteers, and participated in the Easter Rising in County Galway, and the War of Independence...

, her belief in Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...

 grew and her rational and passionate arguments in its favour had a profound influence on the future Bishop of Clonfert, Dr. John Dignan, who arrived in Ballinasloe in the same year as English.

She was Medical Officer for the Irish Volunteers

Irish Volunteers

The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...

 from its inception and worked at Athenry

Athenry

Athenry is a town in County Galway, Ireland. It lies east of Galway city, and one of the attractions of the town is its medieval castle. The town is also well-known by virtue of the song "The Fields of Athenry".-History:...

 during the 1916 Rising. She was also a prominent member of Cumann na mBan

Cumann na mBan

Cumann na mBan is an Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation formed in Dublin on 2 April 1914 as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers...

. She was arrested in 1920 by Crown forces, spending six months in Galway Jail (she had been sentenced to nine months but was released due to ptomaine poisoning before completing her sentence).

In May 1921, she was elected unopposed to Dáil Éireann

Dáil Éireann

Dáil Éireann is the lower house, but principal chamber, of the Oireachtas , which also includes the President of Ireland and Seanad Éireann . It is directly elected at least once in every five years under the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote...

 for the NUI constituency as a Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 representative.

She voted against the Anglo-Irish Treaty

Anglo-Irish Treaty

The Anglo-Irish Treaty , officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of...

, voicing her opposition to it in the Dáil on 4 January 1922. She began by stating her opposition to the position of the British monarch in the agreement:

I credit the supporters of the Treaty with being as honest as I am, but I have a sound objection to it. I think it is wrong; I have various reasons for objecting to it, but the main one is that, in my opinion, it was wrong against Ireland, and a sin against Ireland. I do not like talking here about oaths. I have heard about oaths until my soul is sick of them, but if this Treaty were forced on us by England — as it is being forced — and that paragraph 4, the one with the oath in it were omitted, we could accept it under force; but certainly, while those oaths are in it, oaths in which we are asked to accept the King of England as head of the Irish State, and we are asked to accept the status of British citizens—British subjects—that we cannot accept. As far as I see the whole fight in this country for centuries has centred round that very point. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the King of England's claim to be King of Ireland, but we are asked to swear allegiance and fidelity in virtue of that claim ... Ireland has been fighting England and, as I understood it, the grounds of this fight always were that we denied the right of England's King to this country.

She was also one of the few speakers to voice her opposition to the Partition of Ireland

Partition of Ireland

The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...

:

The evacuation of the English troops is one of the things that are being held up to us as being one of the very good points in the Treaty. It would be a very desirable thing, indeed, that the English troops evacuated this country, if they did evacuate it, but I hold that Ulster is still part of Ireland and I have not heard a promise that the British troops are to evacuate Ulster. They are still there. I understand they are to be drawn from the rest of Ireland and, as I read the Treaty, there is not one word of promise in it about the evacuation of the British troops.

In the course of the same speech she also explained that she had been elected as an Irish republican and would remain so:

I credit my constituents with being honest people, just as honest as I consider myself — and I consider myself fairly honest — they sent me here as a Republican Deputy to An Dáil which is, I believe, the living Republican Parliament of this country. Not only that, but when I was selected as Deputy in this place I was very much surprised and, after I got out of jail, when I was well enough to see some of my constituents, I asked them how it came they selected me, and they told me the wanted someone they could depend on to stand fast by the Republic, and who would not let Galway down again. That is what my constituents told me they wanted when they sent me here, and they have got it.

She also rejected the claim made by male supporters of the Treaty that women were opposed to it for emotional reasons:

I think that it was a most brave thing to-day to listen to the speech by the Deputy from Sligo [referring to Alexander McCabe

Alexander McCabe

Alexander McCabe was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was born in County Sligo in 1886.He was elected as a Sinn Féin Member of Parliament for the constituency of Sligo South at the 1918 general election...

] in reference to the women members of An Dáil, claiming that they only have the opinions they have because they have a grievance against England, or because their men folk were killed and murdered by England's representatives in this country. It was a most unworthy thing for any man to say here. I can say this more freely because, I thank my God, I have no dead men to throw in my teeth as a reason for holding the opinions I hold. I should like to say that I think it most unfair to the women Teachtaí because Miss MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney was an Irish politician and educationalist.-Early life:Born in London, to an Irish father and English mother, she returned to Ireland with her family at the age of six and was educated in Cork...

 had suffered at England's hands.

She stood again for the National University of Ireland in the Irish general election, 1922

Irish general election, 1922

The Irish general election of 1922 took place in Southern Ireland on 16 June 1922, under the provisions of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty to elect a constituent assembly paving the way for the formal establishment of the Irish Free State...

, to elect the Third Dáil

Third Dáil

The Third Dáil, also known as the Provisional Parliament or the Constituent Assembly, was:*the "provisional parliament" or "constituent assembly" of Southern Ireland from 9 August 1922 until 6 December 1922; and...

 but lost her seat, being replaced by the independent William Magennis

William Magennis

William Magennis was an Irish politician and university professor. Born in Belfast, he was educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, and University College Dublin. In 1893 he was called to the Bar...

. She assisted anti-Treatyites during the Irish Civil War

Irish Civil War

The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....

 and reportedly served with Cathal Brugha

Cathal Brugha

Cathal Brugha was an Irish revolutionary and politician, active in the Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War and was the first Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann.-Background:...

 in the Hamman Hotel in Dublin in July 1922. She maintained her opposition to the Treaty and refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Irish Free State

Irish Free State

The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

. Along with other members of the rump Second Dáil

Second Dáil

The Second Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 16 August 1921 until 8 June 1922. From 1919–1922 Dáil Éireann was the revolutionary parliament of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic. The Second Dáil consisted of members elected in 1921...

, she played a part in Comhairle na dTeachtaí

Comhairle na dTeachtaí

Comhairle na dTeachtaí was the rump anti-Treaty Dáil as led by Éamon de Valera, until he recognised the Irish Free State in 1926 and founded Fianna Fáil....

 during the 1920s which saw itself as the "true" government of the Irish Republic

Irish Republic

The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...

.

She died in 1944 in Ballinasloe and is buried in Creagh Cemetery.

External links

• "Death of Dr Ada English", East Galway Democrat, 29 January 1944.
• "Ada English", Connacht Tribune, 29 January 1944.
• Declan Kelly, Between the Lines of History, People of Ballinasloe, Vol. 1, Ballinasloe: Declan Kelly, 2000, pp. 24–26.