D. D. Sheehan
Encyclopedia
Daniel Desmond Sheehan, usually known as D. D. Sheehan (28 May 1873 – 28 November 1948) was an Irish
nationalist
, politician, labour
leader, journalist
, barrister
and author
. He served as Member of Parliament
(MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
representing Mid-Cork
from 1901 to 1918, a constituency comprising the districts of Ballincollig
, Blarney
, Ballyvourney
, Coachford
, Macroom
and Millstreet
. As co-founder and President of the Irish Land and Labour Association
, he was credited with considerable success in land reform
, labour reforms and in rural state housing
. From 1909, he was General Secretary of the Central Executive of the All-for-Ireland League
, favouring a policy of National reconciliation between all creeds and classes in Ireland. During World War I
he served as Irish regiments officer with the 16th (Irish) Division in France, 1915–16. He resigned his parliamentary seat in 1918 and lived in England for several years, returning to Dublin following the ending of the civil war
, when he was appointed editor of the Dublin Chronicle.
, near Kanturk
, County Cork
, Ireland, the second eldest of three sons and one daughter of Daniel Sheehan senior and Ellen Sheehan (née Fitzgerald). His father was a tenant farmer. He was educated at the local primary school; in 1880 when he was seven years old, the family experienced eviction from the family homestead at the onset of the Irish Land League's Land War
, when tenant farmer
s united to protest against landlord
s' excessive and unjust rents by withholding payment.
Sheehan's family were supporters of the Fenian
tradition, and his experience of discrimination made him a strong supporter of Irish nationalism
. Sheehan was a continued supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell
after the 'Parnell split' of 1890 in the Irish Parliamentary Party
(IPP).
He began his career as a schoolteacher at the age of 16, studying law when time allowed. He undertook part-time journalism from 1890 and was otherwise self-educated to a high literary degree. Sheehan was correspondent for the Kerry Sentinel, and later special correspondent to the Cork Daily Herald in Killarney
. After he married in 1894, he moved to Scotland
and joined the staff of the Glasgow Observer in pursuit of journalistic experience, later becoming editor of the Catholic News in Preston, England.
In 1898, at the beginning of national self-reliance
under the revolutionary Local Government Act (1898)
, which established Local County Councils for the first time, he returned to Ireland working on various papers in Munster
including the Cork Constitution
, and from 1899 to 1901 as editor
of the Cork County Southern Star
, Skibbereen
.
affairs – "engaged to lead the labourers out of the poverty and misery that encompassed them" he wrote.
In August 1894, in alliance with the Clonmel
, County Tipperary
solicitor J. J. O'Shee (Member of Parliament for West Waterford
from 1895
), he co-founded and chaired the Irish Land and Labour Association
(ILLA) as follower organisation to the Irish Democratic Trade and Labour Federation to agitate on behalf of small tenant farmers and agrarian labourers, setting forth Michael Davitt
's achievements. He was similarly convinced that social change could only be advanced by means of political and constitutional agitation, but at no times through physical force.
Under his leadership as President from 1898, the ILLA spread rapidly across Munster and later Connacht
, campaigning vigorously against the pitiful plight of small tenant farmers and landless rural labourers, and also for their rights, demanding sweeping changes to the inadequate Irish Land Acts
, duly acknowledged by government. By 1900, he had helped found and organize nearly one hundred ILLA branches, mostly in County Cork, County Tipperary, and County Limerick
, which increased to 144 by 1904.
(IPP) candidate at a United Irish League
Convention for the selection of a parliamentary candidate for Mid-Cork on the death of Dr C. K. D. Tanner (former Mid-Cork anti-Parnellite Nationalist
MP from 1895
). When elected MP in the by-election of 17 May 1901, he wrote:
Aged twenty-eight, he was the youngest, and one of the most outspoken, Irish nationalist party
members of parliament at the House of Commons
.
and their under-privileged tenant farmer
s. In his capacity as honorary secretary of the Cork Advisory Committee, he was foremost in ending centuries of oppressive "landlordism"
under the far reaching Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903. Crafted through Parliament following the 1902 Land Conference
by his Mallow
compatriot, William O'Brien
MP, Sheehan successfully negotiated the larger number of the 16,159 tenant land purchases in Munster that decade. In his own words: "changing rack-rented farmers into peasant proprietors". The act was later extended to introduce compulsory purchase under the Birrell
Land Act (1909).
From 1904 Sheehan was drawn to O’Brien for his willingness to agitate for a "settlement of the Irish labourers' grivances", and allied himself after O’Brien was alienated from the Irish Party for his conciliatory approach in securing the Land Act. Sheehan brought O’Brien the ally whose organisational skills and social programme secured him a County Cork base, his talents and ILLA branches placed at the disposal of the O'Brienite organisation in rural Munster.
The January 1906 general election
returned Sheehan unopposed. The IPP deputy leader John Dillon
set about splitting the ILLA, forming a new ILLA group under its secretary, the loyal "Redmonite" O'Shee MP, – to confine Sheehan’s movement, otherwise "the whole of Munster will be poisoned and no seat safe on vacancy". Later that year, the Irish Party mounted a feud against Sheehan for being a "factionist
" by supporting a policy of Conciliation and for not allowing his labourers' movement be subservient to the Party autocracy, his reason being "to realize the great democratic principle of the government of the people, by the people and for the people". Also for not adhering to the party pledge and expelled both him and John O'Donnell
from its ranks. It deprived them both of the quarterly party stipends, particularly damaging as parliamentary allowances were only introduced five years later. D. D. retaliated by resigning his seat in November and challenged the IPP to stand against him. He was re-elected unopposed as Ireland's first independent nationalist
Labour MP on 31 December 1906. His income from then depended on constituent's collections at church gates on Sundays.
Labourers (Ireland) Act (1906), remarkable for its financial features, several provisions of which Sheehan suggested and drafted. He was convinced that nothing could be either final or satisfactory which did not ultimately "root the labourers in the soil".
The Act provided for the erection of over 40,000 cottage
s each on an acre
of land, 7,560 alone in county Cork, known locally as Sheehan's cottages. It was followed by the Birrell Labourers (Ireland) Act (1911) with provision for further 5,000 dwellings. The dwellings provided homes for over 60,000 landless labourers and their families, comprising a rural population of a quarter of a million previously living wretchedly, mostly together with their livestock
, in one room stone cabins and sod hovels.
Within a few years the resulting changes heralded an unprecedented socio-economic
agrarian
revolution in rural Ireland, with widespread decline of rampant tuberculosis
, typhoid and scarlet fever
.
A further important D. D. Sheehan landmark his Model Irish Village scheme at Tower, near Blarney
. He initiated, organised and furthered the completion of this unique co-operative project, developed in unison with the local ILLA branch and the Cork Rural District Council, initially comprising 17 cottages, provided with all local amenities including school and meeting hall on which he reported:
These achievements, won together with the local Land and Labour Associations, laid a solid foundation for the later successes of the labour movement in the province of Munster.
inaugurated the All-for-Ireland League
(AFIL) in Kanturk
in March 1909. The League was a distinctively new political group whose deep conviction was that the success of a United Ireland
parliament must depend on Irish Home Rule
being won with the consent rather than by the compulsion of the Protestant
minority. The political slogan of the AFIL was "the Three C's" – for Conference, Conciliation and Consent as applied to Irish politics
, particularly to Home Rule. Sheehan rejected the Irish Party leader John Redmond
's uncompromising "Ulster
will have to follow" approach to Home Rule. The political activist Canon Sheehan of Doneraile
was also a central AFIL founder member.
Prophetically farsighted, both Sheehan and O'Brien advocated granting Ulster every conceivable concession to overcome its fears of a Catholic-dominated
Dublin parliament, as otherwise an All-Ireland settlement would fail. The two Sheehans contributed regularly to the League's newspaper the Cork Free Press
, before it was suppressed in 1916 by the Chief Press Censor.
Throughout 1910 he turned to promoting the political principles of the All-for-Ireland League. A renewed election was called due to a parliamentary stalemate at Westminster. D. D. campaigned for the AFIL's policies at large meetings across counties Cork and Limerick, in Mayo
together with O'Brien, but to little avail – coming under revolver fire at Crossmolina
– their party generally handicapped by lack of clerical support. In the December 1910 election
he retained his seat with 2738 votes against 2115 for his IPP opponent T. Corcoran. The AFIL Party returned eight MPs in the nine Cork constituencies.
At election times broadsheets and ballads sung to popular airs extolling the candidates' merits were commonplace, one such entitled The Ballad of D. D. Sheehan made the rounds in 1910, was re-published in 1968.
as barrister
on 3 July 1911, having been exhibitioner and prizeman in law University College Cork (1908–09) and honoursman King's Inns
Dublin (1910), practising on the Munster circuit.
as the wisest of all solutions for Ireland.
During 1913–1914, Sheehan was active in promoting an Imperial Federation League
having as its immediate object a federal
settlement of the Home Rule question as the alternative to Ulster's threat of partition. He later became vice-Chairman of the League.
In January 1914 he published specific proposals and concessions the AFIL perceived acceptable to Ulster to enable them to come in on an All-Ireland Home Rule settlement, which however the Irish Party and Dillon turned down with "no concessions to Ulster". Later in the Commons, Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster Unionist Party
leader, acknowledged that concessions proposed by the AFIL for Ulster to participate in Home Rule were praiseworthy, adding that had they been earlier supported rather than thwarted by the Irish Parliamentary Party, Ulster's objections might have been overcome.
In May 1914, the AFIL resolutely resisted the violation of Ireland's national unity
and as a final protest before history, abstained from voting on the amended Third Home Rule Act
which provided for the temporary exclusion of six Ulster counties
in what the AFIL called would be an irreversible partition deal
.
, regarding service to be both in the interest of the Allied cause
of a Europe free from oppression as well as in the interest of an All-Ireland Home Rule settlement.
In November despite being aged 41 and father of a large family, he offered himself for enlistment, as did the National Volunteers
and four other Irish nationalist MPs, J. L. Esmonde
, Stephen Gwynn, Willie Redmond and William Redmond and former MP Tom Kettle. Trained at Buttevant
barracks County Cork, gazetted lieutenant, he practically raised the 9th(Service) Battalion
of the Royal Munster Fusiliers
, a regiment of the 16th (Irish) Division.
Three of his sons also joined, one aged 16 was in 1915 the youngest commissioned officer on the Western Front
, his two other sons killed serving with the Royal Flying Corps
/Royal Air Force
; his daughter, a V A D
front nurse, disabled in a bombing raid. A brother serving with the Irish Guards
severely disabled and a brother-in-law killed at Passchendaele.
In the spring and summer of 1915, undertook the organisation and leadership of voluntary enlistment
campaigns in County Cork, County Limerick, and County Clare
. Receiving Captaincy
and Company command in July 1915, served with his battalion along the Loos
salient
in France under Irish General William Hickie
. From early 1916 contributed a series of widely quoted articles from the trenches
to the London Daily Express
, to the Irish Times and the Cork Constitution
.
Deafness by shellfire
and ill-health
necessitated his transfer to the 3rd RMF (Reserve) Battalion
at Aghada
, then Ballincollig
barracks, Co. Cork. Hospitalised often, was decommissioned late 1917, bulletin stating "relinquished his commission on account of ill-health contracted on active service, and is granted the honorary rank of Captain, 13 Jan.1918". Awarded the World War I campaign medals: 1914-15 Star
, British War Medal
, Victory Medal and Silver War Badge.
Those Irish who died in the war are commemorated at the Island of Ireland Peace Park
, Messines
, Belgium
and the Irish National War Memorial Gardens
, Dublin, Ireland as well as by Sheehan in his verse A Tribute and a Claim.
Sheehan later expressed disillusionment at Britain's and the Irish Party's failure to agree on All-Ireland Home Rule. The AFIL members, seeing their political concepts for an All-Ireland settlement displaced by the path of militant physical-force, recognised the futility of contesting the December 1918 general elections
. O’Brien had been acting since 1910 as spokesman in parliament for Arthur Griffith
's moderate Sinn Féin movement, so that as Sheehan wrote:
Terence MacSwiney
followed Sheehan as MP for mid-Cork. In the changed political climate strongly opposed to Sheehan's earlier army service and recruiting, he and his family left their Cork city home and moved to England.
With an election demand of "Land for fighters" aimed at returned ex-servicemen, Sheehan contested in December the United Kingdom general election
as adopted Labour Party
candidate for the Limehouse
-Stepney
division of London's East End and polled 2,407 votes second to the returned Liberal
, over a million demobilised servicemen still in Europe were unfortunately unable to vote. His demand was vindicated by the government's subsequent "Land for Soldiers" small holdings and cottage scheme announced in January. It became the Irish Land (Sailors and Soldiers) Act, 1919 which provided thousands of cottages for Irish ex-servicemen and their dependents. His engagement for labour paved the way for his successor in this constituency, the later Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee
.
From 1920 he eked out a living in journalism, in 1921 published his authoritative book, Ireland since Parnell, covering the period Parnell
to Sinn Féin
(book may be read online or downloaded free under the Project Gutenberg
, external link below). Unable to practise at the bar due to impaired hearing (sustained in the war), made some business endeavours, for a time Literary Editor, leader writer and dramatic critic of the Sunday National News, and in 1925 publisher and editor of The Stadium, a daily newspaper for sportsmen.
Interviews followed with Lord Longford
and General Richard Mulcahy
, Minister for Local Government, on means to house the great numbers of poor people. On a wider range of important issues, he admonished the Irish Labour Party (ILP) for neither having an active agricultural policy nor a fighting programme. He rigorously demanded national de-rating for farmers and objected to the County Council "manager system", proposing instead the establishment of separate independent coastal Boroughs north and south of Dublin. Sheehan repeatedly stressed the need for the housing of labourers and unskilled worker and the abolition of slums.
Sheehan condemned Republicans for two militant articles they published in An Phoblacht
criticising Irish ex-servicemen of the Great War "that they fought for England ... and so forth". He countered:
Controversial themes continued to be high-lighted during 1930 in the Dublin Chronicle, particularly when calling for freedom of speech after the "disgraceful breaking up" of the new Labour Party's inaugural meeting on April 8 in the Mansion House
by organised gangs of Fianna Fáil
and Peadar O'Donnell
followers shouting "Up de Valera
" and "Up Devlin
".
and Borough elections and the August nomination of eight official Labour candidates, Sheehan held town hall meetings from Bray
to Balbriggan
, emphasising:
The Dublin Chronicle gave broad promotional support to Labour prior to the election, unlike the very reserved announcement of the election in the official ILP’s Irishman. But it was not to be. Only the three previous Labour councillors were re-elected. Sheehan finished mid-field in the list of candidates, his housing campaign hijacked by the larger party rivals Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal.
The election epitomised the dilemma of the Labour Party. In contrast to Sheehan’s policy of basic social change and political inclusiveness, the ILP confused voters with a mixed message. The party's new March constitution abandoned its working class character and diluted its objectives, in its desire and in order to broaden the class basis of the new party to appeal to white-collar professionals. In the long term it also failed due to lack of branch organisation (Dublin having only one branch) so that in the following 1932 general election its number of Dáil
seats sank to an all time low of 7, from 13 in September 1927 (and 22 in 1922).
.
From the 1930s, unable to practise in court due to impaired hearing from the war, as advocate Sheehan provided legal advice and assistance to former constituents, helped unemployed Irish ex-servicemen of the Great War, many sons of families he once housed and later recruited, supported Old Comrades Associations (O.C.A's) providing lines of communication and information north and south of the Free State
border, editing the Northern and Southern Ireland edition of their central council's Annual Journal, its motto "Service – not self". In 1945, reporting on its work he wrote:
His 1942 offer to Richard Mulcahy
to stand as a candidate for Fine Gael
in South Cork, where a large number of ex-servicemen lived, was declined.
;
they had five sons (and five daughters, the youngest Mona b. 1912 (Ms Rutland-Barsby) died 24 Sept. 2008):
(All family members settled in England, except P. A. Ó Síocháin
, a staunch nationalist).
Sheehan died on 28 November 1948, aged 75, while visiting his daughter Mona in Queen Anne St., London, and was buried with his wife at the Glasnevin National Cemetery
, Dublin.
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
nationalist
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...
, politician, labour
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
leader, journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. He served as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
representing Mid-Cork
Mid Cork (UK Parliament constituency)
Mid Cork , a division of County Cork, was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1885 to 1922 it returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.Until the 1885 general election...
from 1901 to 1918, a constituency comprising the districts of Ballincollig
Ballincollig
Ballincollig is a satellite town in County Cork, Ireland, approximately 9 km west of Cork city. It is located beside the River Lee on the R608 regional road. In 2006 the population of Ballincollig DED was 16,308. The nearest towns include: Ballinora, Ovens, Killumney, Inniscarra, Blarney ,...
, Blarney
Blarney
Blarney is a town and townland in County Cork, Ireland. It lies north-west of Cork and is famed as the site of Blarney Castle, home of the legendary Blarney Stone.-Tourism:Blarney town is a major tourist attraction in County Cork...
, Ballyvourney
Ballyvourney
Baile Bhuirne , anglicised as Ballyvourney is a Gaeltacht village in south-west County Cork, Ireland. It is a civil parish in the barony of Muskerry West and is also one half of the Ecclesiastical parish of Baile Bhuirne agus Cúil Aodha in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cloyne-Location and...
, Coachford
Coachford
Coachford is a village west of Cork City, in County Cork, Ireland. It is located on the north side of the River Lee. Coachford got its name from Áth an Chóiste as there used to be a narrow ford across a stream...
, Macroom
Macroom
Macroom is a market town in Ireland located in a valley on the River Sullane, a tributary of the River Lee, between Cork and Killarney. It is one of the key gateways to the tourist region of West Cork. The town recorded a population on 3,553 in the 2006 national census...
and Millstreet
Millstreet
Millstreet is a town in north County Cork, Ireland with a population of approximately 1,500. It is located at the foot of Clara Mountain. The town's Catholic church is dedicated to St. Patrick. Since October 1985, the town has been twinned with Pommerit-le-Vicomte in Brittany, France...
. As co-founder and President of the Irish Land and Labour Association
Irish Land and Labour Association
The Irish Land and Labour Association was a progressive movement founded in the early 1890s in Munster, Ireland, to organise and pursue political agitation for small tenant farmers' and rural labourers' rights. Its branches also spread into Connacht. The ILLA was known under different names—Land...
, he was credited with considerable success in land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
, labour reforms and in rural state housing
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
. From 1909, he was General Secretary of the Central Executive of the All-for-Ireland League
All-for-Ireland League
The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...
, favouring a policy of National reconciliation between all creeds and classes in Ireland. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he served as Irish regiments officer with the 16th (Irish) Division in France, 1915–16. He resigned his parliamentary seat in 1918 and lived in England for several years, returning to Dublin following the ending of the 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....
, when he was appointed editor of the Dublin Chronicle.
Journalistic beginnings
Sheehan was born in DromtariffeKanturk
-Transport:*Kanturk railway station opened on 1 April 1889, closed for passenger traffic on 27 January 1947 and finally closed altogether on 4 February 1963. Kanturk is however served by the nearby Banteer railway station.-People:...
, near Kanturk
Kanturk
-Transport:*Kanturk railway station opened on 1 April 1889, closed for passenger traffic on 27 January 1947 and finally closed altogether on 4 February 1963. Kanturk is however served by the nearby Banteer railway station.-People:...
, County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Ireland, the second eldest of three sons and one daughter of Daniel Sheehan senior and Ellen Sheehan (née Fitzgerald). His father was a tenant farmer. He was educated at the local primary school; in 1880 when he was seven years old, the family experienced eviction from the family homestead at the onset of the Irish Land League's Land War
Land War
The Land War in Irish history was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The agitation was led by the Irish National Land League and was dedicated to bettering the position of tenant farmers and ultimately to a redistribution of land to tenants from...
, when tenant farmer
Tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...
s united to protest against landlord
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
s' excessive and unjust rents by withholding payment.
Sheehan's family were supporters of the Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
tradition, and his experience of discrimination made him a strong supporter of 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...
. Sheehan was a continued supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...
after the 'Parnell split' of 1890 in the Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
(IPP).
He began his career as a schoolteacher at the age of 16, studying law when time allowed. He undertook part-time journalism from 1890 and was otherwise self-educated to a high literary degree. Sheehan was correspondent for the Kerry Sentinel, and later special correspondent to the Cork Daily Herald in Killarney
Killarney
Killarney is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is located north of the MacGillicuddy Reeks, on the northeastern shore of the Lough Lein/Leane which are part of Killarney National Park. The town and its surrounding region are home to St...
. After he married in 1894, he moved to Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and joined the staff of the Glasgow Observer in pursuit of journalistic experience, later becoming editor of the Catholic News in Preston, England.
In 1898, at the beginning of national self-reliance
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
under the revolutionary Local Government Act (1898)
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
The Local Government Act 1898 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland by legislation in 1888 and 1889...
, which established Local County Councils for the first time, he returned to Ireland working on various papers in Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
including the Cork Constitution
Cork Constitution (newspaper)
The name Cork Constitution can refer to two different newspapers that were published in Cork city .The Cork Advertiser, which was published from 1799 to 1824, called itself the Cork Constitution in 1823....
, and from 1899 to 1901 as editor
of the Cork County Southern Star
The Southern Star (County Cork)
The Southern Star is a weekly regional newspaper based in Skibbereen, County Cork in Ireland.Established in 1889 as the Cork County Southern Star, it incorporated The Skibbereen Eagle, a newspaper founded in 1857, which became famous by declaring it was "keeping an eye on the Czar of Russia" over...
, Skibbereen
Skibbereen
Skibbereen , is a town in County Cork, Ireland. It is the most southerly town in Ireland. It is located on the N71 national secondary road.The name "Skibbereen" means "little boat harbour." The River Ilen which runs through the town reaches the sea at Baltimore.-History:Prior to 1600 most of the...
.
Land and Labour leader
Early in his life when appointed correspondence secretary of the Kanturk Trade and Labour Council, Sheehan began active involvement in labour and trade unionTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
affairs – "engaged to lead the labourers out of the poverty and misery that encompassed them" he wrote.
In August 1894, in alliance with the Clonmel
Clonmel
Clonmel is the county town of South Tipperary in Ireland. It is the largest town in the county. While the borough had a population of 15,482 in 2006, another 17,008 people were in the rural hinterland. The town is noted in Irish history for its resistance to the Cromwellian army which sacked both...
, County Tipperary
County Tipperary
County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...
solicitor J. J. O'Shee (Member of Parliament for West Waterford
West Waterford (UK Parliament constituency)
West Waterford was a UK Parliament constituency in Ireland, returning one Member of Parliament 1885–1918.Prior to the United Kingdom general election, 1885 and after the dissolution of Parliament in 1918 the area was part of the County Waterford constituency.-Members of Parliament:- Sources...
from 1895
United Kingdom general election, 1895
The United Kingdom general election of 1895 was held from 13 July - 7 August 1895. It was won by the Conservatives led by Lord Salisbury who formed an alliance with the Liberal Unionist Party and had a large majority over the Liberals, led by Lord Rosebery...
), he co-founded and chaired the Irish Land and Labour Association
Irish Land and Labour Association
The Irish Land and Labour Association was a progressive movement founded in the early 1890s in Munster, Ireland, to organise and pursue political agitation for small tenant farmers' and rural labourers' rights. Its branches also spread into Connacht. The ILLA was known under different names—Land...
(ILLA) as follower organisation to the Irish Democratic Trade and Labour Federation to agitate on behalf of small tenant farmers and agrarian labourers, setting forth Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt was an Irish republican and nationalist agrarian agitator, a social campaigner, labour leader, journalist, Home Rule constitutional politician and Member of Parliament , who founded the Irish National Land League.- Early years :Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo,...
's achievements. He was similarly convinced that social change could only be advanced by means of political and constitutional agitation, but at no times through physical force.
Under his leadership as President from 1898, the ILLA spread rapidly across Munster and later Connacht
Connacht
Connacht , formerly anglicised as Connaught, is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the west of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for...
, campaigning vigorously against the pitiful plight of small tenant farmers and landless rural labourers, and also for their rights, demanding sweeping changes to the inadequate Irish Land Acts
Irish Land Acts
The Land Acts were a series of measures to deal with the question of peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909...
, duly acknowledged by government. By 1900, he had helped found and organize nearly one hundred ILLA branches, mostly in County Cork, County Tipperary, and County Limerick
County Limerick
It is thought that humans had established themselves in the Lough Gur area of the county as early as 3000 BC, while megalithic remains found at Duntryleague date back further to 3500 BC...
, which increased to 144 by 1904.
Member of Parliament
Standing as ILLA candidate on a labour platform, "D. D.", as he was popularly known, defeated the official Irish Parliamentary PartyIrish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
(IPP) candidate at a United Irish League
United Irish League
The United Irish League was a nationalist political party in Ireland, launched 23 January 1898 with the motto "The Land for the People" . Its objective to be achieved through agrarian agitation and land reform, compelling larger grazier farmers to surrender their lands for redistribution amongst...
Convention for the selection of a parliamentary candidate for Mid-Cork on the death of Dr C. K. D. Tanner (former Mid-Cork anti-Parnellite Nationalist
Irish National Federation
The Irish National Federation was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded in March 1891 by former members of the Irish National League who had left the Irish Parliamentary Party in protest when Charles Stewart Parnell refused to resign the party leadership as a result of his...
MP from 1895
United Kingdom general election, 1895
The United Kingdom general election of 1895 was held from 13 July - 7 August 1895. It was won by the Conservatives led by Lord Salisbury who formed an alliance with the Liberal Unionist Party and had a large majority over the Liberals, led by Lord Rosebery...
). When elected MP in the by-election of 17 May 1901, he wrote:
- My heart was with the neglected labourer and I stood, accordingly, as a Labour candidate, my programme being the social elevation of the masses, employment and wages. . . . .
This was heralded as a tremendous triumph for the Labour movement, . . . . .
Aged twenty-eight, he was the youngest, and one of the most outspoken, Irish nationalist party
Nationalist Party (Ireland)
The Nationalist Party was a term commonly used to describe a number of parliamentary political parties and constituency organisations supportive of Home Rule for Ireland from 1874 to 1922...
members of parliament at the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
.
Agrarian resurgence
Long associated with land agitation, Sheehan settled many disputes between landlord gentryLanded gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
and their under-privileged tenant farmer
Tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...
s. In his capacity as honorary secretary of the Cork Advisory Committee, he was foremost in ending centuries of oppressive "landlordism"
Absentee landlord
Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that...
under the far reaching Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903. Crafted through Parliament following the 1902 Land Conference
Land Conference
The Land Conference was a successful conciliatory negotiation held in the Mansion House in Dublin, Ireland between 20 December 1902 and 4 January 1903. In a short period it produced a unanimously agreed report recommending an amiable solution to the long waged land war between tenant farmers and...
by his Mallow
Mallow, County Cork
Mallow is the "Crossroads of Munster" and the administrative capital of north County Cork, in Ireland. The Northern Divisional Offices of Cork County Council are located in the town....
compatriot, William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
MP, Sheehan successfully negotiated the larger number of the 16,159 tenant land purchases in Munster that decade. In his own words: "changing rack-rented farmers into peasant proprietors". The act was later extended to introduce compulsory purchase under the Birrell
Augustine Birrell
Augustine Birrell PC, KC was an English politician, barrister, academic and author. He was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916, resigning in the immediate aftermath of the Easter Rising.-Early life:...
Land Act (1909).
From 1904 Sheehan was drawn to O’Brien for his willingness to agitate for a "settlement of the Irish labourers' grivances", and allied himself after O’Brien was alienated from the Irish Party for his conciliatory approach in securing the Land Act. Sheehan brought O’Brien the ally whose organisational skills and social programme secured him a County Cork base, his talents and ILLA branches placed at the disposal of the O'Brienite organisation in rural Munster.
The January 1906 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1906
-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1906*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-External links:***-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...
returned Sheehan unopposed. The IPP deputy leader John Dillon
John Dillon
John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
set about splitting the ILLA, forming a new ILLA group under its secretary, the loyal "Redmonite" O'Shee MP, – to confine Sheehan’s movement, otherwise "the whole of Munster will be poisoned and no seat safe on vacancy". Later that year, the Irish Party mounted a feud against Sheehan for being a "factionist
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
" by supporting a policy of Conciliation and for not allowing his labourers' movement be subservient to the Party autocracy, his reason being "to realize the great democratic principle of the government of the people, by the people and for the people". Also for not adhering to the party pledge and expelled both him and John O'Donnell
John O'Donnell (politician)
John O’Donnell was an Irish journalist, Nationalist politician and Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom House of Commons from 1900 to 1910....
from its ranks. It deprived them both of the quarterly party stipends, particularly damaging as parliamentary allowances were only introduced five years later. D. D. retaliated by resigning his seat in November and challenged the IPP to stand against him. He was re-elected unopposed as Ireland's first independent nationalist
Independent Nationalist
Independent Nationalist was a political title frequently used by Irish nationalists when contesting elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland not as members of the Irish Parliamentary Party, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.In the...
Labour MP on 31 December 1906. His income from then depended on constituent's collections at church gates on Sundays.
Sheehan's cottages
At countrywide ILLA meetings and in leading articles and editorials, he strove passionately to attain social "betterment for the working Irish", winning together with O'Brien, under the "Macroom programme" the exceptional BryceJames Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce OM, GCVO, PC, FRS, FBA was a British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician.-Background and education:...
Labourers (Ireland) Act (1906), remarkable for its financial features, several provisions of which Sheehan suggested and drafted. He was convinced that nothing could be either final or satisfactory which did not ultimately "root the labourers in the soil".
The Act provided for the erection of over 40,000 cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...
s each on an acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
of land, 7,560 alone in county Cork, known locally as Sheehan's cottages. It was followed by the Birrell Labourers (Ireland) Act (1911) with provision for further 5,000 dwellings. The dwellings provided homes for over 60,000 landless labourers and their families, comprising a rural population of a quarter of a million previously living wretchedly, mostly together with their livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
, in one room stone cabins and sod hovels.
Within a few years the resulting changes heralded an unprecedented socio-economic
Socioeconomics
Socioeconomics or socio-economics or social economics is an umbrella term with different usages. 'Social economics' may refer broadly to the "use of economics in the study of society." More narrowly, contemporary practice considers behavioral interactions of individuals and groups through social...
agrarian
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
revolution in rural Ireland, with widespread decline of rampant tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, typhoid and scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...
.
A further important D. D. Sheehan landmark his Model Irish Village scheme at Tower, near Blarney
Blarney
Blarney is a town and townland in County Cork, Ireland. It lies north-west of Cork and is famed as the site of Blarney Castle, home of the legendary Blarney Stone.-Tourism:Blarney town is a major tourist attraction in County Cork...
. He initiated, organised and furthered the completion of this unique co-operative project, developed in unison with the local ILLA branch and the Cork Rural District Council, initially comprising 17 cottages, provided with all local amenities including school and meeting hall on which he reported:
- The decay of village life in Ireland constitutes one of the most tragic chapters of our history for the past half century. .... But even if we cannot resurrect the spirit of our former village life it is, however, well within our power to reconstruct ...... a Model Village on up-to-date and practical lines – a village which we trust may become a pattern and an example to be copied with profit and advantage in other parts of Ireland.
These achievements, won together with the local Land and Labour Associations, laid a solid foundation for the later successes of the labour movement in the province of Munster.
All-for-Ireland League
With D. D. Sheehan as its organising honorary secretary, William O'BrienWilliam O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
inaugurated the All-for-Ireland League
All-for-Ireland League
The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...
(AFIL) in Kanturk
Kanturk
-Transport:*Kanturk railway station opened on 1 April 1889, closed for passenger traffic on 27 January 1947 and finally closed altogether on 4 February 1963. Kanturk is however served by the nearby Banteer railway station.-People:...
in March 1909. The League was a distinctively new political group whose deep conviction was that the success of a United Ireland
United Ireland
A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...
parliament must depend on Irish Home Rule
Irish Home Rule Movement
The Irish Home Rule Movement articulated a longstanding Irish desire for the repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 by a demand for self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The movement drew upon a legacy of patriotic thought that dated back at least to the late 17th...
being won with the consent rather than by the compulsion of the Protestant
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
minority. The political slogan of the AFIL was "the Three C's" – for Conference, Conciliation and Consent as applied to Irish politics
Politics of Ireland
In Ireland there are two countries, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The politics of these are managed separately but share a common history of Ireland. Respective articles are as follows:*Politics of the Republic of Ireland...
, particularly to Home Rule. Sheehan rejected the Irish Party leader John Redmond
John Redmond
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
's uncompromising "Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
will have to follow" approach to Home Rule. The political activist Canon Sheehan of Doneraile
Patrick Augustine Sheehan
The Very Rev. Patrick Augustine Canon Sheehan in Gaelic: An Canónach Pádraig Aguistín Ó Síothcháin , was an Irish Roman Catholic priest, author, political activist was invariably known and referred to as Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, having been appointed on July 4, 1895 Parish Priest of Doneraile,...
was also a central AFIL founder member.
Prophetically farsighted, both Sheehan and O'Brien advocated granting Ulster every conceivable concession to overcome its fears of a Catholic-dominated
Rome Rule
"Rome Rule" was a term used by Irish unionists and socialists to describe the belief that the Roman Catholic Church would gain political control over their interests with the passage of a Home Rule Bill...
Dublin parliament, as otherwise an All-Ireland settlement would fail. The two Sheehans contributed regularly to the League's newspaper the Cork Free Press
Cork Free Press
The Cork Free Press was a nationalist newspaper in Ireland, which circulated primarily in the Munster region surrounding its base in Cork, and was the newspaper of the dissident All-for-Ireland League party...
, before it was suppressed in 1916 by the Chief Press Censor.
1910 general elections
In autumn 1909 a Divisional Conference of the Irish Party was summoned for the purpose of “organising” Sheehan out of Mid-Cork and taking over his constituency. But whenever their delegations made an appearance in Cork they were quickly put to rout by Sheehan’s followers. Opposed by the official IPP nominee William Fallon in the 24 January 1910 general election, he was returned with 2824 votes against 1999 for his opponent. Sheehan later commented on the contest:I was left to fight my battle almost single handed, having arrayed against me two canons of my Church, and every Catholic clergyman in the constituency, with two or three notable exceptions. The odds seamed hopeless . . . . . . . but . . . I scored a surprising majority . ., and I have good reason for stating that 95 percent of the illiterate votes were cast in my favour, although a most powerful personal canvass was made of every vote in the constituency by the clergy.
Throughout 1910 he turned to promoting the political principles of the All-for-Ireland League. A renewed election was called due to a parliamentary stalemate at Westminster. D. D. campaigned for the AFIL's policies at large meetings across counties Cork and Limerick, in Mayo
County Mayo
County Mayo is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Mayo, which is now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 130,552...
together with O'Brien, but to little avail – coming under revolver fire at Crossmolina
Crossmolina
Crossmolina or Crosmolina is a town in the Barony of Tyrawley in County Mayo, Ireland, as well as the name of the parish in which Crossmolina is situated. The town sits on the River Deel near the northern shore of Lough Conn...
– their party generally handicapped by lack of clerical support. In the December 1910 election
United Kingdom general election, 1910 (December)
The United Kingdom general election of December 1910 was held from 3 to 19 December. It was the last British election to be held over several days and the last to be held prior to the First World War ....
he retained his seat with 2738 votes against 2115 for his IPP opponent T. Corcoran. The AFIL Party returned eight MPs in the nine Cork constituencies.
At election times broadsheets and ballads sung to popular airs extolling the candidates' merits were commonplace, one such entitled The Ballad of D. D. Sheehan made the rounds in 1910, was re-published in 1968.
Barrister-at-law
While in parliament he was called to the Irish Law BarBar (law)
Bar in a legal context has three possible meanings: the division of a courtroom between its working and public areas; the process of qualifying to practice law; and the legal profession.-Courtroom division:...
as barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
on 3 July 1911, having been exhibitioner and prizeman in law University College Cork (1908–09) and honoursman King's Inns
King's Inns
The Honorable Society of King's Inns , is the institution which controls the entry of barristers-at-law into the justice system of Ireland...
Dublin (1910), practising on the Munster circuit.
Dominion Home Rule
In 1911 the All-for-Ireland Party specifically proposed Dominion Home Rule in a letter to Prime Minister AsquithH. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...
as the wisest of all solutions for Ireland.
During 1913–1914, Sheehan was active in promoting an Imperial Federation League
Imperial Federation
Imperial Federation was a late-19th early-20th century proposal to create a federated union in place of the existing British Empire.-Motivators:...
having as its immediate object a federal
Federalism
Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...
settlement of the Home Rule question as the alternative to Ulster's threat of partition. He later became vice-Chairman of the League.
In January 1914 he published specific proposals and concessions the AFIL perceived acceptable to Ulster to enable them to come in on an All-Ireland Home Rule settlement, which however the Irish Party and Dillon turned down with "no concessions to Ulster". Later in the Commons, Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster Unionist Party
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
leader, acknowledged that concessions proposed by the AFIL for Ulster to participate in Home Rule were praiseworthy, adding that had they been earlier supported rather than thwarted by the Irish Parliamentary Party, Ulster's objections might have been overcome.
In May 1914, the AFIL resolutely resisted the violation of Ireland's national unity
United Ireland
A united Ireland is the term used to refer to the idea of a sovereign state which covers all of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. The island of Ireland includes the territory of two independent sovereign states: the Republic of Ireland, which covers 26 counties of the island, and the...
and as a final protest before history, abstained from voting on the amended Third Home Rule Act
Home Rule Act 1914
The Government of Ireland Act 1914 , also known as the Third Home Rule Bill, was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.The Act was the first law ever passed by the Parliament of...
which provided for the temporary exclusion of six Ulster counties
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
in what the AFIL called would be an irreversible partition deal
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...
.
Armageddon
With the involvement of Ireland in World War I when war was declared with Germany in August 1914, Sheehan gave support to William O'Briens call for voluntary enlistment in Irish regiments of Kitchener's New Service ArmyKitchener's Army
The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, Kitchener's Mob, was an all-volunteer army formed in the United Kingdom following the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War...
, regarding service to be both in the interest of the Allied cause
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
of a Europe free from oppression as well as in the interest of an All-Ireland Home Rule settlement.
In November despite being aged 41 and father of a large family, he offered himself for enlistment, as did the National Volunteers
National Volunteers
The National Volunteers was the name taken by the majority of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the movement split over the question of the Volunteers' role in World War I.-Origins:...
and four other Irish nationalist MPs, J. L. Esmonde
Sir John Esmonde, 14th Baronet
Sir John Lymbrick Esmonde, 14th Baronet was an Irish nationalist politician who served as Member of Parliament in the Parliament of the United Kingdom and later as a Teachta Dála in Dáil Éireann....
, Stephen Gwynn, Willie Redmond and William Redmond and former MP Tom Kettle. Trained at Buttevant
Buttevant
Buttevant is a medieval market town, incorporated by charter of Edward III, situated in North County Cork, Ireland.While there may be reason to suggest that the town may occupy the site of an earlier settlement of the Donegans, Carrig Donegan, the origins of the present town are clearly and...
barracks County Cork, gazetted lieutenant, he practically raised the 9th(Service) Battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
of the Royal Munster Fusiliers
Royal Munster Fusiliers (New Army)
The Royal Munster Fusiliers was a regular infantry regiment of the British Army. One of eight Irish regiments raised largely in Ireland, its home depot in Tralee. With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 the immediate need for a considerable expansion of the British Army resulted in the...
, a regiment of the 16th (Irish) Division.
Three of his sons also joined, one aged 16 was in 1915 the youngest commissioned officer on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
, his two other sons killed serving with the Royal Flying Corps
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
/Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
; his daughter, a V A D
Voluntary Aid Detachment
The Voluntary Aid Detachment was a voluntary organisation providing field nursing services, mainly in hospitals, in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The organisation's most important periods of operation were during World War I and World War II.The...
front nurse, disabled in a bombing raid. A brother serving with the Irish Guards
Irish Guards
The Irish Guards , part of the Guards Division, is a Foot Guards regiment of the British Army.Along with the Royal Irish Regiment, it is one of the two Irish regiments remaining in the British Army. The Irish Guards recruit in Northern Ireland and the Irish neighbourhoods of major British cities...
severely disabled and a brother-in-law killed at Passchendaele.
In the spring and summer of 1915, undertook the organisation and leadership of voluntary enlistment
Military recruitment
Military recruitment is the act of requesting people, usually male adults, to join a military voluntarily. Involuntary military recruitment is known as conscription. Many countries that have abolished conscription use military recruiters to persuade people to join, often at an early age. To...
campaigns in County Cork, County Limerick, and County Clare
County Clare
-History:There was a Neolithic civilisation in the Clare area — the name of the peoples is unknown, but the Prehistoric peoples left evidence behind in the form of ancient dolmen; single-chamber megalithic tombs, usually consisting of three or more upright stones...
. Receiving Captaincy
Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)
Captain is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. It ranks above Lieutenant and below Major and has a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force...
and Company command in July 1915, served with his battalion along the Loos
Loos-en-Gohelle
Loos-en-Gohelle is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A former coal mining town, three miles northwest of the centre of Lens, at the junction of the D943 and the A21 autoroute. Its nearest neighbours are Lens to the south, Grenay to the...
salient
Salient
Salient may refer to:* See Salients, re-entrants and pockets for the battlefield feature* Salient , part of a discrete territory projecting out of the main portion, bordered by foreign territory on three sides, into which it projects...
in France under Irish General William Hickie
William Bernard Hickie
Sir William Bernard Hickie was an Irish born Major General of the British Army and an Irish nationalist politician....
. From early 1916 contributed a series of widely quoted articles from the trenches
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
to the London Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
, to the Irish Times and the Cork Constitution
Cork Constitution (newspaper)
The name Cork Constitution can refer to two different newspapers that were published in Cork city .The Cork Advertiser, which was published from 1799 to 1824, called itself the Cork Constitution in 1823....
.
Deafness by shellfire
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
and ill-health
Shell Shock
Shell Shock, also known as 82nd Marines Attack was a 1964 film by B-movie director John Hayes. The film takes place in Italy during World War II, and tells the story of a sergeant with his group of soldiers....
necessitated his transfer to the 3rd RMF (Reserve) Battalion
Royal Munster Fusiliers (Reserves)
The Royal Munster Fusiliers held the 'home' Depot for their three Reserve Battalions at Ballymullen Barracks, Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland, where since 1881 most of the regiment’s recruits enlisted in peacetime and received their first training before being assigned to regular battalions...
at Aghada
Aghada
Aghada is a small fishing town situated on the south-east coast of Cork in County Cork, Ireland. Aghada is most famous for the Aghada GAA and its neighbouring villages are Whitegate and Rostellan...
, then Ballincollig
Ballincollig
Ballincollig is a satellite town in County Cork, Ireland, approximately 9 km west of Cork city. It is located beside the River Lee on the R608 regional road. In 2006 the population of Ballincollig DED was 16,308. The nearest towns include: Ballinora, Ovens, Killumney, Inniscarra, Blarney ,...
barracks, Co. Cork. Hospitalised often, was decommissioned late 1917, bulletin stating "relinquished his commission on account of ill-health contracted on active service, and is granted the honorary rank of Captain, 13 Jan.1918". Awarded the World War I campaign medals: 1914-15 Star
1914-15 Star
The 1914-15 Star was a campaign medal of the British Empire, for service in World War I.The 1914-15 Star was approved in 1918, for issue to officers and men of British and Imperial forces who served in any theatre of the War between 5 August 1914 and 31 December 1915 .Recipients of this medal also...
, British War Medal
British War Medal
The British War Medal was a campaign medal of the British Empire, for service in World War I.The medal was approved in 1919, for issue to officers and men of British and Imperial forces who had rendered service between 5 August 1914 and 11 November 1918...
, Victory Medal and Silver War Badge.
Those Irish who died in the war are commemorated at the Island of Ireland Peace Park
Island of Ireland Peace Park
The Island of Ireland Peace Park and its surrounding park , also called the Irish Peace Park or Irish Peace Tower in Messines, near Ypres in Flanders, Belgium, is a war memorial to the soldiers of the island of Ireland who died, were wounded or are missing from World War I, during Ireland's...
, Messines
Battle of Messines
The Battle of Messines was a battle of the Western front of the First World War. It began on 7 June 1917 when the British Second Army under the command of General Herbert Plumer launched an offensive near the village of Mesen in West Flanders, Belgium...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Irish National War Memorial Gardens
Irish National War Memorial Gardens
The Irish National War Memorial Gardens is an Irish war memorial in Islandbridge, Dublin dedicated "to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914–1918", out of over 300,000 Irishmen who served in all armies....
, Dublin, Ireland as well as by Sheehan in his verse A Tribute and a Claim.
Making way
Continuing to pursue Irish interests in parliament, he vehemently condemned British mishandling of Irish affairs, during the April Conscription Crisis threatening in a dramatic anti-conscription speech in the Commons "to fight you if you enforce conscription on us".Sheehan later expressed disillusionment at Britain's and the Irish Party's failure to agree on All-Ireland Home Rule. The AFIL members, seeing their political concepts for an All-Ireland settlement displaced by the path of militant physical-force, recognised the futility of contesting the December 1918 general elections
Irish (UK) general election, 1918
The Irish general election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election that took place in Ireland. It is seen as a key moment in modern Irish history...
. O’Brien had been acting since 1910 as spokesman in parliament for 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:...
's moderate Sinn Féin movement, so that as Sheehan wrote:
- at the general election O’Brien and all the other members of the Independent Nationalist group the present writer included, withdrew from the contest and signed a manifesto calling upon their followers to support the new movement. This appeal of ours met with enthusiastic response, Sinn Féin candidates being elected for our constituencies in every instance.
Terence MacSwiney
Terence MacSwiney
Terence Joseph MacSwiney was an Irish playwright, author and politician. He was elected as Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. He was arrested by the British on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton prison in England...
followed Sheehan as MP for mid-Cork. In the changed political climate strongly opposed to Sheehan's earlier army service and recruiting, he and his family left their Cork city home and moved to England.
Labour allegiance
During the Commons debate in October 1918 on the Irish Land (Provision for Soldiers) Bill, in the course of a lengthy speech Sheehan said:
- ... even although it may only benefit 3,000 or 4,000 of those Irish soldiers who have patriotically fought for their country and for the liberties of the world ... I want this measure to become law and to become operative ......
With an election demand of "Land for fighters" aimed at returned ex-servicemen, Sheehan contested in December the United Kingdom general election
United Kingdom general election, 1918
The United Kingdom general election of 1918 was the first to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918, which meant it was the first United Kingdom general election in which nearly all adult men and some women could vote. Polling was held on 14 December 1918, although the count did...
as adopted Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
candidate for the Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
-Stepney
Stepney
Stepney is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in London's East End that grew out of a medieval village around St Dunstan's church and the 15th century ribbon development of Mile End Road...
division of London's East End and polled 2,407 votes second to the returned Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
, over a million demobilised servicemen still in Europe were unfortunately unable to vote. His demand was vindicated by the government's subsequent "Land for Soldiers" small holdings and cottage scheme announced in January. It became the Irish Land (Sailors and Soldiers) Act, 1919 which provided thousands of cottages for Irish ex-servicemen and their dependents. His engagement for labour paved the way for his successor in this constituency, the later Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
.
From 1920 he eked out a living in journalism, in 1921 published his authoritative book, Ireland since Parnell, covering the period Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...
to 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...
(book may be read online or downloaded free under the Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
, external link below). Unable to practise at the bar due to impaired hearing (sustained in the war), made some business endeavours, for a time Literary Editor, leader writer and dramatic critic of the Sunday National News, and in 1925 publisher and editor of The Stadium, a daily newspaper for sportsmen.
New beginnings
After earlier intimidations ceased to be an impediment, he returned to Dublin in 1926 (his ailing wife died soon afterwards). He was managing editor of the Irish Press and Publicity Servicesand from 1928 co-publisher and editor of the South Dublin Chronicle, a weekly newspaper (3 Jan. 1925-13 July 1926) covering township and district news. In July 1929 the paper was re-titled the Dublin Chronicle (20 July 1929-1 Aug. 1931) by a new directorate, with Sheehan as managing director and editor. Its editorial objectives were:
- To pursue a policy of fearless independence. Remove all barriers of distrust that separate North and South on the question of National Unity. Land and Labour as the most important factors of Irish life. Putting deep sea fisheries on an economic basis. Social issues, the grave evil of the slums – the need to speed up housing of the impoverished masses.
Labour "Chronicle"
In a series of six front pages articles in the Dublin Chronicle under his name during 1929, Sheehan exposed and highlighted with harrowing descriptions the lives of the slum poor:
The Frightful Slums of Dun LaoghaireDún LaoghaireDún Laoghaire or Dún Laoire , sometimes anglicised as "Dunleary" , is a suburban seaside town in County Dublin, Ireland, about twelve kilometres south of Dublin city centre. It is the county town of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County and a major port of entry from Great Britain...
– Avoca Square the Gateway to hell, its horrors (Sept. 14)
The Council as Slum Owners – The Scandal of Crofton Parade, consumptionTuberculosisTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
takes its toll (Sept. 28)
Housing in BrayBrayBray is a town in north County Wicklow, Ireland. It is a busy urban centre and seaside resort, with a population of 31,901 making it the fourth largest in Ireland as of the 2006 census...
– An Appalling Report- Would not pass as cattle stables (Nov. 9)
Interviews followed with Lord Longford
Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford
Edward Arthur Henry Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford was an Irish peer, politician, and littérateur.-Family and education:...
and General Richard Mulcahy
Richard Mulcahy
Richard James Mulcahy was an Irish politician, army general and commander in chief, leader of Fine Gael and Cabinet Minister...
, Minister for Local Government, on means to house the great numbers of poor people. On a wider range of important issues, he admonished the Irish Labour Party (ILP) for neither having an active agricultural policy nor a fighting programme. He rigorously demanded national de-rating for farmers and objected to the County Council "manager system", proposing instead the establishment of separate independent coastal Boroughs north and south of Dublin. Sheehan repeatedly stressed the need for the housing of labourers and unskilled worker and the abolition of slums.
Sheehan condemned Republicans for two militant articles they published in An Phoblacht
An Phoblacht
An Phoblacht is the official newspaper of Sinn Féin in Ireland. It is published once a month, and according to its website sells an average of up to 15,000 copies every month and was the first Irish paper to provide an edition online and currently having in excess of 100,000 website hits per...
criticising Irish ex-servicemen of the Great War "that they fought for England ... and so forth". He countered:
- Nothing of the kind! They fought for liberty, they fought for the freedom of humanity, and against the spirit of Prussianism, which if it had prevailed would put the whole world under the sway of an atrocious tyranny. ...... The thing is too absurd and ridiculous for words, yet it is those puerile arguments that are being trotted out again and again by those who never spared the art of lying and wilful perversion when dealing with Irishmen of the Great War.
Controversial themes continued to be high-lighted during 1930 in the Dublin Chronicle, particularly when calling for freedom of speech after the "disgraceful breaking up" of the new Labour Party's inaugural meeting on April 8 in the Mansion House
Mansion House, Dublin
The Mansion House on Dawson Street, Dublin, is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin since 1715.-Features:The Mansion House's most famous features include the "Round Room", where the First Dáil assembled on 21 January 1919 to proclaim the Irish Declaration of Independence...
by organised gangs of Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...
and Peadar O'Donnell
Peadar O'Donnell
Peadar O'Donnell was an Irish republican and socialist activist and writer.-Early life:Peadar O'Donnell was born into an Irish speaking family in Dungloe, County Donegal in northwest Ireland, in 1893. He attended St. Patrick's College, Dublin, where he trained as a teacher...
followers shouting "Up de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
" and "Up Devlin
Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin, also known as Joe Devlin, was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician...
".
Parting hurrah
Leading up to the 29 September 1930, Dublin County CouncilDublin County Council
Dublin County Council was a local authority for the administrative county of County Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. It was established by the Local Government Act 1898....
and Borough elections and the August nomination of eight official Labour candidates, Sheehan held town hall meetings from Bray
Bray
Bray is a town in north County Wicklow, Ireland. It is a busy urban centre and seaside resort, with a population of 31,901 making it the fourth largest in Ireland as of the 2006 census...
to Balbriggan
Balbriggan
Balbriggan is a town in the northern part of the administrative county of Fingal, within County Dublin, Ireland. The 2006 census population was 15,559 for Balbriggan and its environs.- Name :...
, emphasising:
- When he consented to become a candidate in that election, he did so on account of one thing only – the betterment of his fellowmen, and the progress and advancement of all classes. ....... He had done that all his life .... such record as he possessed was one that had been always associated with Labour.
The Dublin Chronicle gave broad promotional support to Labour prior to the election, unlike the very reserved announcement of the election in the official ILP’s Irishman. But it was not to be. Only the three previous Labour councillors were re-elected. Sheehan finished mid-field in the list of candidates, his housing campaign hijacked by the larger party rivals Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal.
The election epitomised the dilemma of the Labour Party. In contrast to Sheehan’s policy of basic social change and political inclusiveness, the ILP confused voters with a mixed message. The party's new March constitution abandoned its working class character and diluted its objectives, in its desire and in order to broaden the class basis of the new party to appeal to white-collar professionals. In the long term it also failed due to lack of branch organisation (Dublin having only one branch) so that in the following 1932 general election its number of Dáil
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...
seats sank to an all time low of 7, from 13 in September 1927 (and 22 in 1922).
Service – not self
In January 1931 the Dublin Chronicle promoted a new Irish Industries Purchasing League with a campaign advocating the need to Buy Irish Goods, which was welcomed and supported by Irish manufacturers and retail outlets alike. Sheehan relentlessly pursued the unresoved questions of slums and housing. He then called for the early selection of suitable candidates to stand for Labour at the next (1932) general election. Publication of the Chronicle ended in August 1931 brought on by the world economic Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
From the 1930s, unable to practise in court due to impaired hearing from the war, as advocate Sheehan provided legal advice and assistance to former constituents, helped unemployed Irish ex-servicemen of the Great War, many sons of families he once housed and later recruited, supported Old Comrades Associations (O.C.A's) providing lines of communication and information north and south of the 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...
border, editing the Northern and Southern Ireland edition of their central council's Annual Journal, its motto "Service – not self". In 1945, reporting on its work he wrote:
It has been beset by many difficulties, has had to overcome prejudice and to surmount numerous other obstacles, yet its work of helping the Irish ex-serviceman and his dependants has been carried on with unwearied effort and considerable success.
His 1942 offer to Richard Mulcahy
Richard Mulcahy
Richard James Mulcahy was an Irish politician, army general and commander in chief, leader of Fine Gael and Cabinet Minister...
to stand as a candidate for Fine Gael
Fine Gael
Fine Gael is a centre-right to centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland. It is the single largest party in Ireland in the Oireachtas, in local government, and in terms of Members of the European Parliament. The party has a membership of over 35,000...
in South Cork, where a large number of ex-servicemen lived, was declined.
Personal background
On 6 February 1894, he married Mary Pauline O'Connor, daughter of Martin O'Connor, Bridge Street, Tralee, County KerryCounty 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...
;
they had five sons (and five daughters, the youngest Mona b. 1912 (Ms Rutland-Barsby) died 24 Sept. 2008):
- Daniel Joseph Sheehan (2nd Lt Royal Flying CorpsRoyal Flying CorpsThe Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
) – killed May 1917 on active service during WWI (1894–1917).
He is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves CommissionCommonwealth War Graves CommissionThe Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves, and places of commemoration, of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars...
's Cabaret Rouge Cemetery, France; Grave no. N16. - Martin Joseph Sheehan (2nd Lt Royal Air ForceRoyal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
) – killed October 1918 on active service during WWI (1896–1918).
He is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves CommissionCommonwealth War Graves CommissionThe Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves, and places of commemoration, of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars...
's Anneux World War I Cemetery, France; Grave no. H21. - Michael Joseph Sheehan (BrigadierBrigadierBrigadier is a senior military rank, the meaning of which is somewhat different in different military services. The brigadier rank is generally superior to the rank of colonel, and subordinate to major general....
, OBEOrder of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, CBEOrder of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, Indian ArmyBritish Indian ArmyThe British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
, Burma CampaignBurma CampaignThe Burma Campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was fought primarily between British Commonwealth, Chinese and United States forces against the forces of the Empire of Japan, Thailand, and the Indian National Army. British Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from...
WWIIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
) (1899–1975) - Patrick A. Sheehan (later known as Pádraig A. Ó Síocháin SC), (Honorable Society of King's Inns) (1905–1995)
- John F. Sheehan (SurgeonSurgeonIn medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
, Lt-ColonelColonel (UK)Colonel is a rank of the British forces, ranking below Brigadier, and above Lieutenant Colonel. British Colonels are not usually field commanders; typically they serve as staff officers between field commands at battalion and brigade level. The insignia is two diamond shaped pips below a crown...
, Medical CorpsRoyal Army Medical CorpsThe Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
Indian ArmyBritish Indian ArmyThe British Indian Army, officially simply the Indian Army, was the principal army of the British Raj in India before the partition of India in 1947...
, Burma CampaignBurma CampaignThe Burma Campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was fought primarily between British Commonwealth, Chinese and United States forces against the forces of the Empire of Japan, Thailand, and the Indian National Army. British Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from...
WWII), (later Harley StreetHarley StreetHarley Street is a street in the City of Westminster in London, England which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery.- Overview :...
surgeon) (1909–1985) - Sgt Robert O'Connor (Leinster RegimentPrince of Wales's Leinster RegimentThe Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 100th Regiment of Foot and the 109th Regiment of Foot...
), (in-law), killed at Passchendaele during WWI (1880–1917)
(All family members settled in England, except P. A. Ó Síocháin
P. A. Ó Síocháin
Pádraig Augustine Ó Síocháin was an Irish journalist, author, lawyer, Irish language activist and entrepreneur, born in Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland on 26 May 1905, the sixth child and fourth son of five sons and five daughters of Daniel Desmond Pádraig Augustine Ó Síocháin (P. A.) (1905 –...
, a staunch nationalist).
Sheehan died on 28 November 1948, aged 75, while visiting his daughter Mona in Queen Anne St., London, and was buried with his wife at the Glasnevin National Cemetery
Glasnevin Cemetery
Glasnevin Cemetery , officially known as Prospect Cemetery, is the largest non-denominational cemetery in Ireland with an estimated 1.5 million burials...
, Dublin.
Works
- Writing: Ireland since Parnell (1921)
- Speeches (Commons)
- Poems
- Articles
- Access Works in Wikisource
by clicking here as link.
External links
- Ireland Since Parnell by D. D. Sheehan – Free eBook at manybooks.net Orderpage of ManyBooks.net for hardcopy of "Ireland Since Parnell" Homepage of Project-Gutenberg, read, download: "Ireland Since Parnell"
- Royal Munster Fusiliers Association at www.rmfa92.org/ Homepage of the Royal Munster Fusilier's Association
- Bandon War Memorial, Ireland dedicated to soldiers in World War 1 at www.bandonmemorial.com/ Homepage of the Bandon War Memorial Committee
- Department of the Taoiseach: Irish Soldiers in the First World War