Denis McCullough
Encyclopedia
Denis McCullough was a prominent Irish nationalist political activist in the early 20th century.
, Ireland
McCullough was a separatist nationalist from an early age. When he was 17, his father had him inducted into the Irish Republican Brotherhood
at the side door of a pub by a man who seemed to view the ritual as an unpleasant distraction to a night of drinking. The event disillusioned McCullough with the Brotherhood, and he soon took it upon himself to revitalize the organisation.
He did so over the years with the aid of Bulmer Hobson
and Sean MacDermott
. Together they founded the Dungannon Clubs for recruitment into the Brotherhood, and they worked to remove the "armchair republicans" from positions of power to be replaced with more determined men. Their cause prospered with the return of veteran Fenian
Tom Clarke
to Ireland in 1907.
of 1916, though he took no active role in the rising itself. He was not a member of the Military Committee that was responsible for its planning (and probably didn't even know of its existence until after the rising). It is likely that the other members of the 3-person IRB executive, Clarke and MacDermott (the treasurer and secretary) supported his nomination as president because, being isolated in Belfast, he would be in no position to interfere with their plans. Nevertheless, during Holy Week
he got word of what was afoot and travelled to Dublin to question Clarke and MacDermott, who avoided him as long as they could. Eventually they informed him of their plans, which he was brought to support.
Though he was an officer of the Irish Volunteers
, in charge of 200 men in Belfast, it was decided that Belfast could not take part in the rising, as the dominance of the Ulster Volunteers in the northeast could lead to sectarian civil war
. Therefore McCullough was to lead Volunteers in his area to Dungannon
, County Tyrone, from where they would link up with Liam Mellows
in Connacht
. Although the Volunteer's Chief-of-Staff Eoin MacNeill
issued a countermanding order, cancelling orders for the rising, McCullough took 150 Volunteers and Cumman na mBan women by train from Belfast to Dungannon. There he found that the local Volunteers under Patrick McCartan
did not want to leave their home area and McCullough decided to return to Belfast. During the abortive Rising, he accidentally shot himself in the hand Nevertheless he was arrested that week and taken to Richmond Barracks in Dublin. He spent several months incarcerated in Frongoch
in Wales and Reading Jail. On his release he married Anne Ryan, daughter of James Ryan
.
It has been argued that as President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood at the time of the Easter Rising, the title President of the Irish Republic
was by rights his, and not Patrick Pearse
's. However, as he had no real role in the planning of the insurrection, and was not in the vicinity of Dublin, where it was clear the leadership would need to be, it is understandable that Pearse was given the title instead.
McCullough's decision not to fight in the Easter Rising lost him his pre-eminent position among Belfast republicans. One, Sean Cusack later said that he told McCullough, "we all felt he had, to some extent, let us down".
(1919–1921). He was however arrested and imprisoned by the British several times and held for long periods
In 1922, he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty
, despite its acceptance of the Partition of Ireland
, as a way of keeping the republican movement united and focussed on the north, where Catholics were being attacked by loyalists. He later said of the split in the southern movement,"while they were making up their minds about the Treaty, their people in the north were being killed day by day. They could not stand up the terror in Ulster unless they had a united organisation behind them". McCullough was obviously not aware that Collins continued to covertly arm the IRA in Ulster until August 1922, partly to protect nationalists there and partly to try to bring down the Northern Irish state.
After the Treaty, in early 1922 he was sent by George Gavan Duffy
(and possibly also by Michael Collins
) to the United States to make contact with Irish republican organisations there. He subsequently settled in Dublin in the new Irish Free State
.
, encouraged its growth with orders for bagpipes for his boy bands. In time, after he moved to Dublin, this became McCullough Pigott of Suffolk Street and marked the beginning of a highly successful and influential Free State business career.
McCullough distinguished himself (inspired by Michael Collins) in forming the New Ireland Assurance Company. A director of Clondalkin Paper Mills, he also had a role in the Irish Army
School of Music, and the Gate Theatre
. While in America as Special Commissioner for the Free State (leaving his wife in charge of the music business) his new premises in Dawson Street were entirely destroyed by an Anti-Treaty IRA land mine as a reprisal, during the Irish Civil War
.
On 20 November 1924, McCullough stood as the Cumann na nGaedheal candidate at a by-election in the Donegal constituency
, following the resignation of Cumann na nGaedheal TD Peter Ward
. He was elected to the 4th Dáil Éireann, but did not stand again at the next general election, in June 1927.
Early career - IRB activist
Born in BelfastBelfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
McCullough was a separatist nationalist from an early age. When he was 17, his father had him inducted into the Irish Republican Brotherhood
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland during the second half of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century...
at the side door of a pub by a man who seemed to view the ritual as an unpleasant distraction to a night of drinking. The event disillusioned McCullough with the Brotherhood, and he soon took it upon himself to revitalize the organisation.
He did so over the years with the aid of Bulmer Hobson
Bulmer Hobson
John Bulmer Hobson was a leading member of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood before the Easter Rising in 1916...
and Sean MacDermott
Sean MacDermott
Seán Mac Diarmada was one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland.-Early life:...
. Together they founded the Dungannon Clubs for recruitment into the Brotherhood, and they worked to remove the "armchair republicans" from positions of power to be replaced with more determined men. Their cause prospered with the return of veteran 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...
Tom Clarke
Tom Clarke (Irish republican)
Thomas James "Tom" Clarke was an Irish revolutionary leader and arguably the person most responsible for the 1916 Easter Rising. A proponent of violent revolution for most of his life, he spent 15 years in prison...
to Ireland in 1907.
President of IRB and Easter Rising
McCullough (Donnchadha Mac Con Uladh) was elected to fill the vacant seat of the President of the IRB late in 1915, a position he held during the Easter RisingEaster Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
of 1916, though he took no active role in the rising itself. He was not a member of the Military Committee that was responsible for its planning (and probably didn't even know of its existence until after the rising). It is likely that the other members of the 3-person IRB executive, Clarke and MacDermott (the treasurer and secretary) supported his nomination as president because, being isolated in Belfast, he would be in no position to interfere with their plans. Nevertheless, during Holy Week
Holy Week
Holy Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter...
he got word of what was afoot and travelled to Dublin to question Clarke and MacDermott, who avoided him as long as they could. Eventually they informed him of their plans, which he was brought to support.
Though he was an officer of the Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers
The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...
, in charge of 200 men in Belfast, it was decided that Belfast could not take part in the rising, as the dominance of the Ulster Volunteers in the northeast could lead to sectarian civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
. Therefore McCullough was to lead Volunteers in his area to Dungannon
Dungannon
Dungannon is a medium-sized town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the third-largest town in the county and a population of 11,139 people was recorded in the 2001 Census. In August 2006, Dungannon won Ulster In Bloom's Best Kept Town Award for the fifth time...
, County Tyrone, from where they would link up with Liam Mellows
Liam Mellows
Liam Mellows was an Irish Republican and Sinn Féin politician. Born in England, Mellows grew up in County Wexford in Ireland. He was active with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Irish Volunteers, and participated in the Easter Rising in County Galway, and the War of Independence...
in 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...
. Although the Volunteer's Chief-of-Staff Eoin MacNeill
Eoin MacNeill
Eoin MacNeill was an Irish scholar, nationalist, revolutionary and politician. MacNeill is regarded as the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history. He was a co-founder of the Gaelic League, to preserve Irish language and culture, going on to establish the Irish Volunteers...
issued a countermanding order, cancelling orders for the rising, McCullough took 150 Volunteers and Cumman na mBan women by train from Belfast to Dungannon. There he found that the local Volunteers under Patrick McCartan
Patrick McCartan
Patrick McCartan was an Irish republican and politician. He was born in Eskerbuoy, near Carrickmore, County Tyrone to Bernard McCartan and Bridget Rafferty. He emigrated to the USA as a young man and became a member of Clan na Gael in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and edited the journal Irish Freedom...
did not want to leave their home area and McCullough decided to return to Belfast. During the abortive Rising, he accidentally shot himself in the hand Nevertheless he was arrested that week and taken to Richmond Barracks in Dublin. He spent several months incarcerated in Frongoch
Frongoch
The village of Frongoch is located in Gwynedd, Wales. It lies close to the market town of Bala, on the A4212 road in north Wales.It was the home of the Frongoch internment camp, used to hold German prisoners-of-war during First World War, and then Irish Republican prisoners from the 1916...
in Wales and Reading Jail. On his release he married Anne Ryan, daughter of James Ryan
James Ryan
James Ryan was an Irish politician. He was elected to the First Dáil at the 1918 general election and, apart from the Third Dáil , held his seat for Wexford until his retirement at the 1965 general election...
.
It has been argued that as President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood at the time of the Easter Rising, the title President of the Irish Republic
Irish Republic
The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...
was by rights his, and not Patrick Pearse
Patrick Pearse
Patrick Henry Pearse was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916...
's. However, as he had no real role in the planning of the insurrection, and was not in the vicinity of Dublin, where it was clear the leadership would need to be, it is understandable that Pearse was given the title instead.
McCullough's decision not to fight in the Easter Rising lost him his pre-eminent position among Belfast republicans. One, Sean Cusack later said that he told McCullough, "we all felt he had, to some extent, let us down".
War of Independence and Treaty
McCullough was therefore sidelined in the subsequent Irish War of IndependenceIrish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...
(1919–1921). He was however arrested and imprisoned by the British several times and held for long periods
In 1922, he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty , officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of...
, despite its acceptance of the Partition of Ireland
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
, as a way of keeping the republican movement united and focussed on the north, where Catholics were being attacked by loyalists. He later said of the split in the southern movement,"while they were making up their minds about the Treaty, their people in the north were being killed day by day. They could not stand up the terror in Ulster unless they had a united organisation behind them". McCullough was obviously not aware that Collins continued to covertly arm the IRA in Ulster until August 1922, partly to protect nationalists there and partly to try to bring down the Northern Irish state.
After the Treaty, in early 1922 he was sent by George Gavan Duffy
George Gavan Duffy
-Family:George Gavan Duffy was born in Rock Ferry, Cheshire, England in 1882, the son of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy and his third wife, Louise. His half-brother Sir Frank Gavan Duffy was the fourth Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, sitting on the bench of the High Court from 1913 to...
(and possibly also by Michael Collins
Michael Collins (Irish leader)
Michael "Mick" Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and Teachta Dála for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. Subsequently, he was both Chairman of the...
) to the United States to make contact with Irish republican organisations there. He subsequently settled in Dublin in the new Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
.
Business and later political career
McCullough's political activity went alongside maintaining and developing an instrument making and retail music business in Belfast’s Howard Street, generated from his original trade as a piano tuner. F.J. Biggar, the solicitor antiquarian and friend of Roger CasementRoger Casement
Roger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....
, encouraged its growth with orders for bagpipes for his boy bands. In time, after he moved to Dublin, this became McCullough Pigott of Suffolk Street and marked the beginning of a highly successful and influential Free State business career.
McCullough distinguished himself (inspired by Michael Collins) in forming the New Ireland Assurance Company. A director of Clondalkin Paper Mills, he also had a role in the Irish Army
Irish Army
The Irish Army, officially named simply the Army is the main branch of the Defence Forces of Ireland. Approximately 8,500 men and women serve in the Irish Army, divided into three infantry Brigades...
School of Music, and the Gate Theatre
Gate Theatre
The Gate Theatre, in Dublin, was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, initially using the Abbey Theatre's Peacock studio theatre space to stage important works by European and American dramatists...
. While in America as Special Commissioner for the Free State (leaving his wife in charge of the music business) his new premises in Dawson Street were entirely destroyed by an Anti-Treaty IRA land mine as a reprisal, during the Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
.
On 20 November 1924, McCullough stood as the Cumann na nGaedheal candidate at a by-election in the Donegal constituency
Donegal (Dáil Éireann constituency)
Donegal was a parliamentary constituency represented in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish parliament or Oireachtas from 1921 to 1937 and from 1977 to 1981...
, following the resignation of Cumann na nGaedheal TD Peter Ward
Peter J. Ward
Peter Joseph Ward was an Irish Sinn Féin politician who served as a Teachta Dála in the Dáil Éireann from 1919 to 1924....
. He was elected to the 4th Dáil Éireann, but did not stand again at the next general election, in June 1927.
External links
- Denis McCullough's papers in the UCD archives
- Denis McCullough's electoral history (ElectionsIreland.org)