Members of the First Dáil - Patrick O'Keefe

Patrick O'Keefe Second Row: Seventh from the right

Patrick O’Keefe (Padraig Ó Caoimh) defeated F. Burke by 11 votes to 10 to become the new Secretary of the GAA.

Ó Caoimh was born in Roscommon but moved to Cork at a very young age. Educated by the Christian Brothers in Cork he trained as a Secondary School teacher at Saint Mary’s College in London, returning to teach at Presentation College, Cork. In 1916 he joined the Irish Volunteers; three years later he gave up school teaching to become an officer with the Cork Brigade of the IRA.

His organisational talents were immediately visible to his superiors and in 1920 he was appointed manger of the Employment Bureau, established by the First Dáil. This was to be a short lived appointment - he was captured by the British and sentenced to 15 years penal servitude. He was, however, released in 1922. In 1929 he resigned from his position as manager of a Munster tobacco company when he was appointed as the new Secretary of the GAA.

Within three years of his appointment his renowned organisational skills were put to the test. In 1932 Croke Park hosted both the Tailteann Games and the Eucharistic Congress. The Eucharistic Congress in particular required a great deal of organisation with Ó Caoimh responsible for up to 2,000 stewards.

By far the most controversial episode in Ó Caoimh’s 35-year career was the removal of Douglas Hyde, President of Ireland, as a Patron of the Association in 1938. Hyde broke the GAA’s ban on “foreign games” by attending an international soccer match in Dublin. The question raised by Eamon DeValera in 1946 was whether Ó Caoimh should have warned Hyde on the implications of attending a soccer match and thus allowing Hyde to retire quietly as a Patron.

One of Ó Caoimh’s key achievements was the staging of the 1947 All-Ireland Senior Football Final in the Polo Grounds, New York. One has to remember that in 1947 Europe, and America, were still recovering from World War Two, air travel was still relatively novel and communications were still primitive. In the space of five months Ó Caoimh oversaw the transfer of the All-Ireland Final to America and its radio broadcast back to Ireland.

While the Polo Grounds Final achieved its ultimate aim of rejuvenating the Association in America, Ó Caoimh, for the rest of his tenure, had to spend a disproportionately high amount of his time organising the GAA in America. The post-1947 relationship between the GAA in Ireland and the GAA in New York was, at times, fragile. A number of experiments were tried such as the St. Brendan Cup Competition, the inclusion of New York in the National League Finals and the initiation of a World Championship Series. Yet there was a constant degree of disharmony either within the American GAA itself or between Ireland and America. Ó Caoimh patiently and diplomatically sought, and tested, solutions that would placate both parties.

One lasting legacy of the Ó Caoimh era that is still evident today is the drive he initiated to have a GAA-owned pitch in every parish. In 1957 a Parks Committee (Coiste na bPáirc) was formed to advise on a unified plan for the development of grounds. From this Parks Committee came the ‘Grounds Plan’ which saw grounds being purchased and refurbished, with grants from the Central Council, on a phased basis i.e. Provincial Grounds in phase one of the plan, County Grounds in phase two etc. In paying tribute to O’Caoimh after his death Alf Ó Muiri, President of the Association, stated that ‘in 1929 there were 1,500 clubs, in 1963 there were more than 3,000…the number of grounds owned in 1929 must have been very few, there are now close on 400 grounds owned and properly vested in the Association’

Throughout the last years of his tenure Ó Caoimh was in poor health. He had undergone four major operations between 1944 and 1963. Central Council acted to reduce his workload and employed new staff, including his successor-to-be Sean Ó Síocháin. Ó Caoimh passed away in May 1964, a few months before his completion of 35 years as Secretary of the GAA.

The Irish Times, on the 16th of May 1964, published an appreciation of Ó Caoimh which spoke of him in glowing terms. It stated that ‘under his administrative genius the GAA became by far the strongest sports organisation in the country and reputedly the biggest amateur association of its kind in the world. During his term of office, its membership grew to the huge proportions of today, including powerful branches in the United States, Britain, Australia and Africa; imposing stadia, of which Croke Park was his special care. Without his ability to co-ordinate plan and inspire, only a fraction of this extraordinary progress could have been achieved.’

Even the controversy about Douglas Hyde was reported on in a positive light. In 1938 The Irish Times called the episode the ‘most utterly childish form of humbug’ but in 1964 it wrote that ‘Ó Caoimh has always remained above and beyond the acrimony that has surrounded the “ban” for 80 years…had he lived to work and wield his influence for a few more years, it is conceivable that the rigours of that rule would have been substantially relaxed.’

Members of the First Dáil - Joseph McGuinness

Joseph McGuinness & Countess Markievicz

Joseph P. McGuinness (10 April 1875 – 31 May 1922) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician who was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for South Longford at by-election in 1917.

He was re-elected as MP for the new Longford constituency at the 1918 general election.

McGuinness was serving a term in prison when he was elected to Westminster and among those who worked on his election campaign was Michael Collins. The election slogan for McGuinness at the time was "Vote him in to get him out!"

In common with the other Sinn Féin MPs, he did not take his seat in the British House of Commons, sitting instead as a TD in the revolutionary First Dáil, where he was appointed as Director of Trade and Commerce on 27 October 1919.

He was re-elected unopposed at the 1921 general election in the new Longford–Westmeath constituency; he died before the 1922 general election. He voted in favour of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922.

At a subsequent by-election, his seat was taken by his brother Francis McGuinness.

Members of the First Dáil - James Dolan

James Dolan - 2nd Row 5th from the left

James Nicholas Dolan (died 14 July 1955) was an Irish politician. Dolan was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin Member of Parliament (MP) at the 1918 general election for Leitrim. He was elected again in 1921 for the constituency of Leitrim–Sligo and subsequently went on to support the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Dolan joined the government of W. T. Cosgrave as Parliamentary Secretary to the President in 1924. He served in that post until 1927. Dolan lost his Dáil seat at the 1932 general election. He regained his seat in 1933 but lost it again in 1937 when he fought the election as an Independent candidate. He subsequently retired from politics.

Members of the First Dáil - Joseph O'Doherty

Joseph O'Doherty

Joseph O'Doherty (1891 – 10 August 1979) was an Irish politician. Born in Derry, he was a teacher and a barrister and a member of the Irish Volunteers Executive from 1917–21.

He was elected as a Sinn Féin Member of Parliament for Donegal North in the 1918 Westminster Election defeating his Irish Parliamentary Party opponent.

In 1919, Sinn Féin candidates who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled as a unicameral, revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann".

The establishment of the First Dáil occurred on the same day as the outbreak of the Anglo-Irish War.

He was re-elected at the 1921 General Election and opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He was subsequently re-elected as Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin and as an abstentionist republican in 1922 and 1923 respectively. He was part of the Republican mission to the United States of America from 1922–24 and 1925–26.

In 1926, he left the party's Ard Fheis with Éamon de Valera and became a founder member of Fianna Fáil. He lost his seat at the June 1927 General Election and was elected to the Seanad in 1928, serving as one of Fianna Fáil's first six elected Senators under the leadership of Joseph Connolly. He was re-elected to the Dáil in the 1933 General Election. From 1929–33 Joseph also served as the County Manager of Carlow and Kildare.

In 1936, O'Doherty successfully sued Ernie O'Malley for libel. The incident in question involved a raid Michael Collins had proposed to take place on 1 October 1919 at Moville, County Donegal. O'Malley, in his book On Another Man's Wound, had implied that O'Doherty had refused to go. In fact it had been agreed, without O'Doherty's intervention, that it would be inapproriate for a member of the Dáil to be involved.

Members of the First Dáil - Richard Mulcahy

Richard "Dick" Mulcahy

We looked at Dick Mulcahy in the Rising. Here we look at him after the Rising.

Born in Waterford, he was educated by the Christian Brothers and worked in the postal service in Thurles. He joined the Volunteers in 1913 and was second-in- command to Thomas Ashe in the engagement at Ashbourne in 1916.

Jailed after the Rising, he became the chief of staff of the IRA after his release the following year and was elected in 1918 for Clontarf. Appointed minister for defence at the first Dáil, he was replaced by Brugha in the reshuffle after de Valera’s release.

Mulcahy supported the Treaty and took command of the government forces after the death of Collins. He was minister for defence from 1923-1924, but resigned during the army mutiny after clashes with Kevin O’Higgins. He returned to the cabinet in 1927 as minister for local government and in 1944 became leader of Fine Gael after WT Cosgrave retired. His decision not to insist that, as Fine Gael leader, he should be the party’s candidate for taoiseach in 1948 facilitated the creation of the first coalition government.

He served as minister for education in that government between 1948 and 1951, and again between 1954 and 1957. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish language and connected by marriage to two leading Fianna Fáil politicians, Jim Ryan and Sean T O’Kelly.

Members of the First Dáil - Terrence MacSwiney

MacSwiney Funeral 31 October 1920

Terrence MacSwiney

Terence Joseph MacSwiney (pronounced /mək'swiːni/; Irish: Traolach Mac Suibhne) (28 March 1879 – 25 October 1920) 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. His death there in October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike brought him and the Irish struggle to international attention.

MacSwiney's writings in the newspaper Irish Freedom brought him to the attention of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was one of the founders of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and was President of the Cork branch of Sinn Féin. He founded a newspaper, Fianna Fáil, in 1914, but it was suppressed after only 11 issues. In April 1916, he was intended to be second in command of the Easter Rising in Cork and Kerry, but stood down his forces on the order of Eoin MacNeill. Following the rising, he was interned under the Defence of the Realm Act in Reading and Wakefield Gaols until December 1916.

In February 1917, he was deported from Ireland and interned in Shrewsbury and Bromyard internment camps until his release in June 1917. It was during his exile in Bromyard that he married Muriel Murphy of the Cork distillery-owning family. In November 1917, he was arrested in Cork for wearing an Irish Republican Army (IRA) uniform, and, inspired by the example of Thomas Ashe, went on a hunger strike for 3 days prior to his release.

In the 1918 general election, MacSwiney was returned unopposed to the first Dáil Éireann as Sinn Féin representative for Mid Cork, succeeding the Nationalist MP D. D. Sheehan. After the murder of his friend Tomás Mac Curtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork on 20 March 1920, MacSwiney was elected as Lord Mayor. On 12 August 1920, he was arrested in Dublin for possession of seditious articles and documents, and also possession of a cipher key. He was summarily tried by court martial on 16 August, sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Brixton Prison.

In prison, he immediately started a hunger strike in protest at his internment and the fact that he was tried by a military court. Eleven republican prisoners in Cork Jail went on hunger strike at the same time.

On 26 August, the cabinet stated that "the release of the Lord Mayor would have disastrous results in Ireland and would probably lead to a mutiny of both military and police in South of Ireland." MacSwiney's hunger strike gained world attention. The British government was threatened with a boycott of British goods by Americans, while four countries in South America appealed to the Pope to intervene. Protests were held in Germany and France as well.

Attempts at force-feeding MacSwiney were undertaken in the final days of his strike. On 20 October 1920, he fell into a coma and died five days later after 74 days on hunger strike. His body lay in Southwark Cathedral in London where 30,000 people filed past it. Fearing large-scale demonstrations in Dublin, the authorities diverted his coffin directly to Cork and his funeral there on 31 October attracted huge crowds. Terence MacSwiney is buried in the Republican plot in Saint Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork. Arthur Griffith delivered the graveside oration.

Members of the First Dáil - P. J. Maloney

P. J. Moloney - Second Row: Far left

(Patrick James) P. J. Moloney (20 March 1869 – 4 September 1947) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician.

He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Tipperary South constituency at the 1918 general election. In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled at the Mansion House in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Tipperary Mid, North and South constituency at the 1921 elections.

He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was re-elected for the same constituency at the 1922 general election, this time as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD, but he did not take his seat in the Dáil. He did not contest the 1923 general election.

A great-grandson is the Irish historian Eunan O'Halpin.