Eoin MacNeill (15 May, 1867 – 15 October, 1945) was an Irish scholar,
nationalist and revolutionary.
Early life
MacNeill was born John McNeill in Glenarm, County
Antrim. He was educated in Belfast at St.
Malachy's College and Queen's College, Belfast. MacNeill had an
enormous interest in Irish history and immersed himself in the study of it. In
1893 he founded the Gaelic League along with
Douglas Hyde, and became editor of its newspaper Gaelic
Journal. In 1908, MacNeill was appointed professor of early Irish history at University College Dublin (UCD).
He married Agnes Moore and they had 10 children.
His brother, James McNeill, was the second last Governor General of the Irish Free State.
Revolutionary
Through the Gaelic League, MacNeill met members of Sinn Féin. MacNeill became chairman of
the council that formed the Irish Volunteers in 1913; he
later became its chief of staff. MacNeill was vehemently opposed to the idea of an armed rebellion, except in resisting any
British suppression of the Volunteers, seeing little hope of success in open battle
against the empire. However, the Irish Republican Brotherhood went ahead
with its plans of an armed rebellion with the co-operation of James Connolly and the
Irish Citizen Army. Pádraig Pearse and some
other Volunteer members supported this move also. Easter Sunday, 23
April, 1916, was the day the rising was to be staged. MacNeill heard about the plans the
previous Thursday, and when informed that German arms were about to land in Ireland, he was
reluctantly persuaded to agree, believing British action was now imminent.
However, on learning of the arrest of Roger Casement, and the interception of the
promised German arms, MacNeill committed what republicans at the time believed was an act of treason when he countermanded the
order for the Rising in print, costing the republicans thousands of potential volunteers for what would become the
Easter Rising. Pearse, Connolly and the others all agreed that they must go ahead with the
rising — it began on Monday, April 24, 1916. After the surrender
MacNeill was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Political life
MacNeill was released in 1917 and was elected Member of Parliament for the
National University of Ireland and Londonderry for Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election. In line with Sinn Féin policy, he refused to take his seat
in the British House of Commons and sat instead in the newly-convened
Dáil Éireann. He was also a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Londonderry during 1921-25 although he never took his seat.
In 1921 he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Following this he became
Minister for Education in the first government of the
Irish Free State. However, his son, Brian, took the anti-Treaty side and was killed in
fighting near Sligo by Irish Army troops during the
Irish Civil War in September 1922.
In 1924 an Irish Boundary Commission was set up to renegotiate the
border between the six counties of Northern Ireland still under British jurisdiction
and the Free State. MacNeill represented the Free State. MacNeill resigned a month after a report on the commission's proposed
changes (which were minuscule) was published in a newspaper. In December 1925 the Free State government ended its requirement to
pay a part of the 'imperial debt', and in exchange agreed that the 1920 boundary would remain as it was. This angered many
nationalists and MacNeill was the subject of much criticism, though in reality he and the commission had been side-stepped by the
debt re-negotiation. In any case the boundary was approved by a Dáil vote of 71-20. He resigned as minister at the end of 1925
and lost his Dáil seat in the 1927 election.
Later life
He retired from politics completely and became Chairman of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. He published a number of
books on Irish history. In his later years he devoted his life to scholarship.
Eoin MacNeill died in Dublin of natural causes at the age of 78. He is also the grandfather of
the former Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality & Law Reform, Michael McDowell.
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