Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

Francis Skeffington (23 December 1878 – 26 April 1916) from Bailieborough, County Cavan, was an Irish suffragist, pacifist and writer. He was a friend and schoolmate of James Joyce, Oliver St John Gogarty, Tom Kettle, and Conor Cruise O'Brien's father, Frank O'Brien. He married Hanna Sheehy in 1903, whose own surname he adopted as part of his name, resulting in his being known as Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, and sometimes referred to as "Skeffy".

Early life

Skeffington was the only son of Joseph Skeffington and Rose Magorian, of County Down. His parents were married at the Roman Catholic Chapel at Ballykinlar in 1869. Skeffy was educated initially at home by his father, a school inspector, and later by the Jesuits at St Stephen's Green before enrolling in University College Dublin in 1896. His closest companions at college were James Joyce and Thomas Kettle. He was individualistic in disposition and unconventional in temperament, refusing to shave and wore knickerbockers, long socks and, as an ardent proponent of rights for women, he wore a badge that read Votes for Women. He organised a petition to lobby for women to be admitted to UCD on the same basis as men shortly after he married. He was a well known figure at UCD and active in student politics and debating societies including the Literary and Historical Society, which he became auditor of in 1897.^[1]

Career and politics

When he graduated he worked as a free-lance journalist. His wife, a teacher, was the primary breadwinner. They joined the Irish Women's Suffrage and Local Government Association and the Young Ireland Branch of the United Irish League (the constituency element of the Irish Parliamentary Party). They also supported the Women's Social and Political Union which lobbied for women's rights in Britain. Skeffington became joint editor in 1912 of a paper he co-founded, The Irish Citizen, issued by the Irish Women's Franchise League and he made contributions to various publications in Ireland, England, France and North America. During the 1913 lockout he became involved in a peace committee intended to reconcile both factions. He became a vice-chairman of the Irish Citizens Army when it was established in 1913 on the basis that it would have a strictly defensive role and he resigned when it became a military entity.

Sheehy-Skeffington testified to a tribunal as a witness to the arrest of the leading trade unionist Jim Larkin on O'Connell street and the subsequent police riot against a peaceful crowd that had occurred on the last weekend of August in 1914^[2]. His testimony stated that he was in the street with a group of women caring for a person that had already been assaulted by the police when a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police charged towards this group with his baton raised. He reports that it was only because he called out the policeman's number that the man was dissuaded from the violence he had so clearly intended. He said that he was later abused by a gang of policemen showing clear signs of intoxication in the yard of the police station at College Green where he went to make his complaint and that their officers had no control over their behaviour.

He campaigned against recruitment on the outbreak of World War I and was jailed for six months.

The 1916 Rising

He supported Home Rule but was not a supporter of the Irish Volunteers, preferring civil disobedience. Skeffy and Hanna took opposing positions towards the Easter Rising - he sticking to his pacifist principles. Hanna brought food to the rebels located at the General Post Office and the Royal College of Surgeons.

Arrest and murder

During the week of the Easter Rising, Sheehy-Skeffington, who had been living at 11 Grosvenor Place Rathmines Dublin, was concerned about the collapse of law and order. On the evening of Tuesday, 25 April, he went into the city centre to attempt to organise a citizens militia (police) to prevent the looting of damaged shops.

He was arrested for no stated, or indeed obvious, reason while returning home, by members of the British 11th East Surrey Regiment at Portobello Bridge along with some hecklers who were following him, and, after admitting to having sympathy for the insurgents' cause (but not their tactics), he was held as an enemy sympathizer. Later that evening an Anglo-Irish officer of the 3rd battalion Royal Irish Rifles, Captain J.C. Bowen-Colthurst (a member of a County Cork landed gentry family), sent Sheehy-Skeffington out, with his hands tied behind his back, as a hostage, with an army raiding party in Rathmines with orders that he would be shot if the raiding party was attacked.^[3]

Bowen-Colthurst sought out "Fenians"; he also took captive a young boy, two pro-British journalists — Thomas Dixon and Patrick McIntyre — and a Sinn Féin politician, Richard O'Carroll, all of whom he had shot. Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington was never told either of his detention or death. She only discovered what happened four days later when she met the chaplain of the barracks. Bowen-Colthurst attempted a coverup and ordered the search and ransack of Skeffy's home looking for spurious evidence. This event resulted in a Westminster-ordered coverup, and Captain Bowen-Colthurst was detained in an asylum for eighteen months as a result. He would later be retired to Canada on a full pension.

Major Sir Francis Fletcher Vane

A Dublin-born major in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, Sir Francis Fletcher Vane, was in overall charge of defence at Portabello Barracks but was not present when these executions took place. He arrived shortly afterwards, was horrified at what unfolded. He recognised the killings as murder, and called Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington.

He reported his views (that Bowen-Colthurst was mentally deranged) to the deputy commander of the garrison, Major Rosborough. Rosborough telephoned Dublin Castle and was told to bury the bodies. Vane subsequently travelled to London where he met Lord Kitchener in Downing Street on May 3, 1916. A telegram was sent to Sir John Maxwell, commander-in-chief of British forces in Ireland, ordering the arrest of Bowen-Colthurst but Maxwell refused to arrest him.

Public inquiry, conviction and release of Bowen-Colthurst

The Grave of Francis & Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Glasnevin Dublin. It almost faces the grave of Brendan Behan

Bowen-Colthurst was eventually arrested on June 6, charged with murder and court-martialled.

An inquiry, chaired by Sir John Simon, took place on August 23 1916 at the Four Courts which concluded that the proclamation of martial law does not confer on officers or soldiers any new powers, but is a warning that the Government, acting through the military, is taking such forcible and exceptional measures as are needed to restore order. The measures taken can be justified only by the practical circumstances of the case. The shooting of unarmed and unresisting civilians without trial constituted murder, whether martial law has been proclaimed or not. Failure to understand and apply this elementary principle seems to explain the free hand which Capt. Colthurst had been exercising ^[4].

He successfully pleaded insanity arising from shellshock as a means of escaping a potential murder conviction. His court martial became a cause celebre and provoked a sustained political furore which culminated in a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the murders.^{[citation needed]} He was sent to Broadmoor Hospital briefly and then to a hospital in Canada. He was deemed 'cured' 20 months later on 26 April 26 1921 and was eventually released with a pension at the age of 40.^[5]

Sheehy-Skeffington's wife was offered financial compensation by the British government of the day but she refused this. Vane was dishonorably discharged from the army in the summer of 1916 owing to his actions in the Skeffington murder case.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was survived by his wife, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, who became increasingly nationalist-minded, and his son then aged 7. The now-deceased Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, who eventually played a moderate role in Irish politics and attended the secular Sandford Park School with his cousin, Conor Cruise O'Brien, because Hanna refused to send her son to any school with a pro-Treaty ethos.

Personal papers

The personal papers, details of which can be accessed online, of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and his wife Hanna were donated to the National Library of Ireland ^[6].

References

External links

• Biography