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‘Sinn Féin permits … in the heels of their shoes’: Cumann na mBan emigrants and transatlantic revolutionary exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2020

Síobhra Aiken
Síobhra Aiken*
Affiliation:
National University of Ireland, Galway
*
*Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway, siobhra.aiken@nuigalway.ie
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Abstract

The emigration of female revolutionary activists has largely eluded historical studies; their global movements transcend dominant national and regional conceptions of the Irish Revolution and challenge established narratives of political exile which are often cast in masculine terms. Drawing on Cumann na mBan nominal rolls and U.S. immigration records, this article investigates the scale of post-Civil War Cumann na mBan emigration and evaluates the geographical origins, timing and push-pull factors that defined their migration. Focusing on the United States in particular, it also measures the impact of the emigration and return migration of female revolutionaries – during the revolutionary period and in its immediate aftermath – on both the republican movement in Ireland and the fractured political landscapes of Irish America. Ultimately, this article argues that the cooperative transatlantic exchange networks of Cumann na mBan, and the consciously gendered revolutionary discourse they assisted in propagating in the diaspora, were integral to supporting the Irish Revolution at home and abroad.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 165 , May 2020 , pp. 106 - 130
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Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2020

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References

1 Observation notes of discussion with Miss Brighid O'Mullane, appeal on rejection, 14 Feb. 1941 (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF57134).

2 Czira, Sidney Gifford, The years flew by: the recollections of Madame Sydney Gifford Czira (Dublin, 2000), p. 66Google Scholar.

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4 See Coleman, Marie, ‘Compensating Irish female revolutionaries, 1916–1923’ in Women's History Review, xxvi, no. 6 (2017), pp 915–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘Decentering history: local stories and cultural crossings in a global world’ in History and Theory, i, no. 2 (May 2011), p. 193.

10 Margaret Stroebel and Marjorie Bingham, ‘The theory and practice of women's history and gender history in global perspective’ in Bonnie G. Smith (ed.), Women's history in global perspective, volume 1 (Urbana, 2004), p. 9.

11 Mary Louise Roberts, ‘The transnationalization of gender history’ in History and Theory xliv, no. 3 (Oct. 2005), p. 459.

12 Niall Whelehan, ‘Playing with scales: transnational history and modern Ireland’ in idem (ed.), Transnational perspectives on modern Irish history (London, 2015), p. 12.

13 Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, ‘Crossing borders in transnational gender history’ in Journal of Global History, vi, no. 3 (Nov. 2011), p. 357.

14 Bernadette Whelan, ‘The emigrant encounters the “new world”, c.1851–1960’ in Gerardine Meaney, Mary O'Dowd and Bernadette Whelan, Reading the Irish woman: studies in cultural encounters and exchange, 1714–1960 (Liverpool 2013), p. 92.

15 Seán O'Faolain, ‘Love among the Irish’ in Life, 16 Mar. 1953, p. 140.

16 General Order issued by Óglaigh na hÉireann, 19 June 1920, in John M. MacCarthy statement, ‘Appendix F2’ (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 883); see also ‘Dáil Éireann: Emigration (Shipping and Emigration Agents) Regulation’ in Irish Bulletin, 20 Apr. 1921.

17 This was a stark increase on the estimated 2,975 emigrants in 1918: Connacht Tribune, 20 Aug. 1921. The 15,585 emigrants were reportedly made up of 6,075 males and 9,510 females: The Gazette (Montreal), 21 Sept. 1921.

18 See Philip O'Leary, The prose literature of the Gaelic revival, 1881–1921: ideology and innovation (University Park, PA, 2005), pp 142–53.

19 Fermanagh Herald, 20 Aug. 1921. For a discussion of moral and sexual discourses around female emigration in the early years of the Free State, see Jennifer Redmond, Moving histories: Irish women's emigration to Britain from independence to republic (Liverpool, 2019), pp 72–102.

20 Evening World (New York), 8 Apr. 1921.

21 See: 1st (North Sligo) Brigade, 3rd Western Division (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/47).

22 Louise Ryan, ‘“Drunken Tans”: representations of sex and violence in the Anglo-Irish War (1919–21)’ in Feminist Review, no. 66 (Sept. 2000), p. 76.

23 Linda Steiner and Susanne Gray, ‘Genevieve Forbes Herrick: a Chicago Tribune reporter covers women in politics’, unpublished paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Aug. 1984 (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED246440.pdf) (15 May 2019).

24 Journalist Ruth Russell arrived in Dublin in March 1919 to report on the First Dáil for the Chicago Daily News; Anne O'Hare McCormick was the first woman on the editorial board of the New York Times and travelled to Ireland in 1921; American journalist Elizabeth Lazenby visited the Dáil in May 1922; and the British-born writer Claire Sheridan interviewed both Michael Collins and Rory O'Connor during the Battle of the Four Courts. See Ruth Russell, What's the matter with Ireland? (New York, 1920); Anne McCormick, ‘Black and Tans’ in New York Times, 20 Feb. 1921; Elizabeth Lazenby, Ireland: a catspaw (London, 1968), pp 13–25; Clare Sheridan, To the four winds (London, 1957), pp 165–70.

25 It seems there are only two published memoirs by female emigrants: Bridget Dirrane (with Rose O'Connor and Jack Mahon), A woman of Aran: the life and times of Bridget Dirrane (Dublin, 1997), and Anne Crowley Ford, When I am going: growing up in Ireland and coming to America, 1901–1927, ed. Daniel Ford (Kindle ed., CreateSpace, 2012). For further discussion of female emigrant memoirs, see Síobhra Aiken, ‘“Sick on the Irish Sea, dancing across the Atlantic”: (anti-)nostalgia in women's diasporic remembrance of the Irish Revolution’ in Oona Frawley (ed.), Women and the decade of commemorations in Ireland (Bloomington, IN, forthcoming 2020).

26 Anne O'Connell, ‘“Take care of the immigrant girls”: the migration process of late-nineteenth-century Irish women’ in Éire-Ireland, xxxv, nos 3 & 4 (fall/winter, 2000), pp 102–33.

27 Chicago Tribune, 14 Oct. 1921.

28 Ibid., 13 Oct. 1921.

29 Ibid., 14 Oct. 1921.

30 Ibid., 17 Oct. 1921.

31 Progress and processes of naturalization: hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, Sixty-Seventh Congress, first session … October 19, 20, 21, and 22, and November 22, 1921 (Washington D.C., 1922), pp 257–80.

32 Chicago Tribune, 18 Oct. 1921.

33 Ibid., 23 Oct. 1921.

34 See Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Impressions of Sinn Féin in America: an account of eighteen months’ Irish propaganda in the United States (Dublin, 1919); Charlotte H. Fallon, Soul of fire: a biography of Mary MacSwiney (Dublin, 1986); Joanne Mooney Eichacker, Irish republican women in America: lecture tours, 1916–1925 (Dublin, 2003).

35 C. S. Andrews, Man of no property (Dublin, 2002), p. 14, cited in Foster, ‘No “wild geese” this time?’, pp 99–100; Irish World, 14 June 1930, cited in Brian Hanley, ‘Irish republicans in inter-war New York’ in Irish Journal of American Studies Online, no. 1 (2009), p. 51.

36 Dorothy Macardle, The Irish republic; a documented chronicle of the Anglo-Irish conflict and the partitioning of Ireland, with a detailed account of the period 1916–1923 (4th ed., Dublin, 1951), p. 883.

37 Cork 3 Brigade (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/14).

38 Lixnaw District Council (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/112).

39 See for example, Longford Leader, 9 May 1936.

40 South Wexford Brigade (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/130); Gretta Crosby (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP3430192); Massachusetts, passenger and crew lists, 1820–1963, s.v. ‘Margaret Williams’, arrived 25 May 1922, available at Ancestry.com.

41 South Tipperary Brigade (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/97).

42 Kilkenny Brigade (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CM.B/153).

43 McCarthy suggests that a more accurate figure is 21,387 given the omission of several districts from the rolls: Cal McCarthy, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Revolution (Dublin, 2014), pp 246–7.

44 Terence Brown, Ireland: a social and cultural history, 1922 to the present (London, 1981), p. 18. The Military Service Medals database and Military Service Pensions Collection also include applications from several hundred female emigrants who are not listed with foreign addresses in the nominal rolls.

45 Foster, ‘No “wild geese” this time?', p. 110. In Ballyferriter, 12 of 20 (55 per cent) women emigrated; in Aunascaul 32 of 70 (46 per cent); in Ventry 25 of 36 (69 per cent); in Dingle 7 of 22 (31 per cent); and Lispole 4 of 13 (30 per cent): Dingle District (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/114).

46 Donegal County (ibid., CMB/56).

47 Castletownbere/Eyeries (ibid., CMB/21).

48 Foster, ‘No “wild geese” this time?’, p. 110.

49 Gort (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/66); Ardrahan (ibid., CMB/67).

50 McCarthy, Cumann na mBan, p. 175.

51 Ardfert District Council (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/111).

52 This trend was reversed after the Wall Street crash; by the 1930s, the vast majority of emigrants were destined for Britain. See Redmond, Moving histories, p. 31.

53 Macardle, The Irish republic, p. 883.

54 Delaney, Demography, state and society, p. 43.

55 Kathleen D'Arcy Barry (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF62619); New York, passenger and crew lists, s.v. ‘Kathleen D'arcy’, arrived 2 Nov. 1923, available at Ancestry.com; Ann Matthews, Dissidents: Irish republican women, 1923–1941 (Dublin 2012), p. 263.

56 Whelan ‘The emigrant encounters’, p. 92; Delaney, Demography, state and society, p. 135.

57 ‘Petition for Naturalisation’, s.v. ‘Margaret Dowling’, available at Ancestry.com.

58 Herald-News (New Jersey), 7 Aug. 1923.

59 See Marguerite Sweetman O'Callaghan (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MD45970); William Sweetman (ibid., RO/51).

60 Castlegregory District Council (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/113), Ballyvourney/Kilmnartery District Council (ibid., CMB/18).

61 Mary Lytle (M.A.I., M.S.P.C, MSP34REF58239). On emigration due to the economic impact of the revolution, see also Celia Nealon (ibid., MSP34REF56554).

62 Ford, When I am going, location 852.

63 Íde O'Carroll, Models for movers: Irish women's emigration to America (Cork, 1990), p. 33.

64 Dirrane, A woman of Aran, p. 46. As Whelan notes, Dirrane's assertion is not fully accurate. See Whelan, ‘The emigrant encounters’, p. 110.

65 New York, passenger and crew lists, s.v. ‘Margaret M. Egan’, departed 14 Oct. 1923, available at Ancestry.com.

66 Michael Flannery (1902–94) was a native of Knockshegowna in north Tipperary. Active in the Tipperary No. 1 Brigade, I.R.A., he was imprisoned for six months in 1921 and again in November 1922 as an anti-Treatyite. He emigrated to New York in 1927 with the intention of organising ‘the thousands who were forced to leave after the Civil War’. He was active in numerous Catholic and Irish-American organisations, chairman of the New York G.A.A., and founder of the Irish Northern Aid Committee (1970). His election as marshal of the 1983 New York St Patrick's Day was denounced by the Irish government due to his continued support for the I.R.A. See Dermot O'Reilly and Seán Ó Brádaigh (eds), Accepting the challenge: the memoirs of Michael Flannery (Dublin, 2001).

67 Female prisoners who emigrated (permanently or temporarily) include: Nora Brosnan McKenna, Lil Brosnan, Nellie Hoyne Murray, Margaret Leonard, Margaret McKee, Bridie Halpin, Josephine Hanafin, Mary Rigney, Shelia Nagle O'Connell, Julia Casey, Peg Daly, Eilis Dolan, Kit Donovan, Margaret Fitzgerald, Bridget Fitzgerald, Angela Flynn Coppinger, Katie Folan, Peg Lehane Slattery, Rose O'Donnell, Kathleen Barry D'Arcy and Maggie O'Toole. See Matthews, Dissidents; Sinéad McCoole, No ordinary women: Irish female activists in the revolutionary years, 1900–1923 (Dublin, 2003).

68 Mícheál Ó Catháin (ed.), ‘Dialann phríosúin Sheáin a’ Chóta [Séan Óg Ó Caomhánaigh]: imleabhar 1/2’ (Ph.D. thesis, N.U.I. Maynooth, 2012), p. 56. See also Bernadette Whelan, ‘The idea of America in the new Irish State, 1922–60’ in David T. Gleeson (ed.), The Irish in the Atlantic world (Columbia, SC, 2010), p. 79.

69 Máire Comerford, ‘Lasamar Ár dTinte’ in Agus Oct. 1990, p. 10.

70 Kathleen O'Doherty statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 355).

71 Gavin Wilk, ‘“No hope for him unless he can be got out of the country”: disabled Irish republicans in America, 1922–1935’ in New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, xviii, no. 1 (spring/earrach 2014), pp 106–19.

72 Nadia Clare Smith, Dorothy Macardle: a life (Dublin, 2007), p. 43.

73 See Síobhra Aiken, ‘“The women who had been straining every nerve’: gender-specific medical management of trauma in the Irish Revolution (1916–1923)’ in Melania Terrazas Gallego (ed.), Trauma and identity in contemporary Irish culture (Bern, 2020), pp 133–58.

74 Mary Hickey O'Reilly (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF60669).

75 New York passenger and crew lists, s.v. ‘Bridget Sugrue’, arrived 16 Dec. 1924, available at Ancestry.com.

76 Gavin M. Foster, The Irish Civil War and society: politics, class, and conflict (New York, 2015), p. 213.

77 Letter from Adjunct General I.R.A. to Adjunct North Mayo Brigade (U.C.D.A., Moss Twomey papers, P69/167(10)).

78 U.K. incoming passenger lists, s.v. ‘Philomena Plunkett’, arrived 20 Mar. 1916, available at Ancestry.com; New York passenger and crew lists, s.v. ‘Mary Josephine Ryan’, arrived 10 July 1916, available at Ancestry.com.

79 Miriam Nyhan Grey, ‘Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly and the founding of New York's Cumann na mBan’ in eadem (ed.), Ireland's allies: America and the 1916 Easter Rising (Dublin, 2016), p. 81.

80 Tara M. McCarthy, Respectability and reform: Irish American women's activism, 1880–1920 (Syracuse, 2018), p. 251; ‘Address presented to Countess Markievicz (then president of Cumann na mBan) welcoming her to Butte, Montana’ (U.C.D.A., Eithne Coyle papers, P61/8).

81 McCarthy, Cumann na mBan, p. 171.

82 See Dianne Hall, ‘Irish republican women in Australia: Kathleen Barry and Linda Kearns's tour in 1924–5’ in I.H.S., xliii, no. 163 (May 2019), p. 91.

83 See McCarthy, Cumann na mBan; Mo Moulton, Ireland and the Irish in interwar England (Cambridge, 2014), p. 125.

84 United States Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs, To provide for the salaries of a minister and consuls to the Republic of Ireland: hearings before the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sixty-Sixth Congress, second session, on Dec. 12, 13, 1919 (Washington D.C., 1920), p. 167.

85 The Tablet, 26 May 1917.

86 Diarmuid Lynch, The I.R.B. and the 1916 insurrection (Dublin, 1957), p. 6.

87 McCarthy, Respectability and reform, p. 133.

88 The Tablet, 8 Feb. 1919.

89 Freeman's Journal, 18 Aug. 1921.

90 Damien Murray, ‘Ethnic identities and diasporic sensibilities: transnational Irish-American nationalism in Boston after World War I’ in Éire-Ireland, xlvi, nos 3 & 4 (fall/winter 2011), p. 106.

91 Catherine M. Burns, ‘Kathleen O'Brennan and American identity in the transatlantic Irish republican movement’ in Gleeson (ed.), The Irish in the Atlantic world, p. 181.

92 John Devoy, Devoy's post bag, 1871–1928 (Dublin, 1948), p. 483. See Judith E. Campbell, ‘The bold Fenian wife: Mary Jane O'Donovan Rossa’ in Grey (ed.), Ireland's allies, pp 61–72.

93 Kathleen O'Doherty statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 355).

94 Minnie McCarthy to Mrs O'Malley, 30 Jan. 1924 (U.C.D.A., Mary MacSwiney papers, P481/134(19)).

95 Irish Press, (Philadelphia) 2 Apr. 1921.

96 Cited in McCarthy, Respectability and reform, p. 133.

97 Sheehy-Skeffington, Impressions of Sinn Féin in America, p. 10.

98 Boston Globe, 12 Feb. 1917.

99 Sidney Czira (‘John Brennan’) statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 909).

100 Hartford Courant, 6 July 1923.

101 Hall, ‘Irish republican women in Australia’, p. 74.

102 Sheehy-Skeffington, Impressions of Sinn Féin in America, p. 9.

103 Robert Schmuhl, Ireland's exiled children: America and the Easter Rising (Oxford, 2016), p. 62.

104 Other examples of such gendered testimonies by ‘returned tourists’ include: Mary McWhorter's public testimony of ‘the reign of terror of the Black and Tans’ after a three-month trip to Ireland; and ‘recent visitors’ Mary Donegan and James L. Fawsett, of the Irish White Cross, who were billed to offer ‘first-hand information in a vivid manner’: Englewood Economist, 5 Jan. 1921; Bridgeport Evening Farmer, 25 July 1921.

105 U.S. Census records 1920, s.v. ‘Nellie Cravan’, available at Ancestry.com.

106 American Commission on Conditions in Ireland: interim report (New York, 1921), p. 52.

107 Evening Star, 16 Dec. 1920.

108 Springfield Republican, 15 Dec. 1920.

109 See Francis M. Carroll, Money for Ireland: finance, diplomacy, politics, and the first Dáil Éireann loans, 1919–1936 (Westport, CT, 2002).

110 Montpelier Evening Argus, 20 May 1921.

111 Salt Lake Tribune, 31 Mar. 1921.

112 Evening Tribune (San Diego), 19 Apr. 1921.

113 Margaret Lynch-Brennan, The Irish Bridget: Irish immigrant women in domestic service in America, 1840–1930 (Syracuse, 2009), p. 92

114 R. J. C. Adams, ‘Shadow of a taxman: how, and by whom, was the republican government financed in the Irish War of Independence (1919–21)?’ (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2019), pp 270–78.

115 Lil Conlon, Cumann na mBan and the women of Ireland, 1913–25 (Kilkenny, 1969), p. 237.

116 Bridget Elizabeth Duffy (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF61866); ‘Eoin O'Duffy to John Devoy regarding employment prospects for Miss Duffy’, 10 Sept. 1926 (N.L.I., John Devoy papers, MS 18,009/27/2).

117 Lynch-Brennan, The Irish Bridget, pp 57–9; David Fitzpatrick, ‘The modernisation of the Irish female in rural Ireland’ in Patrick O'Flanagan (ed.), Rural Ireland: modernisation and change, 1600–1900 (Cork, 1987), p. 163; Whelan ‘The emigrant encounters’, p. 103.

118 Boston Globe, 2 May 1921.

119 Margaret McGann (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF13029).

120 Irish Echo, 8 Nov. 1947, in Alice Conlon-Mahoney (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF64344).

121 Alice Conlon-Mahoney (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF64344).

122 New York passenger and crew lists, s.v. ‘Alice Conlin’, 3 Dec. 1922, available at Ancestry.com.

123 6 Harcourt Street was the headquarters of Sinn Féin from 1910. It also housed the Sinn Féin bank offices and was used by Cumann na mBan as a depot to coordinate activities and distribute supplies. See Cuan Ó Seireadáin, ‘Cradle of the Irish republic – a journey through 6 Harcourt Street’ in Century Ireland (https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/cradle-of-the-irish-republic-a-journey-through-6-harcourt-street) (15 Nov. 2019).

124 ‘Series II: personal reminiscences’, undated (Burns Library, Boston College, Mary ‘Molly’ Flannery Woods papers, MS 1995.034).

125 Philip O'Leary, ‘Yank outsiders: Irish Americans in Gaelic fiction and drama of the Irish Free State, 1922–1939’ in Charles Fanning (ed.), New perspectives on the Irish diaspora (Carbondale, IL, 2000), p. 259. See also Lynch-Brennan, The Irish Bridget, p. 58; Sinéad Moynihan, Ireland, migration and return migration: the ‘returned Yank’ in the cultural imagination, 1952 to the present (Liverpool, 2019).

126 Micheál Mac Liammóir, All for Hecuba: an Irish theatrical autobiography (London, 1946), p. 180.

127 Ibid.

128 Laurence Nugent statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 907).

129 Chicago Tribune, 20 Sept. 1940.

130 Vivian Butler Burke, to Mahatma Gandhi, 14 Nov. 1931, in GandhiServe Digital Media Archive (http://www.gandhimedia.org/cgi-bin/gm/gm.cgi?action=view&link=Writings/Correspondence/1931&image=WRCO1931111402.jpg&img=420&tt=) (12 July 2019).

131 New York Times, 8 Dec. 1921.

132 Cited in Ann Matthews, Renegades: Irish republican women, 1900–1922 (Cork, 2010), p. 322.

133 Brigid Kennedy (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., 44315).

134 Alice Ginnell (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 982).

135 Mary Agnes Davin statement (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., 16824).

136 Miller, Emigrants and exiles, p. 4.

137 Hasia R. Diner, Erin's daughters in America: Irish immigrant women in the nineteenth century (Baltimore, 1983), p. 128. On the church as the ‘single most important outlet’ for Irish-American women, see Janet A. Nolan, Ourselves alone: women's emigration from Ireland, 1885–1920 (Lexington, KY, 1986), p. 87.

138 Mary Rigney (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF25604).

139 Mary Frances Hannafin (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF60984).

140 Ford, When I am going, location 914.

141 Casey McNerthney, ‘Lily Kempson McAlerney and the Easter Rising of 1916’ (http://lily1916.com) (15 July 2019).

142 Staten Island Advance, 1 Apr. 2004.

143 Tim Pat Coogan, Wherever green is worn: the story of the Irish diaspora (London, 2000), p. 543. Among her students was the environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai who attributed her interests in science and social justice to Sister Joseph Teresa: Irish Times, 1 Oct. 2011.

144 Brooklyn Times Union, 16 Mar. 1930.

145 The Tablet, 21 Dec. 1940.

146 Ellen Buckley (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF34139).

147 Mary Healy (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF19467); Margaret Buckley (ibid., MSP34REF42054).

148 Tralee District Council (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., CMB/110); New York passenger and crew lists, s.v. ‘Johanna Nagle’, arrived 20 Sept. 1925; Massachusetts passenger and crew lists, 1820–1963, s.v. ‘Ellie Nagle’, arrived 24 Oct. 1926’, available at Ancestry.com.

149 Detroit News, 9 Apr. 2016. See also: Sheila O'Connell (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MD36748).

150 Boston Globe, 5 Jan. 1932.

151 Patrick Mannion, A land of dreams: ethnicity, nationalism, and the Irish in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Maine, 1880–1923 (Montreal, 2018), p. 203.

152 Lynch-Brennan, The Irish Bridget, p. 38.

153 Chicago Tribune, 20 Jan. 1927; Irish Independent, 8 Feb. 1927.

154 O'Carroll, Models for movers, p. 44. See also, Bridie Halpin (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MD49900).

155 Hanley, The I.R.A., p. 163.

156 Hanley, ‘Irish republicans in inter-war New York’, p. 53.

157 Notable marriages between revolutionaries in the United States include: Mick Flannery and Pearl Egan; Michael Joe O'Connell and Nellie Taaffe; Frank Robbins and Mary Ward (New York Cumann na mBan); and William Kearney and Mamie Ahern.

158 Mahon, Tom, Mahon, Thomas G., and Gillogly, James, Decoding the I.R.A. (Dublin, 2008), p. 204Google Scholar.

159 Seán Ó Deoráin to Mary MacSwiney, 8 June 1930 (U.C.D.A, Mary MacSwiney papers, P48a/128(2)).

160 Springfield Republican, 3 Dec. 1932.

161 Female immigrants active in the Springfield Clan na Gael Ladies' Auxiliary listed in the 1930 U.S. census include: Mary Ganley who emigrated in 1926; Rose Ganley who emigrated in 1927; Helen Shea who emigrated in 1926; and Mary Waldron who emigrated in 1927: Springfield Republican, 18 Mar. 1932.

162 Undated letter (U.C.D.A., Mary MacSwiney papers, P48a/123).

163 Hanley, ‘Irish republicans in inter-war New York’, p. 54.

164 Murray, ‘Ethnic identities’, p. 116.

165 Brundage, Irish nationalists in America, p. 189.

166 Irish Press, 12 Mar. 1938.

167 Boston Globe, 6 Sept. 1935.

168 Mahon et al., Decoding the I.R.A., p. 281.

169 Murray, ‘Ethnic identities’, p. 115.

170 Mahoney, Patrick J. and Hogan, Neil, ‘From a land beyond the wave’: Connecticut's Irish rebels, 1798–1916 (Connecticut 2016), pp 163–8Google Scholar.

171 Springfield Daily News, 20 Oct. 1922. Mary Murphy of Valentia Island, County Kerry, also claimed that she joined the A.A.R.I.R. in Northampton, Massachusetts, after her emigration (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MD39617).

172 O'Brien, Nora Connolly, We shall rise again (London, 1981), p. 55Google Scholar.

173 Kilkenny People, 30 July 1955; New York passenger and crew lists, s.v. ‘Agnes McNerney’, arrived 27 Nov. 1925, available at Ancestry.com.

174 Wilk, ‘“No hope for him’”, p. 109.

175 Timothy J. Sarbaugh, ‘John Byrne: the life and times of the forgotten Irish republican of Los Angeles’ in Southern California Quarterly, lxiii, no. 4 (Dec. 1981), p. 382.

176 Los Angeles Times, 1 May 1955.

177 Kilkenny People, 7 July 1955.

178 Sarbaugh, ‘John Byrne’, p. 386.

179 Los Angeles Times, 18 Mar. 1945, 15 Mar. 1953.

180 ‘Circular letter from Nellie Murray, secretary of the Los Angeles Council of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic’, 17 Aug. 1938 (N.L.I., MS 17,544/5/8).

181 Cited in Wilk, Transatlantic defiance, p. 175.

182 Wilk, ‘“No hope for him”’, p. 11, n. 31. Many thanks to Kate Steffens, archivist at San José State University, for her assistance in locating references to Nellie Murray in the John Byrne papers.

183 Mary Rigney (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF25604).

184 Civil War prisoner Maggie O'Toole's return from New York in 1932 also led to family friction as she had married in New York ‘against her mother's wishes’: Margaret E. Ward, ‘Stories from my grandmother’, Irish Times, 29 Oct. 1996.

185 Cusack, Geraldine O'Connell, Children of the far flung (Dublin, 2003), p. 22Google Scholar.