On This Day / July 29, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
July 29, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 29th July 1921, Countess Markievicz was released from prison as Britain’s peace negotiations with Sinn Féin came under fierce attack from Conservative diehards. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
TDs Released | On This Day – 29th July 1921
COUNTESS Markievicz was released from Mountjoy Prison yesterday. She was sentenced at the end of last year to two years’ imprisonment for association with the Boy Scout movement [Na Fianna Eireann] as a recruiting agency for the IRA.
The Countess acted as a Labour Minister in Dail Eireann of which she is still a member. For many years she has been prominent in the Republican Movement.
She took part in the [1916] Dublin insurrection and was sentenced to death, but the sentenced was commuted and she was released in the general amnesty later.
She was the first woman to be elected to Parliament in 1918 but refused to take her seat.
A report reached Dublin last night that Mr Joseph McGrath, MP for St James’s Division (Dublin) was released during the day from Ballykinlar Camp [County Down].
Birkenhead Assailed by ‘Diehards’
IN THE House of Lords yesterday, the Marquis of Salisbury (Unionist) referred to the ongoing negotiations between the Government and Mr de Valera.
He said that he and his supporters’ felt the shame and humiliation involved in these negotiations’.
Responding, the Lord Chancellor [Lord Birkenhead] said the position was that some days ago proposals were made by the Government to the representatives of Southern Ireland which it was hoped might serve as a basis of reconciliation and peace.
If those terms were accepted it would, of course, be necessary to embody them in an Act of Parliaments and both Houses would discuss them in that form.
Lord Salisbury had spoken of there being some shame involved in these negotiations.
So far as his Unionist colleagues were concerned, they had a conscience clear of any shame in the matter.
They could not understand why Lord Salisbury should grudge the days that were required for the attempt at conciliation – days which were, happily, free from those outrages which had alarmed and distressed the whole country.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: THE Truce – which de Valera had made a precondition of any negotiations – saw the release of elected TDs including Sean MacEoin, sentenced to death for the murder of an RIC inspector.
The mass of republican internees, including those at Ballykinlar, were detained until the Treaty.
The Lloyd George coalition came under fire from Lord Salisbury (the son of a Tory former PM) and the Tory die-hards over its ‘peace policy’.
Carson was particularly angry with Birkenhead, his former ally, for defending talks with the IRA ‘murder gang’.)
On This Day – 29th July 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
On This Day is a daily column in the Irish News looking back either 50 or 100 years. The column was compiled by Dr Éamon Phoenix from the mid 1980s until autumn, 2022. The Foundation is very grateful to the Irish News for giving permission to reproduce Eamon’s columns. Funding gratefully received from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and the Magill Trust.
* The Foundation has worked hard to recreate Eamon’s distinctive voice through AI. Since this is an emerging technology, occasional imperfections may be audible.