On This Day / July 3, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
July 3, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 3rd July 1921, Bishop O’Donnell urged Irish language revival, while Craig refused de Valera’s Dublin invitation. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Language revival | On This Day – 3rd July 1921
THE Feis Tir Chonnail – the great Gaelic festival initiated by Most Rev Dr O’Donnell, Bishop of Raphoe – was held at Kilmacrennan yesterday and was a great success. Beautiful weather prevailed and over 5,000 people attended.
Bishop O’Donnell, having spoken in Irish, continued: ‘Wherever possible, our children should speak Irish at home, learn it in the primary school.
‘I know that it is not so easy in a place like this. The times are changed.
‘In St Columba’s day, the population from Gartan to Kilmacrennan was Irish-speaking.
‘Now for some centuries English, with an odd mixture of Scotch, has prevailed on the banks of the Lennon.
‘But the Irish-speaking district of Termon and Mevagh so near and the presence of so many homes of Irish-speaking servants, it looks as if a good persistent effort at the firesides and in the schools could bring back to Kilmacrennan the language that gave it its name.
‘In some parts of this county not long ago the old people among the Protestant population could speak Irish very well.
‘They spoke both languages with equal ease. That has almost completely disappeared.
‘Why should it not come back again by the free act of men and women who love their country?’
Life Sentence for Fermanagh Man
BERNARD Maguire, Tattycan, Newtown butler and Pat Tully, Roslea, County Fermanagh, tried by court-martial at Derry.
On March 22nd at Mullyglass, Tully was charged with having with others unknown raided a house for arms and assaulted a woman, stolen a rifle and set fire to the house.
Maguire’s house was raided and in the pocket of a vest a detonator was found.
He was found guilty. Sentences – Maguire, five years’ penal servitude; Tully, penal servitude for life.
Editorial: Craig’s Refusal of Dev Invitation
SIR James Craig has declined to accept Mr de Valera’s invitation to a meeting in Dublin.
His decision is regrettable… He had previously travelled to some unknown destination in order to hold converse with Mr de Valera.
At that time he was ‘his own master’ in a much greater degree than he is now.
Nearly 500,000 Nationalists within the Excluded Counties are as deeply concerned with the final issue of the struggle as any 500,000 Nationalists in the Twenty Six Counties: more vitally concerned, in point of fact.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Stung by de Valera’s invitation to the representatives of Irish Unionism, The Irish News was concerned at the isolated position of the nationalist minority in the new Northern state in any future negotiations about a settlement.
Meanwhile, the future cardinal Patrick O’Donnell, a native Irish speaker, recalled Irish-speaking Protestants in Donegal.)
On This Day – 3rd 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.