by Dermot Keogh
De Valera’s major contribution to the Castle Literary and Debating Society was (significantly for a future chancellor of the NUI) a paper read by him (18 February 1903) on ‘The Irish University Question’. This was no mere academic subject. It was hotly debated at the time and the ‘Castle’ students and staff felt the injustice of their position under the old Royal University where they had to sit for an examination set by those who taught in certain other colleges and then examined their own and all the other students as well. There were other grounds of complaint all outlined in this paper which took him weeks of research in the National Library and elsewhere, to prepare.
When I detailed the main points of the paper to him some years ago, I mentioned that he ruled out the Queen’s Colleges as a practical solution because they were condemned by the Catholic bishops. He laughed and said ‘Let it be put in my biography some day that I rejected something because I had been told to do so by the Irish bishops!’
The solution he favoured was the foundation of a New University of Dublin with three constituent colleges, one for Catholics, one for Presbyterians and Trinity College, all common matters such as examinations and exhibitions to be dealt with by a senate composed from all three colleges.
The practical relevance of the matters being discussed can be gauged from the attendance of the staff with Fr John T. Murphy in the chair. The closely written twenty foolscap pages were preserved by de Valera and presented by him to the college, as was the copy of the bible he was presented with by the college President Fr Murphy, on securing first place in the test he set on the series of lectures he gave the ‘Castle’ students on Apologetics and Christian Philosophy.
Consequent to a lecture given by Fr Murphy under the auspices of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, a branch of the Blackrock parish conference was founded at the ‘Castle’ in 1901. At first it would seem there was some reluctance on the part of the senior parish members of the conference to allow students to carry out the delicate work of visitation of homes in the locality, but their minds were soon put at ease. The first secretary to be appointed was E. de Valera and the following year he was the obvious choice as President, a post he held as long as he remained in the ‘Castle’. The students took their work seriously, most of all their President, as can be learned from the reports of that period (see, for example, Blackrock College Annual 1936).
One of the places de Valera recalled visiting the aged in those years was Linden Convalescent Home where he himself was to end his days, happy to be in such familiar surroundings. Less happy memories were connected with a visitation involving a house in Booterstown where it transpired that there was a case of smallpox. He felt obliged to have himself immediately vaccinated resulting in his being very ill. As he was sitting on the roof of the old ‘Castle’ where he had his room in the tower during his final year, he realised that he could not identify the fathers as they walked along the avenue. He dated the commencement of the deterioration of his vision to that period, but he also realised that he had profited from the experiences gained through this intimate contact with the poor and the aged during these formative years of his life.
De Valera had asked specially to be allowed to use the mere lumber room in the old ‘Castle’ tower in preference to a more comfortable room along Williamstown avenue, as he thought it would help him to study better. He was plagued by a tendency to fall off to sleep while reading. The change of room seemingly did not make much difference. Finally, he decided to climb a tree near the ‘Castle’ in order to remain alert while studying, and indeed the most vivid image that some of the junior students of that period recalled when they spoke of Dev at Blackrock, was seeing him perched on that tree with a book in his hand. Incidentally, a snapshot of him at this period taken by an American boy, John Junker, shows him with a relaxed group of students some of whom are holding footballs; De Valera alone is holding a book with his fingers marking the pages as if ready to return to what was his priority.
De Valera in fact took little active part in football games at this period. He was interested in athletics but even here one got the impression that his main aim was to maintain physical fitness. He prepared seriously for the annual sports with almost the same approach as to solving a problem in mathematics. He weighed up the possibilities open to him knowing the other contenders in each event. Having opted for what he had the best chance of winning he sized up the most formidable challenger, planned to keep close behind till the moment when the final spurt was called for. But reality did not match the theory. On one occasion, he stopped to attend a casualty and forgot that it was a race. On another occasion, this time the two mile cycle race, he thought he had all planned to perfection following as he imagined the likely, and in fact the eventual winner, but his defective eyesight played a trick on him as two competitors wore the same colour singlet and he kept behind the wrong man losing almost a lap before he realised his plans had miscarried. The official photographer has left us a good record of the start of that race with Dev being aided by his friend Jim Sweeney who afterwards wore the green jersey for Ireland. That same day Dev’s tactics did work out as planned. He beat Paddy Cahill in the senior mile.
By now the image of de Valera to have emerged is the serious, aloof, austere figure that many have imagined him always to have been. That was certainly not Dev’s idea of himself in those student days. Right up to the end he used to delight to relive the pranks and the escapades he took part in. One cannot easily imagine him gate-crashing a fashionable ball, but this indeed happened when both he and R. Manning stuck on false moustaches to give themselves the appearance of added years and respectability. Unfortunately for them the moustaches dropped due to the heat and they were summarily expelled. Raiding the Clareville orchard was a temptation he could not resist, though he found it was extremely difficult to see the apples at night, so he concentrated his attention on the Virginia plums instead.
Their outings on Sunday to Blackrock Park under the pretence of being interested in the band were really an exercise in ‘dolly twigging’. Sensing that I was out of my depth at this stage he laughingly explained that the word meant ‘admiring the girls that were out to be admired!’
The most frequent breach of rule by the ‘Castle’ students was going ‘over the wall’, which being interpreted meant bunking out to Keegan’s licensed premises which in those days, and indeed away back in 1798 (when a man called Kinshellagh was the proprietor) was very conveniently on the college side of the main road. Fr Murphy, as might be expected from an ardent apostle of temperance, was mainly responsible for having this public house transferred to the opposite side of the road in 1904. Of course, there were delicacies even for the teetotaller to be had at Keegans, as snacks, pastries, etc., were served. Dev recalled clearly his very first bunking ‘over the wall’. He was introduced there by ‘Bugler’ Dunne. The name recalled to his mind how much their nicknames and slang in those days were coloured by the Boer War, then in the news. Their favourite drink, ‘coffee with a shot of the hard stuff’, was known as a Khaki. There was always an element of risk involved in ‘going over the wall’, as if caught you were called out at the Monday night ‘session’, and so much was deducted from the £5 deposit that each student had to lodge with the director as a guarantee of good conduct throughout the year.
It was the prefect’s duty to keep an eye on students’ movements. Their prefect one year was James Burke, later author of the ‘Missionary Hymn’. Being a keen musician he once thought to slip out quietly to the Theatre Royal for the Halle Orchestra’s visit. The word went round and all adjourned across the wall – all but one tall man among them who could easily be mistaken in the moonlight for Mr Burke, if he were only dressed in a soutane and biretta, and especially if the biretta were worn at the unmistakable Burke forward tilt. De Valera had no difficulty in convincing the dodgers on the way in that they were being spotted by their prefect, that they had been tricked and were all in for a fine at
next session. Mr Burke was at a loss to explain why he was greeted on several occasions in the next few days by the students whistling the ‘Keelrow’ as a protest against something mean. And Dev thought it wiser at this stage to sing dumb till the matter could be taken as a joke – until later years in fact!
Dev had a fund of such anecdotes which, though they help recreate the atmosphere of those days, would be devoid of any further significance were it not that they may help in some degree to understand how his own personality ticked, as it were, before he became deeply committed to the national movement. One is left with the impression that whereas he was a good mixer and was readily accepted in all company, he was never immersed in the crowd, that he held himself consciously or otherwise in someway apart and was given to calculating many of his incursions. Sometimes that was influenced, it would appear, by the fact that he had less pocket money at his disposal than most of his associates and that he had to be more cautious in order to pay his way.
An anecdote helps illustrate this. Many contests the students indulged in ended up in the loser having to stand a treat in Keegans. One such contest was a burst for the old ‘Castle’ gate when it was locked. The last to hit the ground on the far side had to stand the treat. Dev was challenged and the following evening was fixed by the three involved. In the meantime, Dev went along and examined the gate minutely sizing up what portion gave the best leverage on the way up. Needless to add he had not to foot the bill. Dev actually became an expert in climbing the present college gate when locked against his homecomings in later years. When his brother, Thomas Wheelright, visited him in the ‘Castle’ in 1907, in order to impress junior, Dev successfully got over the gate in three moves carrying his bicycle on his shoulder. When he mentioned jokingly to his ‘Castle’ dean in later years that he had been well prepared for prison life while in the ‘Castle’ he may not have amused Fr Downey as he soon realised, but he was really referring to no more than his methods of getting in and out of institutions!
When his second class scholarship in mathematical science in the Royal University examination only netted him £15, to defray the expenses of his board and tuition at the ‘Castle’ he volunteered to take part-time class in the college in order to make up the difference. He offered to take all the classes, hitherto taught by Patrick Kelly, later Sir Patrick, Chief of Police, Bombay, who had just qualified for the Indian civil service; but he was instead assigned two students who had failed their solicitor’s preliminary examination and he had to coach them in all five subjects. They were successful this time and as a token of appreciation they presented Dev with a ticket for the Welsh-Irish international match, 1902. He preserved this souvenir from his first students, Florie Green and Donegan, and it is now among his own souvenirs in the college archives.
He was also asked to stand in for other teachers during periods of absence, notably Johnnie Haugh for long years teacher of mathematics in Blackrock. A class of ‘chicks’, as the youngest juniors were then called, liked to recall in later years their reactions to this youthful and rather over-gentlemanly stand-in for Mr Haugh, whose threats of dire punishment invariably ended up in a few ‘biffs’ with a shoe lace. They, too, decided to collect to make him a present but when the wags in the ‘Castle’ told him they were going to present him with a needle and a spool of thread he dropped a word to the class indicating that he was not in favour of students making presentations to teachers. However he readily accepted the ebony walking stick they had in fact procured for him!
At the end of the school year in June he decided that the time had come to accept the first full time teaching post offered. The offer came from Rockwell where the teacher of mathematics, Robert Walker, wanted to come to the ‘Castle’ in order to study for his degree in mathematics. So Dev moved out of the ‘Castle’ to Rockwell in September 1903, but he was back again at Blackrock from June to October 1904 studying for his BA examination. A snap taken of him during that period with Fr Botrel shows him dressed in knee breeches, already clearly recognisable as the tall distinctive figure that was to appear in so many historic moments for the next seventy years.
Due to his lack of time and tuition throughout that year de Valera secured only a pass degree in mathematical science. This was a big disappointment to him and was to militate against his chances of securing a first class post in the teaching profession or in the civil service. He had put away all idea of the Indian civil service, having first-hand evidence of the colonial mentality at its worst induced in one of his acquaintances after a few short years in India.
With his degree came de Valera’s final break with the student life in the ‘Castle’, though he was to return for a year and a half again as a lodger while teaching in Carysfort Training College. Those who wondered in later years at his repeated requests to have the ‘Castle’ re-opened, as a hostel for students from all the colleges run by the Holy Ghost congregation, had probably no idea of how deeply he felt about the sterling educative value of the old ‘Castle’ system. He was himself the last survivor of a whole generation moulded there since its inception in 1875, first as a training school for entrance into the civil service and then as a university college to prepare students to sit for the examinations conducted by the Royal University. Dev was also very conscious of the sizeable and sterling contribution made by so many of the products of the ‘Castle’ to the formation of a native Irish administration, which took over smoothly and efficiently from the British in later years.
At the end of the school year June 1905, de Valera decided to resign his post in Rockwell, much to the regret of all there, and seek fortune nearer the centre of things as he had planned to continue his studies. The only post available was that of teacher in a Catholic school in Liverpool, with the prospect of attending the university there. He was so depressed however with the alien atmosphere in Liverpool that he returned immediately to Dublin where luckily he got a part-time post in Belvedere College, supplemented by classes in Clonliffe College and at Eccles Street.
At the end of the year he was contacted by Fr Baldwin, CSSp, whom he knew well at Rockwell to tell him that the superioress of Carysfort Training College (where he was now chaplain) was looking for a mathematics teacher. Dev gladly accepted the post even though it was only for two hours each day. He soon applied to be allowed to board at the ‘Castle’, which in the meantime had been greatly enlarged in the expectation of favourable developments in the sphere of higher education.
Dev spent some eighteen months in residence in the ‘Castle’ going out to teach at Carysfort Training College and at St Mary’s Rathmines, where his former dean of studies Fr O’Hanlon was the superior. He also gave grinds to individual students studying for university examinations. Among them was his former student Paddy, later Monsignor, Browne, who from de Valera’s class in Rockwell got second place in Ireland in mathematics in senior grade; and Cornelius Gregg of Blackrock, who beat Paddy for first place! Another of his students at this period was Dick Butler, past-pupil of Blackrock, who is reported to have similarly coached the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII. Gregg, incidentally, who was later to be rated as one of the great minds of the British civil service, was highly valued by Churchill as chancellor of the exchequer, and later with his mathematical acumen, was invaluable in cipher-breaking during the war. He was later knighted.
One feature of this period vouched for by Bishop Heffernan, then prefect in the Castle and a life-long friend of Dev, is worth recalling as Dev never denied it. His overcoat was used regularly by the Castle students and the girls in the Training College as their mail bag. All Dev had to do was to hang his coat in the same spot each day in both venues!
During this period, 1906–09, Dev took an active part in the Blackrock Club or ‘Castle’ teams as they were still known. He had begun to play senior football while in Rockwell and was now chosen occasionally to play for the firsts, but more often for the Metropolitan side which he preferred and which he captained
in 1908. His team was narrowly defeated in the final. He served as secretary to the club for one year and helped at the running of the annual sports each year in the college. With regard to schools rugby at this time it is interesting to learn that the minutes of the schools’ rugby committee record that E. de Valera was one of the two members present at the Gresham Hotel in October 1905 at the annual general meeting, representing Belvedere College; and that in the following year, October 1906, and again in 1908, he was one of the two who represented Blackrock. And in this connection it is worth mentioning that the first ever fixture between Blackrock and Belvedere took place in January 1907, shortly after de Valera moved into residence in the ‘Castle’ after his first year teaching at Belvedere.
Fr Downey resigned as dean of the Castle in 1908 and a special function and presentation was arranged by a number of his friends including de Valera. That was the signal for Dev to pull up his roots finally and move to outside accommodation, having spent most of his life from 1898 to 1908 in such close association with Blackrock, Rockwell and St Mary’s. At a special reception given by him as President of Ireland in Áras an Úachtaráin in 1960 in connection with the college centenary, he paid a moving tribute to those formative years to which he admitted freely he owed so much. At the college centenary he and his classmate Cardinal d’Alton were obviously the central figures. Fifty years previously they were also among the special guests at the golden jubilee celebrations of the college although they are out at the edge of the photos then. But that was away back in 1910!
