The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian

by Pat Walsh

  8.Ibid.

  9.Ibid., 20 May 1926.

  10.Ibid.

  11.Ibid.

  12.Ibid., 22 June 1926.

  13.Ibid., 1 June 1928.

  14.Ibid., 6 June 1928.

  15.Ibid., 8 June 1928.

  16.Ibid., 13 June 1928.

  17.Ibid., 22 June 1928.

  18.The Connaught Telegraph, 7 February 1931, p.6.

  Chapter 6

  ‘Lapses into poetry’

  The special meeting of Mayo County Council began promptly at 1 p.m. on Saturday, 27 December. Pat Higgins opened proceedings by inviting Michael J. Egan, the county secretary, to read into the minutes a number of items of correspondence from the Department of Local Government outlining the reasons for the assembly. The Western People reported that the discussion was, ‘if not a feast of reason, a flow of soul. It was on the whole good tempered, though there was an amusing undercurrent of understanding of the members who had been “got at” since the last meeting.’1

  The Roscommon Herald was of a similar opinion. ‘The debate was not the conversational style of discussion usual at County Council meetings,’ it wrote. ‘Every speaker made quite a long speech and it was evident that few of the speeches were extempore. Most of the orators spoke from typescript and in some instances there was a reversion to the style of the days of Grattan, Burke and Sheridan … with flowery language … dramatic declamation … animated gesticulation and lapses into poetry.’2 The Roscommon Herald offered one possible explanation for this type of oratory. ‘Just as not many years ago the preponderance of lawyers in a certain political league earned for it the title of “The League of the Seven Attorneys” so Mayo’s premier public body, after Saturday’s proceedings, can be termed “The Council of the Nine Schoolmasters”.’3

  The report, examining the workings of the council, was submitted to the department by Séamus MacLysaght, as was a letter from E.P. McCarron, of the Department of Local Government, directing Mr Egan to call a meeting of the council for the purpose of giving the body the opportunity to reverse its original decision not to appoint Miss Dunbar Harrison as county librarian. As the Western People put it, by appointing her the council would save itself from ‘immediate relegation to oblivion.’

  Mr Egan explained that he had been in touch with Michael Davis, the council chairman, in connection with the calling of the special meeting, but that Deputy Davis had refused to accept any responsibility for its summoning. He declined to attend, so Mr Egan had gone ahead and summoned it on his own responsibility as directed by the Minister for Local Government, Richard Mulcahy. Martin O’Donnell intervened, asking whether it was right and proper that the council should be asked to look into an issue on which they had already made a decision.

  ‘According to law,’ he said, ‘we cannot take up the matter again for six months. On whose instructions are you going?’

  ‘I expect I’m going on instructions from the minister,’ replied Mr Egan.

  To which Councillor O’Donnell responded ironically, ‘That’s alright then.’4

  In the eyes of many of the observers it did not seem, in truth, that the councillors greatly minded revisiting the debate. Given the widespread interest that had been stirred up in the community at large, they welcomed the opportunity to air their views in public. First up was Pat O’Hara, an independent councillor, ‘a tall, heavily built man with a big voice and assertive manner’, who proposed that Miss Dunbar Harrison be appointed on the grounds that the Local Appointments Commission had been set up by the Dáil for the purpose of filling such posts.5 Irish was not an essential requirement. As was commonplace with many other posts at the time, if in three years Miss Dunbar Harrison still did not have Irish then her appointment could be revoked.

  ‘We are the connecting link between the ratepayers and the Dáil,’ said Councillor O’Hara. ‘We are here to give vent to our grievances and if we are dissolved it is only professional men and TDs that will rule the county and perhaps it will end in revolution in a short time.’

  There was laughter from the gallery to which Councillor O’Hara responded, ‘There was often revolution for less. Handing over the administration of our county to a man we don’t know at all. And when this gentleman comes down here it is not the appeal from the poor he will pay attention to but the appeal from the professional gentlemen or some other body. I say for the sake of this trifling matter it is better for us to have a little bit of common sense and not to dissolve the council … The game is not worth the candle. Let us not dissolve the council and be a laughing stock for England and Ireland.’6

  Councillor Mullarkey suggested a three-minute limit be imposed on speeches but there was no support forthcoming.

  Councillor Duffy seconded Councillor O’Hara’s proposal. The Local Appointments Commission had been in existence for only a few years yet it had already recommended over a thousand candidates to various positions. This was the sole case in which a recommendation had been made but not carried out. What was the point of the LAC if its recommendations were ignored? The LAC had been established by the Dáil. It was set up for a good reason.

  ‘I consider the law that gave you the Appointments Commission was a good one because in the County Roscommon, quite convenient to where I live, a few years ago bribery was so rampant that one of the councillors had to do a term in jail,’ said Duffy.

  ‘That was not Mayo,’ Chairman Higgins pointed out.

  ‘Stick to Mayo,’ a heckler shouted.

  ‘The Castlebar way’

  ‘I consider the taking of the appointments out of the hands of the county councils was a step in the right direction. In the present instance there were some applicants from Castlebar …’

  ‘Why single out Castlebar?’ Councillor Moclair asked.

  ‘They want to do this the Castlebar way,’ Councillor Duffy replied, ‘the same as every other.’

  ‘There should be no invidious comparisons,’ Councillor Moclair insisted.

  ‘And as a Castlebar man,’ Councillor Morahan added, ‘I resent the attack on Castlebar.’7

  The chairman intervened to restore order. He ‘made a motion as if to separate the two N.T.’s [national teachers] who glared at each other, but he was out of reach.’8

  ‘I am over thirty years in public administration in Mayo and I challenge Mr Duffy or any other man to say there was ever corruption in County Mayo,’ he asserted, to rapturous applause from the public gallery.

  ‘Mr Duffy is like a man sent here to irritate people,’ interjected Councillor O’Donnell.

  ‘I ask for your protection, Mr Chairman,’ Councillor Duffy pleaded.

  ‘Go on.’

  In the calmer atmosphere that followed, Councillor Duffy continued, arguing that Irish was not a compulsory requirement. ‘As far as her appointment and her training and her religion are concerned it is practically a matter of indifference to the county.’

  ‘So was souperism,’ commented Councillor Morahan.

  ‘There is a library committee to select the books to be used in the county. We have also a censorship in Ireland whereby any books unreadable by Catholic people would be prevented from coming to the library. Of the books read in Ireland today 90 per cent are written by Protestants.’

  ‘Scrap the library,’ suggested a heckler.

  ‘Some say the council should be wiped out,’ shouted another.

  ‘And damn little loss,’ came a third cry.

  ‘That may be but I will not stand for the expense of a surcharge,’ said Councillor Duffy.

  Having said his piece Councillor Duffy returned to his seat. Councillor Dick Walsh, a Fianna Fáil TD, rose next. He began by accusing Councillor Pat O’Hara, an independent, of hoping to gain a Cumann na nGaedheal nomination for the upcoming general election. He conceded that while Fianna Fáil had accepted the setting up of the Local Appointments Commission, they had wanted it to send the names of three successful candidates to the local authorities and they would select their preference from those thr
ee. He spoke up in favour of Councillor O’Donnell.

  ‘How can our standing orders be set aside?’ he asked. ‘It shows the position we are in that we have absolutely no power here at all and though we are sent here by the people we really have no power. The minister by a stroke of his pen can tear up our standing orders and they do not matter a row of pins.9

  ‘We are the first county that has thrown down the challenge to them,’ Walsh asserted to cries of ‘Hear, Hear’ from his colleagues and the gallery, ‘and that is one of the principal issues I am fighting here today, the system, this rotten system and that is what we must fight, the system that makes us go to the bother of getting elected and then tells us we don’t matter a row of pins.’

  ‘Doing away with the ratepayers’ money,’ came a cry from the gallery.

  ‘Honest mistakes’

  ‘They appointed a committee of inquiry,’ Councillor Walsh continued, ‘ … there is no Mayo man or member of the council here who has any need to be ashamed of the result … I say that for all parties, regardless of what party the members represent. My experience of public bodies so far as it has gone on in this county has been that while men differed, and often had bitter differences on political questions, when it came to the affairs of the county they did their honest best [‘Hear, Hear’]. If mistakes were made they were honest mistakes and no one had any reason to be ashamed of what they did. I would ask the members of the council today not to stultify themselves, not to creep, not to eat dirt. The issue is knit. Let them, if they are true to the traditions of this council and this county, stand to the position they took up before the last day, and let us all bear our share of whatever is coming, and I can assure the members of this council anyhow, we will do that and stick to the decision arrived at.’10

  Councillor Walsh sat down to cheers and applause from the gallery. ‘Several members rose to speak, but the acting chairman decided to give his own views.’11

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Pat Higgins began, ‘I thought when the question of librarianship was last before us that we had decided to cross the Rubicon, to burn our boats and to pledge ourselves never to return. I want to know what has happened in the interval to alter the situation or to change our minds. Yes, an inquiry has been held and you are given another chance of retracing your steps and doing penance for your sins, of preparing a reception for Miss Dunbar, of taking off your hats and leading her triumphantly to Mayo’s capital.’12

  Pat Higgins then recalled another episode in Mayo’s history, when a similar attempt by a foreign government to impose upon the county a system of ‘Godless schools and Godless colleges’ had been foiled by an illustrious ecclesiastic. The ‘Great McHale, the Lion of the Fold of Judah’ sprang to his feet and crippled that attempt in the first hour of its existence.

  ‘We are threatened with pains and penalties,’ Councillor Higgins continued. ‘What will our answer be today to all those threats? Let our answer be true and clear, let it be that Mayo County Council having taken up our position on this question, neither the brow-beating threats of General Mulcahy nor the miserable scoffing of “Castle Catholics” will drive us from that position. [Cheers] All Ireland is watching this council chamber and all Ireland expects you will stand firm. [Applause]’13

  Councillor Bernard Joyce from Ballinrobe declared that he had been a member of the library committee that had taken the original decision and that if he had had any misgivings then, now he had none, as recent events had made him even more convinced that the resolution of the library committee was perfectly justified. He was critical of President Cosgrave’s Dáil statement that Miss Dunbar Harrison had been given a choice of counties and had chosen Mayo.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be more proper,’ he said, ‘for the department responsible to say to the best and most qualified of these persons, “You will be sent to Mayo, you will be sent to the west – to a Gaelic county.” But I am pleased to say it is a county that is a credit to Ireland, second to none in Ireland.’

  Wild applause issued from the gallery.

  ‘Wouldn’t you think,’ Councillor Joyce continued, ‘it would be more creditable to the minister to say, “You must take up the position in Mayo? But God help us when all the others were satisfied, it is good enough for you. Go down to Mayo.” Now I say that is a reflection on the dignity of the people of this county, and it is not fair to the people of this county. I don’t want to say one word with regard to this lady; personally, I feel for the young lady but I object to the system of making an appointment that is unsuitable to the people all over every county as well as this one. The president also said that there were no other candidates fully qualified except the four, and that two of these only were qualified in Irish. Is that correct? How can we challenge that?’

  ‘We do,’ Councillor Morahan interjected. ‘It is wrong.’

  ‘I have been told it is wrong,’ argued Councillor Joyce, ‘and if it is, why should any department make a wrong statement to the people of Mayo?’

  ‘They will have to answer to Mayo,’ warned Councillor Morahan.

  Councillor Joyce ‘relied on documentary evidence to give his views weight.’14 ‘I think I have a little information here that proves they are wrong,’ he said. ‘I received a letter this morning from Monsignor D’Alton, PP, Ballinrobe, the Dean of the Archdiocese of Tuam. It is a letter he received from a young lady who made an application for the position but he told me he has not got permission from the young lady to publish her name. I will just read the letter to you to prove that the department was making statements to this council that were not true.’15

  He then proceeded to read the text of this letter into the minutes.

  ‘Gentlemen, that young lady was the required age, Miss Dunbar was not. She was qualified in Irish; Miss Dunbar had practically no knowledge of Irish. She has the diploma in library training and Miss Dunbar has practically no such diploma.’

  He concluded, ‘I have great pleasure in asking this council to stand by the resolution of the Mayo library committee submitted here on two occasions and that will put an end to this long controversy. If they want to dismiss the council let them do so.’ Councillor Joyce sat down to warm applause.

  Councillor O’Donnell then proposed a motion, seconded by Councillor Joyce, ‘that we the members of Mayo County Council, called together by request of the Minister for Local Government to reconsider our attitude to the recommendation of the Local Appointments Commission regarding the appointment of Miss Dunbar as librarian for County Mayo, beg to point out to the minister that we have already unanimously refused to appoint or invite the young lady mentioned. This decision on our part is definite and irrevocable and we are of the opinion that no useful purpose can be served by further discussion.’

  Councillor O’Donnell gave as his reasons – that Miss Dunbar Harrison had no Irish, that she was a graduate of Trinity College and as such must be imbued with West-British sentiments, and thirdly that she was not a Catholic.

  ‘I am very sorry,’ he said, ‘that this question of religion has to be brought in, but I bring it in and I have nothing to apologise for or to be ashamed of. I am not a bigot; I am not hostile to her being a Protestant, but the library is an educational institution in this county and the idea of appointing a Protestant to it is, as I say, intolerable. If this county was as Protestant as it is today Catholic, I would object to a Catholic having this position, it would be most intolerable, unsuitable, regrettable and unfortunate to have a Catholic in charge.’

  ‘Is this to go on all day?’ Councillor O’Hara enquired.

  ‘Don’t mind them,’ replied Councillor O’Donnell. ‘They are sent here for this purpose. I say history is repeating itself. I don’t want to go into it, but let it not be pushed too far. I would be very sorry that anything should occur here that would upset these good relations [between the councillors].’

  ‘A migratory Micawber’

  ‘What has occurred since the first meeting that would make us alter our views?’ continued Councillor O�
�Donnell. ‘We are lectured and who are the lecturers? Who are the men who tell us what we should do? The first a Presbyterian from Belfast, then a doctor from Galway who tells us he spent sixty years in England and then a kind of migratory Micawber named Mr O’Malley, plying between Athlone and London. A Presbyterian minister, probably an army doctor in England and the other tramp politician, are these the men we would apply to, to ask what would be suitable for a Mayo library?

  ‘I hold nothing has occurred since that we need to be ashamed of. Mayo always held its own and it will hold its own now,’ he asserted, to cheers and cries of ‘Up Mayo!’ and ‘O’Donnell Abu!’ from the gallery, which seemed to surprise the speaker.

  ‘Mayo made a stand against tyranny in the past and it will stand against tyranny now,’ he concluded.

  Councillor Duffy complained that the chairman wasn’t keeping to standing orders. ‘It is all Castlebar as usual,’ he said.

  ‘Look here,’ Councillor Morahan responded, ‘you mention Castlebar again and I for one man will fire you outside the door.’

  There were great cheers in the gallery and cries of ‘Good man, Johnny.’

  Councillor O’Donnell continued, ‘I would appeal to the council to be unanimous for the sake of what we stand for in Mayo. I would say to those who come to lecture us, whether The Irish Times or the individuals, I object to Trinity College not because it is Protestant but because it is un-Irish. It is anti-Irish and anti-Catholic, if you will. Every day don’t we see where it flies the flag of that other country in our eyes? Are we going to be pro-Britons and submit to them? Are we going to be browbeaten into allegiance to the Trinity way or that of The Irish Times?’

  Councillor O’Donnell concluded by asking the council not to rescind their previous order, because if they did they would be met with nothing but contempt.

  Councillor Morahan was next to speak, and he delivered a well-prepared speech: