The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian

by Pat Walsh

  Professor Williams’ role as chair of education was approved by the senate of NUI by twenty-three votes to seven. This was in spite of the National University Convocation urging his rejection by one hundred and one votes to ninety-four.12 The other members of the selection board all had distinguished careers in the area of librarianship.

  ‘The war of brains’

  In 1930 Richard Hayes was an assistant librarian with the National Library. By the end of the decade he had become its director. During the Second World War he was recruited by the Irish army’s head of intelligence, Colonel Bryan, to act as an interrogator and code breaker. Hayes was a War of Independence veteran who was both a self-taught codes and ciphers expert and a distinguished linguist.

  According to one historian of the period, his code-breaking ‘achievements during the Emergency have frequently been distorted, yet the documentary evidence indicates that in real terms they have not been exaggerated.’13 In fact the British came to realize that Richard Hayes was so exceptionally able as a cryptographer that he had, in fact broken their code messages from London. Of Hayes’ code-breaking skills it was said by Cecil Liddell, the British head of MI5’s Irish section that ‘his gifts in this direction amounted almost to genius.’ As Hayes himself asserted, in the ‘unseen war of brains between the cipher makers and cipher breakers … the cipher breakers won.’14

  Hayes worked in the National Library in the mornings, then got on his bicycle and rode up to Collins Barracks where he collected the night’s harvest of messages and decoded them. He was assisted by three army lieutenants who had no special knowledge of cryptography. Hayes was also involved in the interrogation of any German spies captured during the course of the Emergency.

  Despite Ireland’s so-called neutrality, there was a great deal of co-operation with their British counterparts. As Liddell put it ‘there was no doubt that this co-ordination was largely due to Colonel Bryan’s enthusiasm as an intelligence officer and to Dr Hayes’ cryptographic zeal. It is very doubtful if his military superiors agreed to the passing of the ciphers to the British and certainly his political superiors would not have done so.’

  ‘An inconspicuous librarian’

  Tom Gay, the Capel Street librarian, had been a member of the Irish Republican Army and was reportedly a key figure in Michael

  Collins’ extensive intelligence network during the War of Independence. Four Dublin Castle officials had been recruited by Michael Collins: Ned Broy, James MacNamara, Joe Kavanagh and David Neligan. ‘During their weekly debriefings, these agents passed valuable information at a Dublin safehouse owned by Tom Gay, an inconspicuous librarian.’15 As David Neligan himself put it in his autobiography, ‘Broy, McNamara and myself used to meet Collins once a week in the house of Tommy Gay, 8 Haddon Road, Clontarf … The three of us G-men travelled separately on trams to Gay’s house. Collins generally cycled on an ancient machine.’16 Not only was Tom Gay’s house used as a meeting point but so was his place of employment, Capel Street Library, which was conveniently close, just across the river from Dublin Castle.17

  ‘A bookworm openly’

  David Neligan described Tom Gay as ‘a tiny Dublin man, with bronchial trouble which made his life a burden … he led a double life, a bookworm openly and also, secretly, a confidential courier for Collins. He was so unobtrusive that neither the library nor his home came under suspicion. I often left urgent messages in the library and one could be sure of their prompt and safe delivery. As I pushed my way through a lot of down-and-outs who frequented the reading-room it used to strike me that the place would be the last to be suspected by the British and I was right.’18

  This inconspicuous librarian was also a committed trade unionist. He was a member of the Irish Local Government Officers’ Trade Union (which later became the Irish Local Government Officials’ Union). Tom Gay served on the union’s national executive, as well as acting as chairman of its Dublin corporation branch. So prominent was he in the ILGOTU that he was elected as its honorary president on 12 June 1927 at City Hall, Cork.19

  Tom Gay was considered ‘a polished and fluent speaker … [who] was frequently sought to support often forlorn causes and rarely failed to turn up and give his earnest and sincere support. He possessed an extraordinary energy and unselfishly devoted prolonged periods to intensive efforts.’20

  Mr Gay left the library service during the Emergency to act as Director of Air Raid Precautions (ARP) for Dublin. He subsequently worked as private secretary for the Dublin city manager. Mr Gay seems to have been a bundle of energy. He was also involved with the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association and was one of the founders of the Camogie League. He must have been a busy man at the turn of the decade because he was also heavily concerned with the newly formed professional body representing librarianship in Ireland, the Library Association of Ireland. He became chairman of the executive board of the LAI and was joint-editor of An Leabharlann, the organisation’s magazine.

  ‘The starling and the stork’

  Christina Keogh, who had also served on the selection board, was an influential member of the LAI. She acted as its honorary treasurer for twenty-two years and went on to become its first woman president in 1958. The Irish Central Library for Students was founded in 1923 and Miss Keogh was appointed librarian. ‘She was a small slender woman,’ Dermot Foley wrote of her in an article in An Leabharlann, ‘whose frail physique was incapable, one would have said, of absorbing the punishment inseparable from the offices she held. But Chrissy Keogh was made of tough material with a gift for amusement.’ 21

  Miss Keogh also worked with the Carnegie Trust in Ireland as librarian and technical adviser in association with the Trust’s organising librarian, that languid man of the theatre, Lennox Robinson. ‘To see them walk together along Merrion Square,’ commented Dermot Foley, ‘was something to remember, and I have cause to remember it, for, impertinent brat that I was, I addressed them as the starling and the stork. Instead of being mortally offended, this chirpy slip of a girl looked skywards at the melancholy height beside her and laughed outright.’22

  After Lennox Robinson’s enforced resignation in 1924, Miss Keogh continued her work with the Carnegie Trust without him. ‘We who have grown up with the county schemes,’ wrote Dermot Foley, ‘of which she was attendant nurse from the cradle of poverty in which they were born, must ever feel grateful that a dedicated officer was at the heart of the whole affair managed by her and Robinson for the Carnegie Trust.’23

  The situation was made difficult for the LAI in that Fr Stephen J. Brown, SJ, was also a member of the executive board. A writer of numerous guides to literature, Fr Brown was nevertheless an unabashed supporter of censorship. His Catholicism was paramount. ‘As for the rights of art and literature,’ he once said, ‘Neither has any rights against God.’24 His rationale was that ‘as we know in English-speaking countries, Ireland not excluded, Catholics have to live in a mental climate that is far from being Catholic. We must be inoculated against it; we must take measures so that the climatic conditions may not offset our spiritual health.’25

  Fr Brown was a lecturer in the School of Library Training, University College Dublin. He held strong views on the role of the librarian. In his book, Libraries and Literature from a Catholic Standpoint, he writes, ‘It is when one comes to realise the power and influence wielded, however unobtrusively and indirectly, by the librarian, that one becomes convinced of the importance to religion in its wider sense of the conscience that is behind that power and influence. Catholics claim no monopoly of conscientiousness, nor even of the Christian conscience, but they certainly have clearer principles to guide their conscience and usually a better training in these principles. I submit that Christianity and public morality have much to gain by the presence of Catholic librarians in public libraries across the world.’26

  Fr Brown was librarian of the Central Catholic Library where Miss Ellen Burke had been employed, and it was he who had suggested she write a letter to Dean D
’Alton, the infamous letter that was read out at the special meeting of Mayo County Council and that was subsequently published nationally.

  One might conjecture that Tom Gay and Christina Keogh felt precluded from drawing attention to the Mayo controversy at the executive-board level of the Library Association as they were interested parties, having sat on the selection board for the Appointments Commission. However, given the level of debate at national level, with libraries literally front-page news, the LAI could hardly avoid the issue either. In reality it was not quite so straightforward.

  The first stirring of debate at board level was at the Library Association’s meeting on 17 December 1930. A motion critical of the Local Appointments Commission and its recruitment procedures was tabled. It was quickly sidelined in favour of a compromise proposal. It was agreed to send a delegation from the LAI to meet with the LAC to discuss their concerns. The carefully chosen three-person deputation included both Tom Gay and Fr Brown.27 At the next executive meeting, on 16 January 1931, Tom Gay, in his capacity as joint-editor of An Leabharlann, submitted for the consideration of the board an article dealing with the Mayo dispute, which he suggested should appear as an editorial. However, John Roy proposed and was seconded by Fr Brown, ‘that without prejudice to the statements made in Mr Gay’s article, no reference whatever be made to the Mayo controversy in the next issue of An Leabharlann.’ The minutes of the meeting give no reason for their opposition nor were any details given of the ensuing debate but on a show of hands the resolution was passed by six votes for to three against.28

  Mr Gay’s editorial was blocked. He promptly tendered his resignation as joint-editor of the magazine. It was a delicately gauged reaction by Tom Gay. He stepped down as editor but he chose to remain on in the more important role of chairman of the executive board.

  The Library Association had been formed in 1928. Among its aims were to promote libraries in Ireland and ‘to promote whatever may tend to the improvement of the position or qualifications of librarians.’29 This makes it all the more remarkable that it took no public stance on the Mayo librarian case. Despite their silence on the Mayo issue the LAI saw fit to comment on what had happened in Leitrim. Again, at the instigation of Tom Gay, a motion expressing disquiet at what had transpired was passed at a meeting of the executive council on 23 January 1931. It viewed ‘with great concern the action of Leitrim County Council in rescinding at its meeting on 3 January, its earlier resolution to adopt the Public Libraries Act, and it earnestly hopes that the Leitrim County Council will, in order to promote the general welfare and cultural interests of the people of the county, reconsider its decision.’30 Tom Gay proposed this resolution and, according to the official minutes of the LAI, it was unanimously adopted. However, this was not the whole story. The Irish Independent gave a different slant to what had transpired. The paper reported that the original motion proposed had been amended at the meeting. Fr Stephen J. Brown, SJ, it was stated, had argued that the original motion was too specific and that they should make the resolution general, and it should be disassociated altogether from the Mayo business in case it would cause that dispute to spread.31 There were also fears that if Leitrim treated the resolution with disdain, as they were quite likely to, they might start a chain reaction that would spread to other councils.32 Presumably the fear was that other counties might decide to rescind their adoption of the Public Libraries Act and that all the advances in development of the public library system in Ireland would be undone.

  Equally prominent and influential in the early years of the Library Association, Fr Brown seems to have blocked any public reference to the Mayo state of affairs. Reading between the lines, it would appear that there was some dissension amongst the council of the LAI on what approach to take to the Miss Dunbar Harrison situation. Yet the council did not seem to have much of a problem taking a public stance on the admittedly less contentious Leitrim circumstance.

  The carefully chosen three-person deputation from the Library Association met with the Local Appointments Commissioners on 24 February 1931. Tom Gay reported back to the executive board. Nothing came of it. The LAI published no details of this meeting and there seems to have been no further discussion of the Mayo situation at board level.

  The Library Association’s report, dated October 1928–April 1929, had stated that, among other aims, the organisation was founded ‘to provide a pivot round which all library interests should revolve, a centre at which professional problems could be discussed and competently solved, and a vantage ground from which a sound and suitable policy would be advanced.’33 If the LAI discussed the Mayo controversy they did so only in private. It is one of the ironies of the situation that the chairman of the LAI executive board, Tom Gay, penned the above statement.

  A stalemate had developed within the Library Association so no clear stance could be taken. The most high-profile dispute involving libraries and librarianship passed by without the very organisation that represented professional librarians speaking out on it. One could argue that the Library Association had ducked its first big challenge, either from a lack of unity or a lack of nerve.

  Chapter 15

  1.NAI D/Taioseach S2547B.

  2.Ibid.

  3.Irish Independent, 9 December 1930, p.9.

  4.NAI D/Taioseach S2547B.

  5.Ibid.

  6.Irish Independent, 9 December 1930, p.9.

  7.Sheamus Smyth, Off Screen: A Memoir, p.205.

  8.Kevin Rockett, Irish Film Censorship, p.63.

  9.The Irish Times, 4 April 1925, p.6.

  10.Catholic Mind, vol. 1, no. 10, November 1930, p.273.

  11.Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-2001, p.189.

  12.Irish Independent, 12 March 1943, p.3.

  13.Eunan O’Halpin, Defending Ireland, p.187.

  14.Richard Hayes Papers, National Library, 22984 (6).

  15.Martin Hartline & M.M. Kaulbach, CIA Study: Michael Collins and Bloody Sunday, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v13i1a06p_0004.htm.

  16.David Neligan, The Spy in the Castle, pp.78-79.

  17.Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins, pp.76-78.

  18.David Neligan, op. cit., p.79.

  19.Martin Maguire, Servants to the Public: A History of the Local Government and Public Servants Union 1901-1990, p.276.

  20An Leabharlann, vol. 11, no. 1, March 1953, p.31.

  21. Dermot Foley, An Leabharlann, vol. 21, no. 3, September 1963, p.77.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Quoted by Paul Blanshard, The Irish and Catholic Power, pp.110-112.

  25. Stephen Brown, Libraries and Literature From a Catholic Standpoint, p.92.

  26. Ibid.

  27. LAI Minutes Book, 1928-1931, LAI Archives, Box 3.

  28. Ibid.

  29. An Leabharlann, vol. 1, no. 1, June 1930, pp.16-19.

  30. An Leabharlann, vol. 1, no. 4, March-May 1931, p.97.

  31. Irish Independent, 24 January 1931, p.4.

  32. Ibid.

  33. LAI, Report of the Executive Board Oct. 1928–Apr. 1929, p.5.

  Chapter 16

  ‘The brass-hat boyos’

  The Catholic Bulletin, never a journal to shy away from the possibility of a conspiracy theory, had strong views on the activities of the Local Appointments Commission and did not refrain from voicing them. ‘The commissioners,’ it wrote, ‘as is known, have a well-equipped office. One prominent personage therein, a Catholic, has openly taken his position. A son in Trinity College is a hostage to the new ascendancy … The unfortunate “board of selection” is really to be pitied. All these boards are known to be blinkered by the “brass-hat boyos” who first select them, then run them in blinkers and finally arrange “results” with chronic disregard of the recommendations of these truly pitiable “selection boards”.’1 The Catholic Bulletin was of the opinion that the ‘Free State is a happy hunting ground for pension or job-seeking masons.’2

>   Christina Keogh, James Montgomery, Tom Gay and the other members of the Local Appointments Commission’s selection board were, by any standards, respectable members of society and pillars of the community, serious and committed public and civil servants. It seems unlikely, given their background, that any accusations of partiality aimed at the interview board could hold true. This, of course, did not stop interested parties from making such allegations.

  The ironic effect of the attacks on the LAC, such as those by the Catholic Bulletin, was that it made the Cumann na nGaedheal government more determined than ever to defend not only Letitia Dunbar Harrison but also the LAC and all of its mechanisms. Cumann na nGaedheal had emphasised all along that the LAC was not an extension of the government but a stand-alone body. In its efforts to protect the LAC, the government went to extraordinary lengths and, in the process, compromised the very reputation for independence and confidentiality they had sought to protect.

  In a Dáil debate in 1928, Minister Ernest Blythe had outlined the guarantees of confidentiality that members of selection boards had been given. ‘Further, people who have acted in selection boards,’ he said, ‘have been given an assurance that their reports would be treated confidentially. They were given a guarantee in the following terms – All communications and information which the members of the board receive as such are to be regarded as strictly confidential and the commissioners will so regard any reports or information which a board forwards to them.’3