Finding aid databases

Extract from the `Irish Press', 23 April 1948, `Typist's Evidence. Efforts to Reorganise Sinn Fein'. Miss Vera McDonnell, who had been a typist at Sinn Fein Headquarters over an extended period `said that there had been various raids on the office in 1922, and when she took up work again in 1923 she could not say whether or not the cards in the filing cabinet were intact, but notice of the 1923 Ard Fheis was sent to every affiliated club'. She is questioned as to whether the `Sinn Fein Reorganisation Committee was not endeavouring to revive an existing organisation, but to build up a new organisation with the name of the old…'

s 12110D/1

Extract

politics

Newsclipping from the `Irish Press', 12 May 1948, `Claimant's Evidence in Sinn Fein Funds Case'. The article gives details of the evidence of Mrs Margaret Buckley, President, Sinn Fein. `Answering Mr. Charles Casey, S.C., for the claimants, Mrs Buckley said that she first became interested in the freedom of Ireland movement as a girl, when she was a member of the Celtic Literary Society in Cork and President of Inginidh [sic] na h-Éireann, the forerunner of Cumann na mBan, which was founded in Cork in 1904 by Madam Maud Gonne MacBride. After the death of Willie Rooney, his great friend, Arthur Griffith, started to build Sinn Fein on the foundation of the Celtic Literary Society. In that capacity Arthur Griffith sent literature to Cork including the pamphlet "Resurrection of Hungary: Parallel for Ireland". Most of us, said Mrs Buckley, were brought up in the Fenian ways and we at once rejected it as being definitely not separatist. Cork Republicans joined Sinn Fein after 1917 when it became Republican. Mrs Buckley said that she joined the Michael O'Hanrahan Cumann, Phibsboro', Dublin'. She mentions her arrest in January 1923 and that she kept a jail journal of her time in prison between January and October 1923. Questioned by Mr R McLoughlin, Senior Counsel for the Attorney General `Mrs Buckley said that she could not recognise at all that there had been any lapse between 1922 and 1923 in the Sinn Fein movement'.

s 12110D/1

Newsclipping

Newsclipping from the `Irish Press', 13 May 1948, `Funds Case - 21st Day. To Ask For Direction'. The article deals with the evidence of Mrs Buckley, President, Sinn Fein. For example: `Questioned, as to discussions at meetings of the Standing Committee leading up to the decision to claim the funds in Courts, Mrs Buckley said that they had not claimed them for 25 years and "only for the exceptional circumstances which were forced on us, we would not do so now. I would like to say this," she said, "that the money in this case is not of prime importance to us. Establishing the continuity of our organisation comes first with us, not the money. We do not care about it"'.

s 12110D/1

Newsclipping

politics

Newsclipping from the `Irish Independent', 27 October 1948, `Judge Refuses Claim to Sinn Fein Funds'. The article states that the claim of Mrs Margaret Buckley, President, and other members of Sinn Fein to the funds of the Sinn Fein organisation lodged in the Courts by Jennie Wyse Power and Eamonn Duggan was dismissed. The reasons for this judgement are laid out in the article and a summary of the history of Sinn Fein from its inception is given, with the names of those prominently involved. For example, at the last meeting of Sinn Fein before the attack on the Four Courts on 1 June 1922, out of the Sinn Fein Board only Dr Lynn and the two Treasurers, Mrs Power and Eamonn Duggan were available for the work of Sinn Fein.

s 12110D/1

Newsclipping

politics

Letter to Costello from Mrs Kathleen Clarke, 5 November 1948. She wishes to put before him a suggestion relating to the disposal of the Sinn Fein Funds. She asks him to set aside as much of the funds which when added to the existing Wolfe Tone Memorial Fund would enable them to erect a suitable memorial. She writes that the funds were subscribed `during a period in which working on Tone's ideal we were fighting to establish & hold our Republic'.

s 12110D/1

Letter

Copy letter to Mrs Kathleen Clarke from John A Costello, 6 November 1948. He writes that he will put her views before his colleagues at an early date.

s 12110D/1

Letter

Judgement of the Honourable Mr Justice Kingsmill Moore delivered on the 28 October 1948 in the case of Margaret Buckley versus the Attorney General and Charles Wyse Power. The judgement details the history of Sinn Fein in an attempt to establish whether there was `only one organisation of unbroken continuity'. Mention is made of prominent people involved in the organisation at various stages, for example, Dr Lynn and Mrs Wyse Power.

s 12110D/1

Judgement

Typescript extract from `The Irish Reports', 1950. `Margaret Buckley, Seamus Mitchell, Seamus O'Neill, Padraig Power, Mairead McElroy, Seamus Russell, Diarmuid Og O Laoghaire, Sean Poole, Joseph H Fowler and Sean Ua Ceallaigh, on behalf of themselves and all other members of the Sinn Fein Organisation established in the Year, 1905, v. The Attorney General of Eire and Charles Stewart Power, Defendants'. This deals with the case of the disposal of the Sinn Fein funds.

s 14103/Annex II

Extracts

politics

Copy letter to Miss Anne Reynolds, 45 Wellington Road, Ballsbridge, from KOC [Kathleen O Connell], Personal Secretary to the Taoiseach, 13 March 1947. The Taoiseach `desires me to inform you that if the scheme outlined in the Sinn Fein Funds Bill at present before the Dáilis accepted by the Oireachtas he will be glad to recommend your case for consideration by the Board which it is proposed to established on the Bill becoming law'.

s 15838

Letter

Newsclipping from the 'Irish Independent', 22 November 1948, containing an article entitled 'Republic exists says speaker'. The article refers to Mrs M Buckley's presidential address to the annual Ard Fheis of Sinn Fein. 'There has been a lot of talk recently about declaring the Republic, but were their memories so short that they had forgotten that the Republic was proclaimed in blood in 1916'. She also comments on the Sinn Fein funds case. 'Mrs Buckley said that they had decided to contest the case not so much to gain possession of the Funds as to answer the challenge to their status as the lineal descendant of the Sinn Fein organisation founded in 1905'.

s 13243C

newsclipping

politics; partition; political fund-raising