Finding aid databases

Newsclipping from the `Irish Independent', 1 August 1947, entitled `Act Repugnant to the Constitution'. `The Supreme Court yesterday, giving judgement in the Sinn Fein Funds case appeal, dismissed the appeal of the Attorney-General and allowed the members of the Sinn Fein organisation, who had brought the action which the Attorney-General sought to have dismissed, the costs. The Court … expressed the opinion in the course of the judgement that the Sinn Fein Funds Act, 1947, was repugnant to the Constitution "as being an unwarrantable interference by the Oireachtas with the operations of the Courts in a purely judicial domain"' The article includes a photograph of Mrs M Buckley, one of the plaintiffs in the action.

s 12110C

Newsclipping

politics

Extract from the `Irish Press', 24 March 1948, `Sinn Fein Funds Case'. The Senior Counsel for the claimants, Mr Casey, read documents which he claimed showed the continuity of the Sinn Fein organisation. For example, he reports de Valera as saying to Eamonn Donnelly on 25 October 1922: `Dr. Lynn should enquire by what authority the offices were closed, and insist that they be kept open. She should insist also that the funds and any property be transferred to me in accordance with the Standing Committee decision last January, which, in the circumstances, is not rescindable until the Ard-Fheis meets and decides what should be done'.

s 12110D/1

Extract

politics

Newsclipping from the `Irish Press', 16 April 1948, `Evidence Begins in Sinn Fein Funds Action'. The first witness called was Dr Kathleen Lynn. She `said that she became associated with the National movement as a member of the Irish Citizen Army before 1916, and that she took part in the Rising. She said that she first became a member of Sinn Fein when that body was reorganised in 1917. As far as she could recollect, she was at a Sinn Fein Ard-Fheis in 1917. She was appointed a member of the standing committee, but she could not remember whether that committee was appointed at that Ard-Fheis. She was a member of the standing committee almost from the beginning, and she attended various meetings of the standing committee from that time onwards.

s 12110D/1

Newsclipping

politics

Extract from the `Irish Press', 17 April 1948, `Evidence in Funds Case'. The extract gives details of the evidence of Dr Kathleen Lynn, continued from the previous day. Details of her cross-examination are given. For example, in `cross-examination by Mr. R. McLoughlin, S.C., for the Attorney General, Dr. Lynn said that she became a Vice-President of Sinn Fein in 1921. She agreed that from 1917 up to 1921 Sinn Fein grew into a nationwide national organisation, and that it was exceedingly powerful politically'.

s 12110D/2

Extract

politics

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