An Phoblacht/Republican News  ·  Thursday November 30 1995

He endured the most

Enduring the Most - The Life and Death of Terence MacSwiney
By Francis J Costello.
Published by Brandon.
Price £19.99 (hardback).

One image will make this book memorable for me. It is Terence MacSwiney's family blocking the doors of a railway carriage and being dragged away by British police as they tried to stop the hijacking of their loved-one's remains.

No one who witnessed the RUC's attacks on republican funerals in the 1980s could fail to be moved by the striking similarity. Of course the parallels between this hunger striker of the 1920s and those of our own time do not end there. The long chapter entitled `Diary of a Hunger Strike' brings to mind all the descriptions of the agonising last days of the H-Block hunger strikers. The growing world interest in MacSwiney's plight as his protest wore on and the international condemnation of Britain's intransigence was to be repeated in the case of Bobby Sands, the second abstentionist member of the Westminster parliament to die on hunger strike.

Author Francis J. Costello says of MacSwiney's death that ``no single event up to that time had served to greater effect to draw international attention to the Irish independence struggle''. The force of political circumstances, his own determination, and the high policy of the British government placed MacSwiney at the epicentre of the Anglo-Irish conflict in 1920. His key role in Cork city as IRA leader, Sinn Féin TD, Lord Mayor and organiser of republican courts made his arrest inevitable. His hunger-strike gave him a new importance in the eyes of the British government; in his case they chose to destroy the hunger-strike as a republican weapon by refusing to give in as they had during previous protests.

The British stuck it out in the face of widespread opposition, especially, to their surprise, in England itself. Even King George V urged mercy. But what was at stake was in Lloyd George's words ``the supreme interests of the British Empire''. We are still all too familiar with how ruthless they are in pursuit of those interests.

Francis J. Costello has produced a comprehensive yet concise biography of MacSwiney. A deep thinker, aspiring poet and playwright, promoter of Irish education and commerce, Irish language enthusiast, an intellectual, his death was a moral victory but also a real loss to the Irish struggle. The author had the co-operation of Terence's daughter Máire MacSwiney Brugha and access to the MacSwiney papers, making this the definitive account of a remarkable life and tragic death.

If you have a good friend interested in Irish history this book, finely illustrated and well laid out, will make a great seasonal gift.

BY MICHEAL Mac DONNCHA