Win a copy of 'Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry's Political Dynasties'

I’m putting up a copy of my book, ‘Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry’s Political Dynasties’ for a very quick and easy competition. If you would like to win a copy of the book for yourself or to get a copy as a ‘stocking filler’ for someone for Christmas, just answer the following question:

Name the first woman ever elected to the Dáil for the Kerry North constituency.

The fifth correct e-mail to politicsinkerry@gmail.com will be the winner and I will arrange to have the book sent to you. In the meantime, you can enjoy a couple of extracts from the book below.

‘One of the most tightly-written and informative books on Irish politics to appear in some time. This is high-quality political analysis and, in an era when it is being rapidly overhauled, a book invaluable for those who want to know what makes the Irish political system tick.' (Politico.ie)

Note: The competition has been won by Alan Kinsella from Dublin, who runs the excellent online resource that is http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/

Keeping it in the family - the McEllistrims of Ballymacelligott

This is another short extract from my book on Kerry's political dynasties dealing with the McEllistrim family of Ballymacelligott, which has sent successive generations to Leinster House. The most recent deputy, who lost his seat at the 2011 election, Thomas McEllistrim is already canvassing across the new Kerry five-seater to seek to regain his Dáil seat, one which his family has held, bar a short period, since the 1920s.

In the rear foyer of Leinster House as you exit the building onto Leinster Lawn and Merrion Street, it is difficult not to notice a large framed photograph of the address by US President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy to the Houses of the Oireachtas which took place on 28 June 1963. The panoramic image of the Dáil chamber shows TDs and Senators packed into their seats for the historic speech, the first of any US president in an Irish parliament. Very helpfully, a detailed key or index to the picture identifies each and every one of the parliamentarians in attendance. On the government backbenches can be seen two of the founding fathers of two of the most enduring political dynasties in Irish politics. Thomas McEllistrim, the then Fianna Fail TD for Kerry North, father and grandfather of Dáil members of the same name is seated right beside Phelim Calleary, the then Fianna Fail TD for Mayo North. Calleary was also followed by his son and grandson in Dáil Éireann – Sean Calleary, his son, was the TD for Mayo East from 1973 to 1992 while Dara Calleary, Sean’s son, was first elected in 2007 and is currently a Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation. The second generations of both dynasties, Thomas McEllistrim Jnr TD and Sean Calleary TD also sat together in the Dáil for the address by President Ronald Reagan on 4 June 1984. “So I suppose if Barack Obama ever comes to talk to us, I will have to sit beside Dara Calleary to continue the tradition,” jokes Thomas McEllistrim, the most recent Fianna Fáil incumbent in Kerry North.

The three generations of the
McEllistrim dynasty with FF leader
Jack Lynch in the 1970s.

The McEllistrim dynasty is remarkable for its enduring longevity in local and national politics and is by far the oldest political dynasty in County Kerry in the post-Independence period. In it can be seen all the hallmarks of dynastic politics, the battles for local political dominance, ensuring the succession from one generation to the next – in effect, the McEllistrims provide a template for the standard successful political dynasty in Ireland. The McEllistrim family has been represented in the Dáil almost continuously since Independence, save for a ten year period towards the end of the twentieth century. Four generations of the McEllistrims have served in either local or national politics right up the present today with Tom McEllistrim the sitting Fianna Fáil TD for Kerry North and his sister Anne, a councillor for the Tralee Electoral Area, representing the current generation of the family.

The McEllistrim’s presence on local authorities can be traced back to the early 1890s when Thomas McEllistrim of Ballymacelligott was first elected to the Rural District Council. So omnipotent in Kerry politics is the name Thomas McEllistrim, that the politicians who have borne that name have been known locally as ‘Tommy Mc’. Other than the multi-generational service given by three William (or Liam) Cosgraves in Fine Gael, the McEllistrims are the only other political dynasty in Ireland to include three successive generations who have served in Leinster House and who have borne the same first and second names.[i] Over the course of three generations however, the Cosgraves represented a number of different constituencies, while in Donegal three generations of the Blaney dynasty have borne the name Neil or Niall, but they did not always serve as Fianna Fáil TDs.[ii] The McEllistrims therefore are the only family in Irish political history with three generations bearing exactly the same name to have represented the same constituency for the same political party.

Even prior to the election of the first Deputy Thomas McEllistrim in the early 1920s, the family already had a presence in local politics in Kerry. His father, also Thomas, was elected to the Board of Guardians in 1895, the local committee which oversaw the administration of poor law in Ireland and the local workhouses. Though they were only elected on a suffrage limited to powerful property-owners, the Boards of Guardians were the first representative form of local government in Ireland.[iii] Established in 1834 and only abolished in 1930, the Guardians were elected by rate-payers in each civil parish to supervise the workhouses, to collect the Poor Rate and to send reports to the Central Poor Law Commission similar to the system in England. Among McEllistrim’s duties for example, would have being looking after the running of the workhouse in Tralee.[iv] At the time of his death in 1914, the Kerry Reporter referred to McEllistrim (or McEllistrum as was sometimes used at the time) as a “consistent friend to the poor”. He represented Arabella, a townland in Ballymacelligott, the newspaper outlined, “in the old Tralee Board of Guardians and in the Rural District Council for the past 25 years being one of the oldest members of that body.”[v]

The McEllistrim family is steeped in local Republican and Fianna Fáil history. The first Thomas McEllistrim in the Dáil was born in 1894, the seventh child of eleven. He came from the old IRA tradition and he was immersed in the struggle for independence and the subsequent Civil War in the early part of the twentieth century. His obituary in The Kerryman in 1973 described him as “one of the most active IRA leaders during the War of Independence.”[vi] Active in the Irish Volunteers from 1914, McEllistrim was imprisoned for a time in a number of prisons in England and Wales for his involvement in the 1916 Rising.

Thomas McEllistrim III

His ‘flying column’ fought at many of the infamous clashes with the British forces during that time, and he was joint officer in charge at the Headford Ambush of 1921 in East Kerry, where he fought alongside future Kerry TDs, Frederick Hugh Crowley and Johnny Connor. In the view of T. Ryle Dwyer, McEllistrim played as important a role in Kerry during the War of Independence as Dan Breen or Tom Barry, even though throughout his many decades in parliament, he never spoke publically about his exploits. He and the likes of Johnny Connor, who later went on to become a Clann na Poblachta TD, felt the war period was “best left to history”.[vii] In the aftermath of the Civil War, in which he took the anti-Treaty side, McEllistrim was elected as a Republican TD for Kerry in 1923, having served on the local Rural District Council, the pre-cursor of the county council. He did not take his Dáil seat until 1927 however when he sat for the new party, Fianna Fáil.

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[i]  William T. Cosgrave (Cumann na nGaedheal) was President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1932 and served as a TD from 1919 to 1944. His son, Liam Cosgrave (Fine Gael) was Taoiseach from 1973 to 1977 and was a Dáil deputy from 1944 to 1981. His son, Liam Cosgrave (Fine Gael) served as a TD from 1981 to 1987 and was a Senator from 1987 to 2002. The Cosgraves have not been represented in the Oireachtas since 2002.

[ii]  The Blaney family of Donegal has had three generations, including the current TD, Niall Blaney who served in the Dáil but not always for Fianna Fáil. Niall is the son of Harry Blaney who was a TD for Donegal North East from 1997 to 2002 and he is a nephew of Neil T Blaney, the former Fianna Fáil Government Minister, TD and founder of Independent Fianna Fáil whom he represented as both a TD and an MEP. Niall’s grand-father, also Neil, represented  Donegal in the Dáil from June 1927 until his death in 1948. For all bar a short period from November 1995, when Neil T Blaney died, to June 1997 a member of the Blaney family has been represented in the Oireachtas since 1927. The current TD was first elected as an Independent Fianna Fáil TD for Donegal North East in 2002. He joined Fianna Fáil on July 26, 2006, ending a 35-year split between his family and their supporters and Fianna Fáil, after the organisation voted unanimously to rejoin Fianna Fáil. Niall was re-elected as a Fianna Fáil TD in 2007.

[iii] See Weeks and Quinlivan, p. 14-15 and Haslam in Callanan and Keogan, p. 22.

[iv] For more on the Boards of Guardians in Kerry and elsewhere, see O’Connor, John, The Workhouses of Ireland, (Anvil Books, 1995) and Weeks, Liam and Aodh Quinlivan, All Politics is Local, A Guide to Local Elections in Ireland, (The Collins Press, 2009).

[v] The Kerry Reporter, November 1914

[vi] The Kerryman, 7 December 1973.

[vii] Ryle Dwyer, T., Tans, Terror and Troubles – Kerry’s Real Fighting Story (Mercier Press, 2001), p, 10-11. In fact, McEllistrim wasn’t a very frequent contributor in Dáil debates on any subject and was considered to be “no speechmaker and never made pretensions of being one.” (The Kerryman, 7 December 1973)

'When the well runs dry' - extract from 'Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry's Political Dynasties' by Owen O'Shea

This is the first of a number of extracts from my book, 'Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry's Political Dynasties' (O'Brien Press, 2011) which I hope to publish here over the coming weeks. Hope you enjoy the read (and buy the book as a result!). This is from a chapter entitled 'When the well runs dry':


Michael Moynihan

Not every political dynasty has the required new generation to turn to when its last serving member dies, resigns or loses their seat at the hands of the electorate. This was very much the case when Labour’s Breeda Moynihan Cronin failed to defend her Kerry South seat at the 2007 general election against a resurgent Fine Gael and their successful candidate Tom Sheahan. No obvious successor from within her family had emerged when almost two years earlier, she had announced that she would step down at the election on health grounds. Having served in the Dáil since 1992, following her father Michael Moynihan, who was the first ever Labour TD in Kerry South, the announcement of early retirement signalled the end of the Moynihan dynasty and prompted an internal crisis in the Labour Party organisation. Moynihan Cronin was the first woman elected for Labour in Kerry and only the second woman ever elected in the Kerry South constituency after Honor Mary Crowley of Fianna Fáil.

She had maintained an unbroken term in the Dáil since 1992, continuing in the footsteps of her father who had contested the first of his seven elections in 1954 and was first elected in 1981. Her election in 1992 prompted the Sunday Tribune to comment that ‘the great tradition of Irish political dynasties has fresh initiation rites with the daughter of the retiring Labour TD Michael Moynihan holding his seat.’[i] Moynihan Cronin was one of the many female Labour TDs that swept into office on the so-called ‘Spring Tide’ of 1992 but was one of the few of that group to maintain a presence in the Dáil beyond one term unlike ministers such as Niamh Bhreathnach and Eithne Fitzgerald. The failure of Fine Gael to make a break-through in Kerry South since former junior minister, Michael Begley lost his seat in 1989 was also a factor in allowing Moynihan Cronin to remain the sole Opposition deputy in the constituency for much of her Dáil career.[ii]

In October 2005, Moynihan Cronin informed a shocked meeting of her party members in Killarney that her health would not allow her to put her name forward as a candidate at the next general election. Even in her early years in the Dáil after 1992, she had battled with ill health but had managed to maintain a sufficient presence and work-rate to hold on in 1997. This time, it was different however – she was leaving politics for good. The declaration was a body blow to the party in Kerry South, which had failed to win any County Council seat in the constituency at the local elections of the previous year. Trade union official and party chairman in Kerry South, Andrew McCarthy, who had been co-opted to replace Moynihan Cronin when the dual mandate was abolished in 2003 had been defeated at the 2004 poll by Tom Sheahan, who went on to win Fine Gael’s first Dáil seat in the constituency in eighteen years.

Moreover, with no other member of the Moynihan dynasty offering to step into the breach, and with Moynihan Cronin having no children herself, the fear in Labour circles was that somebody from outside the family would not hold sufficient sway with the electorate. Andrew McCarthy admits that the initial ambition was to seek out another family member with two of the TD’s brothers, Maurice and Michael in the frame but it wasn’t quite as simple as that: ‘Maurice was talked of as a possible nominee but he was outside the constituency. Michael was the only other one living in the constituency but he didn’t seem interested.’

Breeda Moynihan Cronin

The absence of a Moynihan candidate presented a challenge for Labour that many party organisations struggle to deal with in such situations – what to do when the dynastic well runs dry. In the same way as parties turn to another family member when a dynasty seems in jeopardy at by-elections, frantic efforts were made to coax one of the TD’s four siblings to enter the fray but to no avail. The crisis saw the party consider a number of celebrity-type candidates, most notably the All-Ireland winning Kerry footballer, Seamus Moynihan, (no relation) who expressed no interest in a life in politics at meetings with the then Labour Leader, Pat Rabbitte. None of the candidates who had contested the previous local elections were considered strong enough outside of their own electoral areas to have constituency-wide appeal.

Ultimately, the party was left with little option but to extend the olive branch to its old nemesis and former councillor, Michael Gleeson, who had departed Labour in acrimony fifteen years previously. Some Labour activists were of the view that as a sitting councillor on the left of politics, Gleeson represented the best prospect for electoral success. He had managed to comfortably retain a seat on Killarney Town Council and Kerry County Council since the split with Labour. It was also argued that with Moynihan Cronin off the political pitch it represented a golden opportunity to heal the rift that had damaged Labour in the early 1990s and to bring back into the fold some of the best political strategists that had followed Gleeson out of the party. ‘The reality is that, as it stands, Labour has nobody else capable of winning a seat. We know it and Gleeson knows it,’ a party source told The Kingdom at the time.[iii] Not only was an approach to Gleeson proposed, a formal merger of Labour with his South Kerry Independent Alliance was also actively canvassed, a move that attracted ‘no dissenting voice’ at the annual general meeting of Labour in Kerry South in March 2006.[iv] Gleeson courteously but firmly rejected being courted by his former colleagues however and discussions with Pat Rabbitte failed to persuade him to change his mind. Many believe that it was Gleeson’s organisation, many of whose members remained hostile to Labour locally that prevented Gleeson from taking the plunge.

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[i] Sunday Tribune, 29 November 1992.

[ii] Michael Begley from Dingle was a Fine Gael TD for Kerry South from 1969 to 1989. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government from 1973 to 1975 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance from 1975 to 1977. A long-serving member of Kerry County Council, Begley had unsuccessfully contested the 1965 general election and the 1966 by-election in Kerry South.

[iii] The Kingdom,30 March 2006.

[iv] The Kingdom, 6 April 2006.

Kerry's forgotten Minister for Education and his legacy

Many political figures of interest from the past are forgotten with the passage of time and one of the objectives of this blog is to ensure that significant politicians from the past, from Kerry at least, are remembered for what they achieved in their own political era.

John Marcus O'Sullivan
Minister for Education
1926 - 1932

One such person, who I came to learn more about during research for my book on Kerry’s political dynasties, is Dr. John Marcus O’Sullivan, who was an innovative Minister for Education in the 1920s and 1930s and whose political and educational legacy has been largely forgotten. O’Sullivan was a Cumann na nGaedheal/Fine Gael TD for Kerry North for many years and he is largely responsible for the vocational education system we have in Ireland today.

Though a native of Killarney in Kerry South, where he was born in 1881, O’Sullivan served as a TD for Kerry North between 1923 and 1943. Before he entered politics however, O’Sullivan had built up an illustrious career in academia. He entered University College Dublin in 1898 and won a philosophyscholarship to Bonn and Heidelberg Universities, being awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1908. He continued to excel in academia thereafter.

Dr. O’Sullivan returned to his old alma mater in UCD and was appointed Professor of History in 1910, a post he held until his death. He published numerous dissertations on philosophy and history and was widely regarded internationally as an expert in both fields.

Within a year of his election to the Dáil in 1923 as a Cumann na nGaedheal representative, O’Sullivan was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, the first ever holder of that office. Two years later, W.T. Cosgrave appointed his as Minister for Education, making him the second Kerry person to serve in the Executive Council of the Irish Free State.* O'Sullivan succeeded Eoin Mac Neill in the department. In Education, his most significant political achievement was the passage of the Vocational Education Act of 1930. O’Sullivan lost his Dáil seat at the 1943 general election and died five years later. The archives at University College Dublin hold a large collection of his personal and academic papers. Every year, the annual John Marcus O’Sullivan Summer School, supported by the County Kerry V.E.C., celebrates his contribution to vocational education in Ireland. * (Fionán Lynch, a Kerry South TD had served in the first Executive Council as Minister for Fisheries in 1922)

Gathering the politicians with Irish roots

A very good suggestion emanated from Kenmare senator, Mark Daly and several colleagues this week when they suggested that the 2013 Gathering celebration be used to bring politicians in other countries who have Irish connections or roots here on a trip to Ireland next year. Consider the impact of  the visits of all the US presidents with Irish links here over the years, not least those of JFK, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

There could hardly be a better way to promote Ireland and sell the message that we are open for business and trying to recover our economic sovereignty by gathering foreign political leaders who have ancestors or family links in Ireland to a meeting with our own leaders as part of the Gathering. And there are plenty of such politicians overseas, one of which I would like to mention here.

The McEllistrim dynasty from Ballymacelligott near Tralee is one of the longest-established and most successful political dynasties in Ireland, returning not only three successive generations to Dáil Eireann but also electing numerous local authority members since the 1890s.

Rep. Eugene L. O'Flaherty

One of their number – a first cousin of the former TD, Thomas McEllistrim and nephew of the former junior minister of the same name, would be well entitled to an invitation to the type of event Senator Daly and others have in mind for The Gathering. Eugene L. O’Flaherty (pictured) is a member of the Boston House of Representatives, as a member for the Second Suffolk Representative District of Massachusetts. As a youngster, he cut his political teeth in the general election campaigns of his uncle in Kerry North in the 1970s and later with his cousing in the 1990s.

O’Flaherty’s maternal grandfather, Johnny Morgan from Dublin spent time in jail after the 1916 Rising with Thomas McEllistrim Snr, a veteran of the War of Independence and the founder of the McEllistrim dynasty. O’Flaherty was kind enough to co-operate with the writing of my book on Kerry’s political dynasties last year and in Heirs to the Kingdom, he tells how his experiences of election campaigns in Kerry decades ago whetted his own political appetite.

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Kerry's political dynasties: an ever-tightening grip on political power

Thanks to those who attended my recent talk in Listowel on Kerry’s political dynasties, a lecture inspired by research for my book Heirs to the Kingdom: Kerry’s Political Dynasties (O’Brien Press, 2011). For anyone looking for more information on some of the figures mentioned here and there on this blog and some analysis of the dynastic phenomenon in Irish politics, the following is the blurb from the book which can be purchased through www.obrien.ie:

‘The political dynasty is as well-established tradition in Ireland, but most particularly in Kerry, where nearly all politicians can trace their political lineage back several generations - with some unbroken representation extending back to the foundation of the state! O’Shea explores the grip on power these families have held for many years, and how they exclude new entrants to the political system; the pressures on family members to continue the traditions of their forefathers; the intense local rivalries and the impact of these families on the national political scene. Politics does not get any fiercer than in Kerry, and this original and well-researched book throws a light on how Irish public representatives get and keep hold of power and influence.’

The following review of the book appeared on the www.politico.ie website:

“Owen O'Shea has had an ear to the ground in Kerry politics for many years. A former Labour Party press officer and columnist with the Kerry’s Eye newspaper, his familiarity with the county's political intrigues, power games and scandals is impressive. This is high-quality political analysis and, in an era when it is being rapidly overhauled, a book invaluable for those who want to know what makes the Irish political system tick.”

You can read the full review here:

http://politico.ie/social-issues/books/7341-keeping-politics-personal.html

Have you got any canvassing literature from Kerry candidates from elections past?

 
Election literature - which finds its way in most houses from the letterbox to the dustbin - remains a fascinating exposition of some of the great election campaigns of the past. As the years go by, they can be a niggling embarrassment to a sitting TD or a nostalgic reminder of the great characters and statesmen and women and wannabe politicians who have represented their constituents in our national and local assemblies.

I am in the process of compiling (from my own collections and others) a portfolio of election leaflets from Kerry candidates over the years. I already have a pretty reasonable collection of items from recent general and local elections but little from the previous decades. A real gem from the very historic 1956 by-election featuring the then Fianna Fáil candidate Dan Moloney is pictured here (with thanks to his grandson, Cllr Jimmy Moloney).
 
If you have any election leaflets from any past election (and would be willing to have them scanned and returned), I would love to hear from you at politicsinkerry@gmail.com.
 
The Irish election literature website below has a wonderful collection of material from all over the country including from Kerry candidates from the past, which can be found here:

http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/tag/kerry/