Piaras Beaslaí - the only Kerry TD present for the first meeting of Dáil Éireann

One of the four MPs returned for Kerry at the 1918 general election, Percy Frederick Beasley or Piaras Beaslaí as he was better-known, was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1881 and fought in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and in the War of Independence.

His father, also Pierce, was a native of Kerry and was the editor of the Catholic Times newspaper in England. The family moved to Dublin in 1906 and Piaras worked as a journalist with many newspapers including the Irish Independent and the Freeman’s Journal. 

An acquaintance of Michael Collins, Beasley was active in the Gaelic League as well as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), serving in jail for a period in 1918. He is credited in some sources as having given the name ‘Oglaigh na hÉireann’ to the IRB.

 

Meeting of the First Dáil - 21 January 1919

Beaslaí was elected a Sinn Féin MP for East Kerry at the general election in 1918 and like his fellow party members decided not to take up his seat at Westminster, joining instead the first Dáil in January 1919. He was the only one of the four TDs representing Kerry to be present at its first sitting on 21 January; the other three – Austin Stack (West Kerry), James Crowley (North Kerry) and Fionán Lynch (South Kerry) – were all in prison at the time. 

Beasley was responsible for translating the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil into Irish and read it aloud at its first meeting in 1919.

Beaslaí was elected in 1921 for the newly formed constituency of Kerry-Limerick West and again in 1922 as a pro-Treaty candidate. He did not contest the 1923 election. He became a major general in the Free State Army and was Head of Press Censorship but he left the army in 1924. He is credited with having coined the phrase ‘Irregulars’ to describe those opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Beaslaí was also renowned as a poet, novelist and author. Among his publications was ‘Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland’ (two volumes, 1926) which is still available in print. National Archives files on Beasley suggest that he was mooted as a candidate for the presidency in 1945. The Archives acquired his papers after his death and total some 17,000 different documents.

Beasley continued to pursue a literary career and contributed columns to a number of national newspapers in the 1950s. He died on 21 June 1965 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in the same grave as Peadar Kearney and fellow Kerry man Thomas Ashe.