Laurence Ginnell : a Westmeath politician

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To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Laurence Ginnell we are sharing part of the Laurence Ginnell Commemorative Committee exhibition from 2016.

Laurence Ginnell : a Westmeath politician
Born in devastated post-Famine Delvin in late March/early April 1852 (baptised 9 April 1852), 'Larry' was a son of Laurence and Mary (née Monaghan, Archerstown). His father kept just over three acres of land at Clonabrack, where the annual rateable valuation was £1-13s, and struggled to eke out a living drawing meal between Delvin and Navan. At one stage, to keep the family in food, Laurence Snr was forced to sell the family's cow and jennet. Laurence Jnr's childhood was one affected by infant mortality (his younger sisters, Julia and Bridget), poverty, and the spectre of punitive house legal battles between his father and a larger tenant farmer.
From the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Larry Ginnell voiced strong opposition to the conflict and to the involvement of Ireland in the war. "ghastly tragedy on a gigantic scale, an utter disgrace to our boasted civilisation of the twentieth century, a most unfortunate set back to progress, and the greatest crime in all history, in so far as it could have been prevented."
Ginnell also took up cases where mothers were trying to get their underage sons out of the Army. He dealt with one such case involving a 16 year old youth in Mullingar Barracks and succeeded in getting the boy discharged. He spoke out on behalf of pacifists and other conscientious objectors who were imprisoned by the British authorities. He even raised the case of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lemberg (L'viv), who had been detained by the Russians when they invaded Austria, and asked what the difference was between the plight of the Archbishop held by Britain's ally, Russia, and the Archbishop of Malines, held in German occupied Belgium.
Larry Ginnell was one of the most radical land agitators in the country and he made the issue of land reform which would benefit those with little or no land his main cause when he was elected to parliament as M.P. for North Westmeath in 1906 In October 1906, he set out his views in a speech at The Downs which became known as "The Downs Policy. " He supported the breakup of the big ranches and the redistribution of the pastures to the smallholders and labourers. He suggested that cattle should be driven off the land. The slogan he coined was; "The Land for the People. The road for the Bullock. " People were invited to "seize the hazel-and drive"
The Downs Policy was not supported by all Nationalist politicians because it brought the Home Rule organisation into conflict with many of their own supporters. Ginnell unleashed what was in effect a class war which set the poor and land-hungry against the wealthier large farmer class who were often Roman Catholic and supporters of the Home Rule Movement. Indeed some of Ginnell's own allies were large farmers and merchants - a couple of whom owned over 1,000 acres. Larry Ginnell was too radical for the majority of Irish Nationalists of the era.
Laurence Ginnell died in 1923 as one of the most unapologetic of intransigent Irish Republicans. He opposed the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, campaigned vigorously against the nascent Free State, and regarded the anti-Treaty I.R.A. guerrilla leader, Liam Lynch, as the model Irish Republican and soldier. This, however, was the end of a long road of political shape-shifting on Ginnell's part.
Ginnell prosecuted the 1906-9 Ranch War (for which he was imprisoned in 1908), leading to a bitter split with his colleagues in the Irish Party. He was returned to Westminster as an independent nationalist in 1910, becoming known as the 'Member for Ireland'. From then on he became a thorn in the side of the British and Irish establishments, agitating in Parliament for women's suffrage, land distribution, the Irish language and against British over-taxation of Ireland. After the outbreak of World War I, he vigorously opposed the imposition of the authoritarian Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) in Ireland, and campaigned against Irish involvement in the war. In 1911, joined Pearse, Connolly, Countess Markievicz and others on a platform in Dublin to oppose the visit to Dublin of King George V. After 1916, he engaged in a very personal crusade to destroy John Redmond's Irish Parliamentary Party. This culminated in his July 1917 defection to revolutionary Sinn Féin, a table to which he brought radical agrarianism, support for co-operative ideology, and a flair for propaganda at home and abroad. Representing the Dáil abroad for much of the War of Independence, he opposed the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty on the grounds that it was established by British law, and despite failing health, indefatigably opposing the Irish Free State until his death in America in April 1923.
On July 1920 Laurence Ginnell and his wife Alice, under the name Mr. and Mrs. Jones, sailed on board the 'Montreal Star' for an extensive tour the U.S.A, promoting the Irish Republic. In Chicago he started the "Irish Relief and Reconstruction Fund", and led a campaign to get Americans to boycott English companies in manufacturing, insurance, etc. In 1921 he was appointed "Envoy Extraordinary to the Governments and Peoples of South America" before returning to Ireland in april 1922. Ginnell was elected the to third Dáil as the Republican (anti-treaty) candidate for Westmeath-Longford. At Éamon de Valera’s request, he was the only T.D. opposed to the treaty to enter the Dáil, and was forcibly removed after repeated questioning of the constitutional status of the assembly. He later became a member of de Valera's Council of State, and in December he left for the U.S.A acting as the anti-treaty representative in Washington. Towards the end of December 1922 he attempted to occupy the diplomatic offices of the Irish Free State as the Free State representative, Lindsay Crawford, was taking up his post. He died 17th April 1923 in a Washington hotel. His wife Alice accompanied his remains on the lonely journey home to Delvin where he was buried in a grave lined with moss and primroses.
Laurence Ginnell's parliamentary exertions in the wake of 1916 were instrumental in putting the case of the Volunteers – those fallen, and those still living – to the eyes and ears of the world, and his contribution in this regard is often forgotten. When Parliament was briefed on the post-Rising executions, Ginnell was relentless in his protests, accusing the British Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith of 'murder', and bombarding the Cabinet with questions about prison conditions, the nature of the secret military tribunals, and about the welfare of imprisoned individuals. He was unforgiving in his criticism of mainstream Irish nationalists like John Redmond and John Dillon, whom he accused of trying to "whitewash… [and] gloze over" British atrocities in Dublin. The next day, 12 May, Asquith travelled to Dublin and compelled the administrator of martial law in Ireland, General Sir John Maxwell, to call off the executions. This was not before two more Rising commandants were shot: Seán Mac Diarmada and James Connolly. On the night before his death, Connolly's daughter Nora told him of Ginnell's efforts on their behalf. 'Good man Larry,' Connolly said. 'He can always be depended on.'
Ginnell went on to advocate vigorously on behalf of the 1916 prisoners, using his credentials as an M.P. to gain access to British prisons holding incarcerated republicans. He was beloved by the internees, and became fondly known as 'the GPO', bringing them cigarettes and tobacco, and smuggling out letters to families back in Ireland. When the British put a stop to these prison visits in July 1916, he tried to gain entry to Knutsford Detention Barracks in Cheshire by signing the logbook with his name as Gaeilge ('Labhrás mag Fhionngail'). He was arrested, and a widely publicised court case followed, with his defence paid for by the Gaelic League. Refusing to pay the subsequent fine, he willingly spent a brief spell in prison, sealing his reputation as 1916 prisoner in his own right.
Laurence Ginnell was a tangible sign of the closeness of the new Irish government and Irish-Argentines, and that remained the case no matter how remote the granja (farms) in the camp. He excelled in the area of public diplomacy and spread goodwill wherever he went. That in turn helped him to prepare the main purpose of his being in Argentina – to float nationally the Irish Bond Scheme.
Establishing a committee of respected leaders of the Irish-Argentine community, Ginnell had bonds printed and made ready for distribution. Advertisements were taken out in the press, with The Southern Cross carrying a large advertisement weekly. A well-attended public meeting in the capital launched the scheme. But the bond drive did not prove to be a major success for a number of reasons. Among them the was the Treaty split in December 1921. Ginnell took the anti-Treaty side. The Treaty split divided Irish Argentina. The bond drive was a victim of the divisions which had emerged in Ireland. A further reason why the bond drive was not successful lies in the fact that Ginnell had fallen seriously ill. He was confined to hospital in San Antonio de Areco where he was looked after by Irish nuns. Ginnell remained in hospital until his departure for Ireland in spring 1922.
While in prison for speeches on land ownership Ginnell was elected M.P. for Co. Westmeath, one of 73 Sinn Féin M.P.s elected in the General Election of December 1918. He was still in prison for the first sitting of the Dáil on 21 January 1919. He was the only T.D. to have previously sat in parliament (Westminster) and the first Dáil. Finally released in March 1919, he was appointed Director of the Dáil Department of Publicity, where his brief was to win public support for Dáil Éireann at a salary of £300 per year.
A Department of Propaganda was established at No.6 Harcourt Street. Its function was to aid Sinn Féin leaders with public statements and to provide favourable propaganda to foreign press correspondents and provincial papers. As director, Ginnell wrote a book / pamphlet entitled The Irish Republic. Why? Official statement prepared for submission to the Peace Conference. Ginnell was arrested in May 1919 and sentenced to four months in prison for a speech he made in Delvin. He was unexpectedly released due to ill health. His health was probably the reason that Desmond FitzGerald replaced him as Director of Publicity in June. In Sept 1919, again in poor health, he retired to the Aran Islands staying there until March 1920. Soon after his leaving the island, he was arrested but was released within a week again due to his ill health.
Alice Ginnell, née King; political activist and second wife of radical agrarian and republican Laurence Ginnell, was born in Kilbride, near Mullingar, Co. Westmeath in 1883, the daughter of James and Georgina King. Her father was a prominent farmer, auctioneer and nationalist public representative in Mullingar. She appears to have spent some time in Europe in her late teens; one of several girls in a well educated family, later correspondence with her husband indicates that she had a knowledge of Latin, Spanish, French and Italian. In January 1902, she married Ginnell, then a prominent United Irish League official. Over thirty years her senior, he had been a widower since 1883.
Alice Ginell moved in suffragist, Inghinidhe na hÉireann and Cumann na mBan circles in the run-up to 1916. During the Rising, she was a member of Cumann na mBan’s London outfit, and did intelligence work for the organisation throughout the year. Her husband was imprisoned in 1918, and when he stood for election on an abstentionist platform, Alice became the first woman in the history of British politics to stand as an election agent for a Westminster candidate. In the spring of 1920, she was elected to the Pembroke ward of Dublin City Council. After the death of Laurence Ginnell Alice settled at Clyde Road, Dublin with her sister Marcella, never remarrying. In 1940, she took up a position as a translator in the Department of Industry and Commerce. During the war years she received numerous recommendations for a Seanad Seat but was overlooked by de Valera. Alice struggled for the best part of two decades to secure a widow’s pension in recognition of her husband’s role in the national struggle, primarily for his record as the Dáil’s first Director of Propaganda, which had been categorised by the state bureaucracy as a non-cabinet position. She eventually received a modest pension in the late 1950s. Alice Ginnell died at Our Lady’s Nursing Home, Edgeworthstown on 2 August 1967, and is interred at Meedin Cemetery, near Tyrrellspass.

Find out more about Laurence Ginnell by reading one of our posts below, or search our catalogue for a book to borrow from your local library

  • Alice Ginnell’s Civil War: December 1921 to July 1922

    In an earlier edition (see article by Dr Ann Marie O’Brien) and podcast, we discussed the life and career of Alice King who was born near Mullingar in 1882 to James and Georgina King. On 30 January 1902 she married Laurence Ginnell (whose career we followed in these podcasts and in the following article by…

  • Laurence Ginnell : a Westmeath politician

    To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Laurence Ginnell we are sharing part of the Laurence Ginnell Commemorative Committee exhibition from 2016. Find out more about Laurence Ginnell by reading one of our posts below, or search our catalogue for a book to borrow from your local library

  • Laurence Ginnell’s civil war propaganda

    by Dr Paul Hughes In one of the sitting TDs for Longford-Westmeath, Laurence Ginnell, anti-Treaty republicans had a powerful propagandist in their camp after the outbreak of civil war. A veteran of the Irish Press Agency, the publicity arm of Irish nationalists in Britain set up during the late 1880s, Ginnell put his experience to…

  • The first week of the Irish Civil War in Westmeath: part one

    by Dr. Paul Hughes One hundred years ago last week, in the early hours of Wednesday, 28 June 1922, the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army Executive’s headquarters at Dublin’s Four Courts was attacked by the National Army with two eighteen-pounder guns, which had been placed across the Liffey. This action, vividly recreated in Neil Jordan’s 1996…

  • Evacuation of Barracks, Mullingar

    We just had to get out of the place’ IRA barrack evacuations, May 1922 On Monday, 1 May 1922, Laurence Ginnell, TD and his wife, Alice, returned from Argentina after nearly eight months representing Dáil interests in Buenos Aires. They arrived in Liverpool on board the SS Darro, where they were greeted by Ginnell’s father-in-law, James…

  • Ten days: the barracks, the standoff and the bloodshed

    Left: Longford native and National Army soldier Patrick Columb, who was killed in violent pre-civil war incidents in Mullingar on 27 April 1922. Right: A headline from the front page of Cork’s Evening Echo, 22 April 1922. Ten days: the barracks, the standoff and the bloodshed Just over one hundred years ago, on Tuesday, 18…

This article was published on: 17th April, 2023
Filed under: Library blog, Westmeath
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