Elizabeth Keane - Seán MacBride, A Life: From IRA Revolutionary to International Statesman

SEN MACBRIDE

A Life

ELIZABETH KEANE

Gill & Macmillan

To John

Contents

NOMENCLATURE

MacBride was christened Jean Seagan MacBride, presumably given the French variant of his fathers name. He is later called Seagan, finally, sometime in the 1920s, settling permanently on Sen, the Irish form of John. For the purposes of clarity, I shall refer to him by his surname or as Sen unless a direct quote commands otherwise.

Throughout the text, I have left intact any irregular spellings that appear in quoted documents, particularly American English spellings, for example favor instead of favour. The Irish acute accent mark, or fada, is included on Irish proper names and words in the Irish language where required, for example Sen MacBride and Dil ireann, except when the fada is not used in a direct quote. I have employed the term sic in brackets for misspellings or odd usage in the original text.

As for the rather murky business of place names: the Irish Free State and the Republic refer to the twenty-six southern Irish counties. The Six Counties, the North, and Northern Ireland refer to the northern counties currently within the United Kingdom. Ireland may refer either to the Republic or the entire island, depending on context.

PREFACE

Biography is very like translation it is not possible and yet it is necessary.

FRITZ SENN

A biography of a universally well-liked and admired individual who has never dealt with any type of struggle or adversity is easy to write, but somewhat tedious to read. Fortunately, Sen MacBrides life story presents a different challenge.

MacBride did not elicit lukewarm reactions from those who knew him; people either loved or loathed him. As Charles Lysaght remembered, I wrote his obit in the London Times but I found it difficult to reach a firm view about him. Different people assessed him so differently.

Memories of MacBrides accomplishments are also diverse when I spoke about the subject of this biography, people recalled him as the leader of Clann na Poblachta, a former foreign minister, the co-founder of Amnesty International, or the son of the redoubtable Maud Gonne. Some confused him with his father John MacBride; one academic simply exclaimed, that bastard, calling the MacBride Principles one of the English languages great oxymorons.

MacBride poses a challenge for biographers and researchers not only because he is such an apparently contradictory personality, but more practically because his papers are not available. Like many Irish political figures, he would move from revolutionary terrorist to constitutional politician, but more fascinating is his later role as an international humanitarian. The shift from terrorist to politician is hardly surprising in an Irish context; it is the movement from conservative in government to a seemingly more liberal outlook during the elder statesman phase of his career. There were also many smaller shifts, from a distrust of diplomats and civil servants to expanding the Department of External Affairs and becoming a diplomat himself, from fervent anti-communism while in government to praising the Soviet Union for its position on disarmament during the 1970s and 1980s, from consistently blaming the British for the persistence of partition to enjoying friendly relationships with Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, and Lord Rugby.

His career is thought to have had three stages: IRA rebel, constitutional politician and international humanitarian. However, these conversions are not quite as radical as sometimes supposed. MacBride was not really all that conservative before his progression to a humanitarian role and he was not really all that liberal afterward. The usual example of MacBrides earlier conservatism is his behaviour during the infamous Mother and Child controversy, but his reaction can be seen as political expediency rather than true conservative piety. Although he may have espoused humanitarian causes, some of his attitudes toward social issues were not particularly liberal. Like much about MacBrides life, his transformations are not as straightforward as they appear.

MacBrides connection to important individuals and events in twentieth-century Irish history alone would merit a closer study of his life. However, Irelands participation in European integration and new studies on Irish foreign policy are also compelling reasons for taking a look at his contribution to modern Irish history and politics. As historian J.J. Lee wrote in 1989, Ireland has chosen to ignore the study of international relations, including the study of neutrality, to an extent unparalleled in any other small Western European neutral. Fortunately, this situation has changed and now is an advantageous time to reassess MacBrides influence; particularly in light of recent debates about Irelands role in Europe and her involvement in human rights issues worldwide, as well as MacBrides own memoir, published posthumously in 2005.

He is most recognised for his international contributions, yet one of the goals in this book is to examine also his role in Irish government and his impact on the nation later in life. Because of their behaviour during the Mother and Child controversy, the inter-party Governments accomplishments have been somewhat eclipsed. F.S.L. Lyons points out that the Government did achieve in that direction [the development of modern Ireland] more than posterity has been inclined to give it credit for and, because of one spectacular failure, has not been recognised for smaller successes.

Despite his having had one of the most extraordinary and varied lives of any Irish figure of the twentieth century, there is only one biography of Sen MacBride, written by Anthony Jordan in 1993. Jordans work is hampered by a very limited use of primary source material; there are few references to either the private papers of members of the inter-party Government or the Department of Foreign Affairs files located in the Irish National Archives. Jordan does not quite do his subject justice; he calls MacBride a kaleidoscopic man while only tersely demonstrating why.

The most likely explanation as to why there is a dearth of work specifically on MacBride is the lack of access to his private papers. As of now, these papers are not readily available for consultation. He willed his library at Roebuck House to his personal assistant Caitriona Lawlor, who is still in possession of the contents and has not made them publicly accessible; however, she did allow me access to some of MacBrides personal correspondence.

In 2005, Lawlor released a memoir written by MacBride, entitled That Days Struggle. While useful for determining MacBrides version of events, particularly his childhood and feelings about his fathers death, in many ways it is incomplete. Firstly, the book spans only from John MacBrides death in 1916 until the end of the inter-party Government in 1951. His early life in Paris and his later political and humanitarian career are not included. The latter is especially surprising considering how important humanitarian concerns became to him. Secondly, there is only the briefest glimpse of a personal life: there are no references to his two children and barely any to his wife. In many ways (and MacBrides memoir is certainly not the only one guilty of this offence), the book serves mainly as a justification, particularly for his treatment of fellow Clann member and cabinet colleague Nol Browne. Stylistically, the book reads as if transcribed. Perhaps he had no time to develop or add to it. Neither MacBride nor Lawlor mentions when the memoir was written, but in a letter to Patrick Lynch, dated 9 March 1981, he alludes to being in the throes of completing an autobiography.

Fortunately, many other sources illuminate both MacBrides earlier political career and his later life. Therefore this study excavates and utilises a variety of primary and secondary source materials, including previously published autobiographies and memoirs, unpublished private papers of MacBrides contemporaries, MacBrides own writings, state papers of Ireland, Britain, the United States, and Canada, as well as documentation from organisations MacBride was involved in. MacBrides daughter, Anna MacBride White, and her husband, Declan White, were kind enough to talk to me about MacBrides life and share their views on his career.