Descripción
First edition, first impression, one of 100 copies. This prayer for Michael O'Callaghan was printed for his widow. In 1921, the Lord Mayor of Limerick and the former mayor were shot in front of their wives by masked men, believed to be Black and Tans. This rare Cuala Press item is a witness to the political stance of the Yeats family. Michael O'Callaghan studied in London, qualified as an industrial chemist, and returned to Ireland to take charge of the family firm of tanners. He would eventually become the managing director of the firm. In 1905 he joined the first Sinn Fein club in Limerick and became politically active. In 1909 he married Kate Murphy, who added an intellectual angle to her husband's aspirations for Irish culture and national self-determination. In 1911 O'Callaghan was first elected as a city councillor for the Irishtown Ward. In January 1914 he attended a meeting to establish the Irish Volunteers in Limerick, and spoke with Patrick Pearse and Roger Casement. He also spoke at Pearse's final lecture in Limerick in February 1916. Between 1914 and 1919 O'Callaghan served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Irish Volunteers. After the 1916 Rising, he was treasurer of the National Aid Association and campaigned for the release of the 1916 prisoners from English prisons. He also spoke on behalf of Eamon de Valera in the 1917 by-election. In 1920 he was elected the first Republican Mayor of Limerick. "Michael O'Callaghan was a Sinn Feiner in the truest sense as he had championed the purchase of Irish goods and the support of Irish Industry and Commerce for a long number of years thus giving literal meaning to 'Sinn Fein'. His year in office had been most tense and eventful, in March 1920, he had the traumatic and sad experience of attending the funeral of his fellow Sinn Fein mayor, Thomas McCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork. During the course of his mayoralty he had received a number of death threats some of them purporting to come from 'Rory of the Hills' believed to have been a cover name for a death squad working within either the Black and Tans or the RIC" (Toomey, p. 539). On 7 March 1921, Michael and Kate O'Callaghan were awakened after midnight by the sound of intruders. Kate opened the front door and two men, wearing masks, forced their way into the house. Armed with revolvers they shot Michael dead then shot Kate through the arm. Kate later recalled "I had the strength of a maniac. I tore at their faces and heads. we fell against the umbrella stand and at last, with an effort they threw me off. I crawled back to my husband and fell across his body" (McCoole, p. 71). The killers then left and repeated their actions, killing the serving Mayor of Limerick, George Clancy (1881-1921). Clancy had featured in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as the character Michael Davin. Reports were soon circulated that the killings had been undertaken by an extreme element of the IRA. Kate O'Callaghan immediately began a campaign to challenge this view, and the present piece is part of this endeavour. She also published a pamphlet, The Limerick Curfew Murders of March 7th, 1921: the case of Michael O'Callaghan, which was widely circulated in Ireland, the UK, and the US. Questions were eventually raised in the House of Commons but there was no official inquiry. The text in Irish and English commences "Fuil na martíreach, síol saoirse na h-Éireann" ("The blood of the martyr, the seed of Ireland's freedom") and includes lines by James Stephens (1880-1950), the Irish novelist and poet. The text concludes with the words "Michael O'Callaghan murdered by the enemy March 7th 1921". The publication, recorded by Miller as a "privately printed" item from the Cuala Press, is rare. There are two copies recorded in the National Library of Ireland and three other copies noted by WorldCat (University College Cork Library, Columbia University Libraries, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library). We can tr.
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