{"id":2251,"date":"2015-04-17T14:53:33","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T14:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kildare.ie\/ehistory\/?p=2251"},"modified":"2015-04-17T14:53:33","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T14:53:33","slug":"mr-john-devoy-and-irish-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/mr-john-devoy-and-irish-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"MR. JOHN DEVOY AND IRISH AFFAIRS"},"content":{"rendered":"

KILDARE OBSERVER<\/em> 1 NOVEMBER 1924<\/b><\/p>\n

Mr. John Devoy and Irish Affairs<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0MAKING HIS POSITION CLEAR\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr. John\u00a0 Devoy,\u00a0 in\u00a0 an\u00a0 article in \u201cThe\u00a0 Gaelic\u00a0 American,\u201d\u00a0deals cogently \u00a0with\u00a0 rumours current in Ireland,\u00a0 during\u00a0 his\u00a0 recent\u00a0 visit,\u00a0of troubles and dissensions in the Government, and his alleged intervention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI may say, once for all,\u201d says Mr. Devoy,\u00a0\u201cthat while in Ireland I did not make any suggestion to anybody, either in public or in private, of a change in the Free State Cabinet,\u00a0 its reconstruction, the dropping of any Minister at present in office, or the addition of a new member or members.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not discuss politics or policies with President Cosgrave or try in the slightest degree to influence his action.\u00a0 All that has been published in the Irish Press in that regard, including what has been\u00a0 copied\u00a0 in the news columns of the \u201cGaelic American,\u201d\u00a0 was pure guess-work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cMy\u00a0 efforts\u00a0 in\u00a0 Ireland, \u00a0both\u00a0 in public and private, were to effect a union (or reconciliation) between men of the same views and opinions who\u00a0 were\u00a0 separated\u00a0 by\u00a0 personal\u00a0 differences only.\u00a0\u00a0 My position was\u00a0 stated exactly in my appeal at the banquet given me in Dublin on September 3\u00a0 for unity and\u00a0 support\u00a0 of President Cosgrave.<\/p>\n

\u201cA s to the I.R.B., I insisted, as I have done for four years, that the wrong done in cutting off the Clan-na-Gael and the publication by Harry Boland of the impudent falsehood that the organisation had failed to support President de Valera either in his mission in\u00a0 general\u00a0 or in the Bond Drive must be redressed as a matter of simple justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was informed that the failure of the Supreme Council to refute the falsehood was due to fear of presenting a spectacle of disunion in Ireland which would help England;\u00a0 that Boland was never chairman of the S.C.\u00a0 (as he told us he was), and was never authorised by that body to issue the statement.\u00a0 I told my informants that if they had contradicted that falsehood publicly at the time there would have been no split in America and no civil war in Ireland\u2014that both were brought about by the widespread circulation of gross falsehoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut all this concerns the past.\u00a0 As to the present,\u00a0 I did not favour any attempt\u00a0 by\u00a0 a\u00a0 secret\u00a0 society\u00a0 to control\u00a0 the Government,\u00a0 any\u00a0 more\u00a0 than\u00a0 a\u00a0 similar attempt by a section of the army,\u00a0or by the whole army. That would be Mexicanising Ireland.\u00a0 I\u00a0 fully\u00a0 recognise\u00a0 that\u00a0 any\u00a0 Government\u00a0 in\u00a0 Ireland, to\u00a0 be\u00a0 successful, must contain\u00a0 representatives of all\u00a0 the elements of the population which support\u00a0 it,\u00a0as\u00a0 the\u00a0 only\u00a0 means of securing majority rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am responsible only for my statements I make myself, and these, I think, are plain enough for any intelligent person to understand.\u00a0 I have no responsibility for rumours or guesses, whether they are put forth by friends or enemies.\u00a0 My one hope is to see all the people in Ireland who believe in Irish nationality united in a reasonable effort to achieve it in full measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0 may add here that, while I had a full and frank talk with Mr. John Dillion,\u00a0 who remained\u00a0 my\u00a0 personal friend,\u00a0 in\u00a0 spite\u00a0 of\u00a0 political\u00a0 differences,\u00a0 I did not put any proposition before him;\u00a0 and that I did not meet Mr. Joseph Devlin at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI may also add that I regret very much that, owing to a day\u2019s illness during my last week in Ireland, and the fact that I was obliged to sail on Sept. 4, I was prevented from calling on Mr.\u00a0 William O\u2019Brien, for whom I have great respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Re-typed by Hannah Mustapha<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KILDARE OBSERVER 1 NOVEMBER 1924 Mr. John Devoy and Irish Affairs \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0MAKING HIS POSITION CLEAR\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mr. John\u00a0 Devoy,\u00a0 in\u00a0 an\u00a0 article in \u201cThe\u00a0 Gaelic\u00a0 American,\u201d\u00a0deals cogently \u00a0with\u00a0 rumours current in Ireland,\u00a0 during\u00a0 his\u00a0 recent\u00a0 visit,\u00a0of troubles and dissensions in the Government, and his alleged intervention. \u201cI may say, once for all,\u201d says Mr. Devoy,\u00a0\u201cthat while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspaper-articles"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}