Thomas MacDonagh, teacher, writer and republican revolutionary was born in Cloughjordan on this day in 1878.
MacDonagh attended school in Rockwell before and later worked as a teacher of English and French at St Kieran’s College. It was here that he developed a lifelong love for the Irish language and experienced what he termed "a baptism in nationalism", when he attended a meeting of the Gaelic League.
MacDonagh was deeply moved by how the native speakers used the language and recollected how it dawned upon him that he was "the greatest West Britisher in Ireland and suppressed the Irish language". Immersing himself in the language through the league's social and cultural activities, he attended summer language classes on Inishmaan, Co Galway, and became a fluent speaker and writer. He shortly after departed Kilkenny for Fermoy where he settled at St Colman’s College which he described as “Gaelic to the spine”.
Moving to Dublin, MacDonagh began working with Patrick Pearse, whom he had met on a visit to the Aran Islands. He held Pearse in high regard, describing him as “the greatest of Irish writers in imagination and power, if not in language”. Pearse had wanted to establish a bilingual educational project and a school, Scoil Éanna. MacDonagh was effectively his right-hand man, employed as deputy headmaster.
Embracing the Dublin literary scene, however, MacDonagh was frustrated at his inability to become a recognised poet – despite his best efforts, his poetry was never a commercial or academic success. He would later write three plays, When the Dawn IS Come, Metempsychosis and Pagans. Around this time MacDonagh met fellow poet Joseph Plunkett and became his Irish language tutor. The two developed an instant friendship through a mutual love of poetry, history language and art and Plunkett dedicated his first book of poetry, The Circle and the Sword (1911), to MacDonagh.
By 1914, MacDonagh was inspired by political events in Ireland and abroad, notably the Ulster crisis and the first World War. He was swept up in a prevailing current of militancy and found himself elected to the provisional committee of the Irish Volunteers. By March 1915 he was appointed commandant of the 2nd Battalion of the Dublin Brigade and regularly produced headquarters orders and notes for the training of volunteers. This was alongside a series of lectures and rallies which he addressed on military themes.
In April 1915, he was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood – and he recruited Éamon de Valera into the conspiracy. When the Easter Rising began on Easter Monday 1916, MacDonagh found himself in charge of the Jacob’s factory, an impregnable fortress with two large towers. By Wednesday the garrison stood on top of the roof of Jacob’s and saw the city ablaze, watching as the British used heavy artillery to pound the distant GPO.
MacDonagh was sentenced to be executed at Kilmainham Gaol on May 3rd, 1916. Unable to see his wife Muriel Gifford, MacDonagh wrote to her hours before his execution: “I am ready to die, and I thank God that I am to die in so a holy a cause. My country will reward my deed richly. I counted the cost of this, and I am ready to pay it.”
Sources:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/thomas-macdonagh-one-of-the-most-fascinating-characters-behind-the-rising-1.2556950
https://www.dib.ie/biography/macdonagh-thomas-a5168
