Gobnaıt Ní Bhruadaır (1861 – 1955)
Writer, Nurse, Philanthropist, Member of Conradh na Gaeılge,
Sınn Féın & Cumann na mBan, Kerry County Councilor & Treaty (Civil) War prisoner
Early Life
Gobnaıt Ní Bhruadaır was born Albinia Lucy Brodrick on December 17, 1861 in Belgrave in the city of London. She was the fifth daughter of William Brodrick, 8th Viscount Midleton and his wife, Augusta Mary (née Freemantle), daughter of the 1st Baron Cottesloe. Both sides of her family were members of the English Protestant aristocracy and thus by virtue of their social status were gifted with great wealth, influence and privilege. Albinia enjoyed all the perks and privileges consistent with her family's status including attending concerts and balls at Buckingham Palace and visits to the House of Lords with her father.
Albinia and her siblings were educated privately. In furtherance of her education she spent time on the European mainland where she studied and became fluent in several languages including German, French and Italian. She also acquired a reading knowledge of Latin. In later life she became a fluent Irish speaker.
The Brodricks were closely associated with the expansion and preservation of the British Empire and its colonial institutions, particularly in relation to Ireland. The first of the Brodricks, Sir John Brodrick settled in Midleton in Co. Cork circa 1640 after having obtained grants of land during the Cromwellian conquest and plantation of Ireland. His son Alan Brodrick who succeeded him was speaker of the Irish House of Commons and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. In the early 1700s he became Baron Brodrick and subsequently Viscount Midleton in the Irish peerage. Some generations later, Albinia's brother John, who held several appointments in the British government including Secretary of War during the second Boer War, was the self-appointed leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance in the south of Ireland from 1910 to 1919. The Alliance's aim was to prevent Home Rule for Ireland. He later railed against the partition of Ireland, believing that it would be the death knell for Unionists in the Free State.
In addition to the family's country estate in Surrey their landed estates in Co. Cork totaled over 6,000 acres. In her twenties, Albinia spent time there with her father who was almost blind. She helped him take care of his business affairs relating to his substantial land holdings, leases and tenants. That exercise was a learning experience for Albinia, who for the first time in her life was privy to the source of her family's wealth and to its dark side. At that juncture in her life she still shared her family's pro-Union colonial values that included a low opinion of the "ungrateful" native Irish. After all, she was led to believe that colonialism was a force for good that should be embraced by all its subjected peoples. Nonetheless, the new insight into her family's business affairs coupled with the abject poverty, evictions and oppression she witnessed or read about during her visits in Ireland challenged her understanding of colonial rule. It gave her ample food for thought.
Early Adulthood to Midlife
In her late twenties Albinia's youthful exuberance and inherited beliefs gave way to the realization that her lifestyle and beliefs were the creation of others and that the underlying ethos was lacking in compassion and ultimately were inhumane. In order to live a meaningful life, she concluded that she must contribute something of value to society instead of living off the fat of the land. In what was a first small step in pursuit of that quest she did the only thing she was capable of, which was to write articles for publication in political and scientific journals. In the ensuing years numerous accounts have her living in Oxford as hostess for her uncle, George C. Brodrick, the warden of Merton College. His station in life was an asset that Albinia could utilize to ensure that her articles were up to standard and fit for publication.
Albinia's next step in her transformation came about at the beginning of the 20th century in her 42nd year. In what could be considered an act of self-debasement by a member of the aristocracy, she started training to be a certified nurse at the District Infirmary in Ashton-under-Lyne, located on the outskirts of Manchester. After completing her training, she worked as a superintendent in a workhouse(1), a job she later described as the most difficult work she ever did. By the time Albinia relocated to Ireland circa 1903 she had forsaken her upper-class lifestyle and values and consequently was estranged from her family and former friends.
Her Life of Philanthropy in Ireland
In 1905 after moving to Ireland, Albinia enrolled in The Rotunda(2) Maternity Training Hospital in Dublin where she completed the requisite midwifery training courses. In 1909 she declared that she was "a trained nurse; I have the certificate of a trained midwife; I have the certificate of a health visitor, and I have two certificates to qualify me as a sanitary inspector".
Throughout her life she advocated for the training and registration of nurses to ensure high standards of care. She also campaigned for nurses’ rights and for the establishment of a nurses' union. She was an acknowledged expert on contagious diseases including venereal disease and gave testimony before various government and medical panels to that effect. In 1907 she was Chief Steward of the International Congress of Nurses. She was known as a feminist who spoke frankly about birth control, venereal disease, and women’s suffrage.
When her father died in 1907, Gobnaıt's inheritance made her financially independent thus allowing her to buy a home on 13 acres of land near Caherdaniel in the Kerry Gaeltacht (Irish speaking district). The land was located in a Congested District, an area considered to be overpopulated and where the population was regarded as permanently close to starvation. After taking possession of the property she came face-to-face with the abject poverty and deprivation suffered by her Congested District neighbors comprised of tenant farmers and laborers who tilled and harvested the lands of absent landlords. Perhaps to atone for her former life of privilege and/or for the sins of her colonial forebears who exploited the native Irish populace, she resolved to do all she could to make their lives better. In pursuit of that resolve she set about organizing classes on diet, hygiene, disease prevention and agricultural sustainability. She also started an agricultural cooperative based on a program pioneered by her friend, Horace Plunkett(3).
After nursing those afflicted by the smallpox epidemic of 1910, Albinia realized that more needed to done to care for the sick who had no access to treatment for their myriad of diseases, ailments and injuries. She decided that a hospital was the answer and proceeded forthwith to build one with her own money. She named the undertaking Ballincoona, the House of Help. With no financial help coming from any government agency or charitable organization she went it alone.
In October of 1912, when the money she set aside for the building of the hospital was spent, she journeyed to America hoping to garner financial support from sympathetic benefactors and from fundraising events sponsored by charitable organizations to complete the building. Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born industrialist and philanthropist was rumored to have been interested in her charitable work and may have been one of her benefactors.
The lack of money was not the only problem that Albinia faced with. Her lack of experience in hospital management could pose problems for her when or if she managed to finish the hospital. To remedy that problem, she decided to take courses in Nursing and Hospital Administration at the Teachers College of Columbia University.
On her return from America she had sufficient funds to finish the building, however, she was not able to procure the furnishings and equipment needed to render it operable. Neither was she able to acquire the needed certification or financial support from the British authorities nor, after 1922, from the Irish Free State to procure supplies or pay staff members. Her rejection of her earlier pro-Union stance did not endear her to the British establishment in Ireland nor her support for Irish Republicanism to the succeeding British-supported Irish Free State. As could be anticipated her well-published political viewpoints were not winning qualities when seeking support from adversaries no matter how deserving the cause. The Free State's decision to withhold support and certification for the hospital was based on he fact that Co. Kerry was a Republican stronghold therefore, was considered an adversarial region that must suffer the consequences. To complicate matters even further the Catholic hierarchy, in lock-step with the Free State, was planning to take control of the health care system to the exclusion of all others. Her hospital was doomed.
While Albinia was involved with the hospital she was also involved in nursing politics in both England and Ireland in relation to the training and state registration of nurses and the need for government involvement in issues related to venereal disease.
In 1907, Albinia had joined the Society for the State Registration of Trained Nurses. In joining the Society she committed herself to the struggle for the training, certification, and statutory registration of nurses. By 1908, she was the society's delegate to the National Council of Nurses. She was also Chief Steward for the International Council of Nurses Congress held in 1909. In 1919, she supported a call for the formation of a nurses’ trade union to be allied with the Irish Women Workers’ Union (IWWU) at a meeting held by the Irish Nurses Association at the Mansion House in Dublin. She remained active in all aspects of nursing throughout her life particularly her care for the neglected people of the Kerry Gaeltacht.
Her Life of Political Activism in Ireland
Immediately after settling in Ireland she became involved in Ireland's struggle for independence and for the revival of its cultural heritage, particularly its language. To that end she joined several Nationalist and cultural organizations starting with Conradh na Gaeılge (the Gaelic League) and in later years Sınn Féın and Cumann na mBan.
Her first foray into Irish life was to learn the language under the tutelage of Conradh na Gaeılge. Unlike Maud Gonne and other revolutionary Protestant women who failed to master Irish, Albinia succeeded in gaining an excellent command of the language, albeit with a tinge of the Oxford accent of her upper-class upbringing. In addition to her Irish lessons she was a frequent visitor to the Irish-speaking areas in Kerry and Galway where she picked up on the nuances of the language. Once fluent in Irish she changed her name to Gobnaıt Ní Bhruadaır.
During her aforementioned visit to America in 1912 she met with and discussed British rule in Ireland with leading Irish political activists, some of whom had fled Ireland as children during the Great Hunger of 1845 through 1850. What she heard and learned from those activists and other exiled Irish men and women regarding their experiences under British rule in Ireland, and, more importantly, their resolve to help free it from subjugation and restore its tattered cultural heritage, stiffened her own resolve to take part in that effort.
By the time of the Easter Rising in April of 1916 Gobnaıt was a committed Irish Republican having given up on Home Rule as the solution to Irelands centuries of subjugation and debasement. She unconditionally supported the Rising and the men and women who took part. She nursed some of the wounded Republican Volunteers at a safe location near her home in Kerry. Bertie Scully, an officer with the Glencar company of the Republicans, speaking of a reunion of men at an Irish college in Caherdaniel in either 1916 or 1917, said: “Albina Brodrick had several of the 1916 men recuperating there and it was a very advanced and enthusiastic gathering as regards language and national sentiment". Like Alice Milligan and other women of Cumann na mBan she visited Frongoch internment camp in Wales and other prison and prison camps where as many as 2,000 Republican Volunteers were held. She had articles published in numerous newspapers with advice for those planning to visit with the internees. She also made public statements about the atrocious conditions and the lack of medical care at the internment camps and prisons.
In 1917 Gobnaıt joined Cumann na mBan founded by Constance Markievicz in 1914, and Sınn Féın founded by Arthur Griffith and Bulmer Hobson in 1905. As a Sinn Fein member she volunteered many hours canvassing for Sınn Féın candidates in the UK General Election held in December of 1918. Sınn Féın candidates won 73 seats of the 105 seats contested. The Home Rule Irish Parliamentary Party won only 6 seats --- losing 67 of the seats they previously held. The 1918 General Election was the first time women could vote, albeit they had to be over 30.
Instead of taking their seats in the British parliament the successful Sinn Fein candidates convened in the Mansion House in Dublin on January 21, 1919 and under the aegis of the self-proclaimed Irish National Assembly, Daıl Eıreann, declared Irish Independence to the world. On the same day in Soloheadbeg in Co. Tipperary two Royal Irish Constabulary constables escorting a consignment of blasting gelignite were ambushed and killed by Irish Republican Volunteers. That quasi-military operation, which was carried out to capture explosives, not necessarily to kill anyone, was the spark that started the Irish War of Independence.
In 1920 Gobnaıt was elected on the Sınn Féın ticket to the Kerry County Council holding the seat through 1926. She was a staunch supporter of the War of Independence and the Irish Republic. During the war she sheltered Irish Republican Army (IRA) Volunteers at her home, which was frequently raided by the British Army and the Black and Tans auxiliaries. She served as a judge on the Dail Courts alongside other Cumann na mBan women including Áine Ceannt, Áine Heron and Máire Comerford. She also worked with the Irish White Cross distributing food parcels to the families of IRA Volunteers.
When the Anglo-Irish Treaty that partitioned Ireland was signed in 1921, Gobnaıt was unapologetic in her disdain for and opposition to the Treaty. In addressing crowds across Kerry, she railed against the one-sided agreement that partitioned Ireland and substituted a 26-county Irish Free State within the confines of the British Empire for the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916.
During the ensuing Treaty War (Civil War) Gobnaıt made no secret of her Republican affiliations. She supported the anti-Treaty Republicans against the British-supported Free Staters by hiding men and arms and carrying messages back and forth between fighting units. In April of 1923 on one such errand she was shot by Free State hirelings after refusing to stop. Despite her wound she was transported to Dublin and imprisoned with the other female Republican prisoners in the North Dublin Union where she promptly went on hunger strike. Knowing that Gobnaıt was prepared to die and unsure how the death of an English aristocrat at the hands of a servile and dependent regime would play in England's ivory towers, the Free State, unwilling to find out, set her free after 14 days.
Following the about face by de Valera in 1926 when he left Sınn Féın, founded Fıanna Faıl, took the oath of allegiance to the English monarch and entered the Free State government Gobnaıt and almost all members of Cumann na mBan continued to support Sınn Féın. In October 1926 she represented Munster at the party's Ardfheis.
From 1926 to 1937 Gobnaıt owned and contributed articles to the Sınn Féın's newspaper Irish Freedom. The original version of Irish Freedom was founded in 1910 by Thomas Clarke, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. It was published monthly until it was suppressed by the British in 1914. The later version was the mouthpiece for Sınn Féın, however Gobnaıt included articles and information on Cumann na mBan and other items of interest to women readers.
At the 1933 Cumann na mBan convention Gobnaıt and her close friend Mary McSwiney left the organization following the decision by its members to abandon its Irish Republican core values in favor of a socialist agenda. Both women and their followers formed a new Nationalist-based organization named Mná na Poblachta (Women of the Republic). The new organization kept publishing the newspaper through 1937. By 1937 in addition to the promotion of Irish Republican policies it had adapted a more feminist stance and according to some reports critiqued de Valera's and Bishop McQuaid's new Free State constitution before ceasing publication.
.
Her Waning Years and Death.
For all the political ups and downs in her long and radical life, Gobnaıt had several constants, her regular branch meetings of the Gaelic League in Tralee and the harmonium she played weekly at a Protestant Church service in her adopted hometown of Sneem, Co. Kerry. Doubtless, her fellow worshippers, mostly of Unionist sympathies, thought little of her paramilitary activities, She was in the words of one biographer, “a woman of frugal habits and decided opinions, she was in many ways difficult and eccentric.”
Gobnaıt Ní Bhruadaır died on January 16, 1955. In her will she left most of £17,000 to Republicans 'as they were in the years 1919 to 1921'. The vagueness of her bequest led to legal wrangles for decades. Finally, in February 1979 the Irish High Court ruled that the bequest was 'void for remoteness' as it was impossible to determine which Republican faction met her criteria
Ní Bhruadair is buried in the Protestant graveyard in the parish of Sneem in Co. Kerry. A room in the local museum is dedicated to her remarkable life.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
1 A workhouse was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment.
2 The Rotunda Maternity Training Hospital was founded in 1745. It is the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world.
3 , Horace Plunkett was an agricultural reformer, a pioneer of agricultural cooperatives and an advocate of Home Rule for Ireland.
Contributed by Tomás Ó Coısdealbha
Cemetery
NAME: Church of Transformation Cemetery
ADDRESS: Bridge Street, Sneem, Co. Kerry, Ireland
HEADSTONE
Photo Source: Find a Grave
