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Harry James Boland (1887-1922)
Irish Republican, Member of the First Dail, War of Independence
participant,
Killed by the Free State during Treaty War (Civil War)
 Harry James Boland was born in Phibsboro, Dublin
on the 27th of April 1887. He was the third of five
children born to
James and Kate
Woods. The oldest child in
the family, Nellie, was born
in America in 1884. The next child, Gerry,
was born in Manchester, England in 1885. Harry and his
younger siblings, Kathleen and Edmund were born in Dublin in
1890 and 1893 respectively.
The Boland children were born into a family
with a long history of physical opposition to
the Britain's occupation of Ireland. His paternal
grandfather was a Fenian who took part in the successful
rescue of Colonel Thomas Kelly and Captain Timothy Deasy in Manchester in
1867. The aftermath of that rescue was the execution of
the Manchester Martyrs, William Philip Allen, Michael
Larkin, and
Michael O'Brien
on November 23 of the same year
for their participation in the rescue.
Harry's father James was either
involved with or was a member of the Invincibles, a militant
group within the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who
retaliated against the eviction of tenant
farmers by landlords during the Land Wars of 1879 through
1882. After the May 6th 1882 Phoenix Park killings of the
British Chief Secretary for Ireland Frederick Cavendish and,
the Under Secretary for Ireland, Henry Burke James and his family fled to the
United States to avoid arrest for his
ties to the Invincibles who carried out the
killings. During the time James spent in the United
States he came to know and work with
O'Donovan Rossa and
Patrick William Nally, leading Fenians in the United
States at that time.
The Boland's were living in Ireland when Harry was
born in 1887. He attended the Synge St. Christian Brothers' School
until he refused to return to the school due to a problem
with one of the brothers. After that Harry attended the De la Salle College
in Co.Laois. During the three
years he spent there he played hurling; a Gaelic game he
excelled at.
In keeping with his strong
Irish nationalist leaning Harry was a prominent member of
the Gaelic League(1).
In 1904, Harry together with his brother
Gerry joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)(2). Some accounts have
it that the Boland brothers were recruited into the IRB
after a hurling match by the referee, Maurice F. Crowe.
Crowe, a Limerick was active in both the IRB and the
Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) a common occurrence at
that time. It would not have been a hard sell to
recruit the Boland's as they were already predisposed to
joining organizations hostile to the British despotic
rule in Ireland.
Harry was active in the GAA
since his school days. At age twenty he became
a member of the Dublin County GAA Board. In 1908 he played for Dublin against Tipperary
the first game of the all-Ireland hurling final that ended
in a draw. He was a substitute in the replay that Dublin
lost. From 1911 through 1918 he was
Chairman of the
Dublin County GAA Board.
On a GAA related trip to London in 1908 he
befriended Michael Collins who at that time was the treasurer of the Geraldines
GAA Club, one of the many
GAA clubs in London at that time. Just as he himself
was recruited into the IRB by a member of the GAA, he
too combined his GAA dealings with his IRB recruitment
activities. When a potential recruit crossed his path
he donned his IRB recruitment hat. Such was the case
with Collins. After a period of coaching Harry introduced him to Sam McGuire the head
of the IRB in London who administered the IRB oath to
Collins in 1919. In the process of becoming acquainted Collins and Boland
became close friends, a friendship that was ended
by their opposing loyalties with regards to the terms of the Angle-
Irish Treaty of 1921.
Harry and his two brothers,
Gerry and Edmund joined the Irish Volunteers
at the first enrolment rally at
the Rotunda in Dublin in late November 1913. The
original aim of the Volunteers was to safeguard
the granting of Home Rule introduced in the
British parliament in 1912 and opposed by the
northern unionists who had organized the Ulster
Volunteers to oppose its implementation by force
if necessary.
At the onset of WWI in
1914 the Volunteers split into two factions when
John Redmond, the leader of the Irish
Parliamentary Party had gained some leverage
within the Volunteers, called on its members to
join the British Army hoping, perhaps, that the
British meant when they said that the purpose of
going to war was to restore the "freedom of
small nations" and that Ireland, a
small nation, would be first on their list.
Whatever Britain's reasons for going to war, Irish
freedom was not one of them.
Those who heeded
Redmond's call and joined the Britain army became known as the National Volunteers. Many of those volunteers who
survived the war formed the backbone of the
British supported and equipped Free State army
during the "Civil War" brought about
by the signing
of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
The remaining Irish Volunteers,
who ignored Redmond's call, consisted mostly of members of the IRB and other
nationalists groups. Those Volunteers were the
main force that took part in the Easter Rising
in 1916.
During the week of the
Easter Rising Harry and his brother Edmund
fought in the General Post Office (GPO)
garrison.
After the surrender on April 29, Harry was amongst the 191
volunteers who faced a Field General Court Martial. Field
General Court Martial. He was charged
with "taking part in an armed
rebellion and in the waging of war against His Majesty the
King, such act being of such a nature as to be calculated to
be prejudicial to the Defence of the Realm and being done
with the intention and for the purpose of assisting then
enemy".
He was found guilty and sentenced to ten years penal
servitude. After a short stay in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin he
was transferred to Dartmoor prison in Devon in England and
afterwards to Lewis prison in Sussex before being
released in 1917. It was during his time in prison
that he and his fellow prisoners decided to contest the
forthcoming British General Election in 1918 as Sinn Fein
candidates. Instead of taking their seats in Westminster
parliament they would convene their own parliament in
Dublin.
After his release from prison he opened a tailor shop in Abbey Street in Dublin
that doubled as a communications center for the IRB. He
ran as a Sinn Fein candidate in the 1918 General Election
and was elected for South Roscommon. When the First Dáil
Eireann
was meeting in January 1919 Boland was not present.
Both he and Michael Collins
were on their way to England where, in February, they
successfully freed de
Valera from Lincoln jail. During the convening of the Dail
others answered the roll call for them and they were
officially marked present. At the third Dail meeting in
April de Valera replaced Cathal Brugha as Príomh Aire (Prime
Minister)
After de Valera took office he
appointed Boland special envoy to the United States. He
arrived in the U.S. in June of 1919. In his possession
was a document entitled ‘Ireland’s Address to the Free
Nations of the World’, otherwise known as Ireland’s Claim to
Independence, which had been proclaimed at the First Dáil
and published by Fergus O’Connor. As the document was
suppressed by the British Boland concealed it during
his journey in the soles of his boots. For the next
two to three years he travelled the country campaigning for recognition of the Irish
Republic. He also helped raise funds
for the of Bureau of Military History
.
Boland worked closely with both Collins and de Valera
in organizing and planning strategy
prior too and during the War
Independence. He disagreed with the
terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty
signed on December 6, 1921 and sided
with the anti-Treaty forces. As a
consequence he parted company with
Collins who was a member of the
delegation that negotiated and
singed the Treaty. In 1922, he was
re-elected to the Dáil. He was the
principal intermediary between the
treaty's supporters and opponents
leading up to the onset of the
Treaty
War.
Boland was shot by
an officer of the Irish Free
State Army on 31 July 1922 in the Skerries
Grand Hotel in Dublin shortly after the
onset of the Treaty War. Two officers
entered his room, one of whom shot and
mortally wounded him. He was
unarmed. He refused to name his
killer when asked by his sister
Kathleen. The only thing he told her was
that his killer was a friend who was in
prison with him.
He died several days later in
St. Vincent's Hospital. He is
buried in Glasnevin
Cemetery.
Notes:
(1)
The Gaelic League was founded in
1893 by Douglas Hyde to foster the
revival of the Gaelic culture
including its language,
folklore, sports and arts that over
the centuries of British occupation
were forcefully subverted and
denigrated in an calculated attempt
to destroy all semblance of the
Irish identity The League's first
newspaper was An Claidheamh Soluis
(The Sword of Light) and its most
noted editor was Patrick Pearse.
(2)
At that time the IRB was more or
less stagnant . In 1905 two young
Ulster Republicans,
Denis McCullough
and
Bulmer Hobson
founded the Dungannon Clubs whose purpose was to encourage
young Irishmen to join the IRB instead of enlisting in the
British Army. Their ultimate goal was complete
independence from Britain and the establishment of an
Irish Republic.
In 1908 Tom Clarke and Sean McDiarmada joined up
with McCullough
and Hobson in preparation leading up to
the Easter Rising in 1916.
Contributed by Tomás Ó Coısdealbha
cemetery AND grave location
Name:
Glasnevin Cemetery
ADDRESS: Finglas Road, Glasnevin, Dublin 11, Ireland
GRAVE
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