On
completing her studies at St Angela’s she
returned to London where she worked as a private
tutor. At age twenty she was admitted to Hughes
Hall, the Cambridge Teaching College for Women
from whence she received a teaching diploma.
After receiving her diploma she taught at the
Hillside Convent in Farnborough, London before
returning to Cork in 1904 on the death of her
mother. As oldest child she assumed
responsibility for the care of her younger
siblings.
On her return to Cork
she obtained a teaching position at St Angela’s
Ursuline High School, the school she attended as
a student.
Once
settled in she
joined Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of
Ireland) an Irish Nationalist organization for
women founded in 1900 by Maud Goone. The aim of
the organization was to bring Irishwomen
together to breakdown the prevailing Victorian
attitudes that prevented them from participation
in social and political activities thus denying
them the right to have their voices heard. One
consistent message they conveyed from the onset was their
opposition to the recruitment of Irishmen to
serve in the British army and to John Redmond's
anti-feminist Irish Parliamentary Party whose
Home Rule stance would deny women the right to
vote. They made clear that nothing less than
full Independence for Ireland would ensure equal
rights for women.
Inghinidhe na hÉireann was the
foundation upon which Cumann na mBan was
formed.
She also joined Conradh na
Gaeilge (the Gaelic League) founded in 1893 by
Douglas Hyde, Fr. Eugene Ó Growney and other
Gaelic scholars. The aim of the Gealic League
was 1) the preservation of Irish as the
national language of Ireland and the extension
of its use as a spoken language and 2) the study
and publication of existing Gaelic literature,
and the cultivation of a modern literature in
Irish.
When the Munster Women's
Franchise League (an organization for women's
suffrage) was founded in Cork in 1911, Mary was
one of its founding members and also its
secretary. At the onset of WWI in 1914 the
suffrage movement split into several camps, some
sympathetic to England - others not. As a
committed Irish Republican she left the
suffrage movement when the Munster Women’s
Franchise League bought an ambulance and
presented it to the military authorities in Cork
By then she believed that most suffragettes were
“Britons first, suffragists second and Irish
women, perhaps, a bad third”
Cumann na mBan (CnamB) was
established in Dublin in 1914 as an auxiliary
of the Irish Volunteers. The primary aims of
the organization was 1) "to advance the cause
of Irish liberty and to organize Irishwomen in
the furtherance of this object", 2) to
assist in arming and equipping a body of Irish
men for the defense of Ireland" and 3)
"to form a fund for these purposes, to be called
'The defense of Ireland Fund'".
Following it's founding in
Dublin branched were setup throughout Ireland.
Mary was a founding member of the Cork branch.
In September of 1914 when John Redmond appealed
to the Irish Volunteers to join the British army,
the 140,000 who heeded Redmond's call were
rebranded the National Volunteers. The 10,000
who ignored Redmond retained the original name,
the Irish Volunteers. The majority of CnamB
members including Mary stayed with the
Irish Volunteers in conformity to their stated
aim.
After the split Mary became an
officer and President of the Cork branch. The others
officers were Madeline O'Leary, Nora O'Brien, Birdie
Conway and Maire Ni Chuill.
On May 2, 1916 three days after
the Easter Rising Mary was arrested in her
classroom by British soldiers for her
involvement in the Republican movement. She was
released later that day with other Cumann
members. As a consequence she was dismissed from
her teaching position at St. Angela's Ursuline
High School.
In 1917, together with her
sister Annie, she founded Scoil Íte, a secondary
school for girls, that emphasized Irish
history, language and culture. It was modeled
after St Enda's School Secondary School for boys
founded by Padraic Pearse in Dublin in 1908. She
remained involved with the school for the rest
of her life.
Sinn Fein's founding in 1905 was
based on the principle 'that the Union of Great
Britain and Ireland was illegal and that no
Irishman or woman could legally participate in
any of its institutions. Ireland was to be a
free and independent kingdom sharing the same
monarch as Great Britain".
It was not until after the
Easter Rising when Republicans rallied under the
Sinn Fein banner after Sinn Fein adopted 'the establishment of an
Irish Republic as it's core
principle'. It was at this juncture that Mary
joined the organization having previously stated
"I will never accept the King of England as
the King of Ireland"
During the 1918 General
Election, Mary campaigned for her brother,
Terence, who was subsequently elected a Sinn
Fein candidate to the first Dáil Éireann.
After the Lord Mayor of Cork,
Tomás MacCurtain, was killed in March of 1920
by the Black and Tans during the War of
Independence
Terence MacSwiney succeeded him as
both Lord Mayor of Cork and Commandant of the
First Cork Brigade of the I.R.A.
Shortly after taking office he
signed an official resolution of the City
Council declaring "Dáil Éireann as the
lawful, legal and constitutional parliament of
the Irish Nation". Shorty after his election
as Lord Mayor Terence was arrested, charged with
sedition and sentenced to two years
imprisonment.
In rebuking the sentencing court
and its underpinning legal system as an illegal
institution in Ireland he immediately
embarked on a hunger strike. After 74 days on
hunger strike, exacerbated by a crude attempt at
force feeding, he died on October 25, 1920 in
Brixton prison in London. Mary was in there to
support him during his agonizing ordeal. She
accompanied his remains back to Cork despite the
British governments attempts to stop her.
In December of 1920 Mary travelled to the
United States with Terence's wife, Muriel,
to testify before the American Commission on
Conditions in Ireland (1).
After completing her testimony
before the Commission she undertook a tour
of the United States to 1) make the case for
the recognition of the Irish Republic, 2)
promote the newly formed American
Association for the Recognition of the Irish
Republic and 3) raise funds to support the
government of the Irish Republic.
She started the tour in Madison
Square Garden in New York on Jan. 7, 1921
where she addressed a crowd of 5,000. For
the following eight months she crisscrossed
the U. S. attracting large crowds. She
submitted detailed reports to
Harry Boland and John O'Mara on a regular basis detailing
meeting attendance, successes and problems
areas.
While touring the U.S. she ran
as a Sinn Fein candidate in the British
arranged 1921 General Election to elect
members to the House of Commons of Northern
Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern
Ireland as provided for in the "Government
of Ireland Act 1920'. The election was used
by Republicans to elect members to the
Second Dail Eireann.
Mary opposed the Anglo-Irish
Treaty when it was debated in the Second
Dail. Her two hours and forty minutes
address was best summed up by the following
excerpts “This is not the will of the Irish
people; it is the fear of the Irish people”.
She implored Dail members not to commit to
"the one unforgivable crime that has ever
been committed by the representatives of the
people of Ireland" by accepting a treaty
which required an oath of allegiance to the
British monarchy.
Mary was vice-President of
Cumann na mBan when it voted 419 to 63 to
withhold support for the 1921 Anglo-Irish
Treaty and afterwards the organization
adopted a resolution put forward by Mary
rejecting the formation of the Free State.
Mary was elected on the Sinn
Fein ticket to the Third Dail Eireann on
June 22, 1922 just one week before the
outbreak of the Civil War. The Third Dail
which, was elected under terms of the
Anglo-Irish Treaty and sanctioned by the
British, was an anathema to Republicans who,
having sworn allegiance to the Irish
Republic, would not participate in such an
abhorrent assemblage.
Shortly after the onset of the
Civil War, Mary was arrested in a roundup of
Republican women by the British supported Free State
apparatus and
imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail without cause
other than for her steadfast commitment to
the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916. In
protest, she went on a hunger strike that
lasted 21 days. Due to protests and a
barrage of negative worldwide publicity she
was released.
She was arrested for the second
time in April of 1923 enroute to Liam
Lynch's funeral and incarcerated in
Kilmainham where she immediately joined
other women on hunger strike. She was
released on May 2, after enduring a nineteen
day hunger strike.
The so-called Civil War ended in
May of 1923 in the defeat of the Republican
side. That outcome was a victory for the
British who used the Free State to achieve
what they themselves failed to achieve.
Ireland was the loser.
Mary retained her seat in the
1923 General Election but, in common with
the other Republican deputies, refused to
take the Oath of Allegiance to the British
monarch as required under the constitution
of the Free State, therefore did not take
her seat.
Mary undertook a second trip to
the United States in January 1925
unannounced and without a Irish Free State
passport. The gist of her message during her
appearances was that the Irish Republic
still exists although unrecognized and
that
the Free State was neither Free, Irish nor a
State. She travelled extensively as she did
during her first trip, however the crowds
were smaller and more subdued. One aspect of
her trip that provided Mary with an
excellent source of publicity was the
passport issue. The Free State government
and its overlords in London spent many hours
trying to determine how she entered the
United States hoping to find some way to
have her deported. She returned to Ireland
on her own terms in November of 1925.
