Agony and ecstasy of a rebel heart

Lifestyle – A new book by Athenry historian Conor McNamara offers fresh insights into the life of Liam Mellows, the leader of the 1916 Rising in Galway. Conor tells JUDY MURPHY how, during his research, he came across some intriguing theories about Mellows, the son and grandson of British Army sergeants whose wish since childhood had been to die for Ireland.

“If I were to use one word to describe Liam Mellows, it would be unhappy,” says historian Conor McNamara, whose new book on the Irish revolutionary is being launched this week. Conor’s book of Mellows’ writings certainly proves that his subject was obsessed with death and dying.

Liam Mellows: Soldier of the Irish Republic – Selected writings 1914-1922, covers his early involvement with the Irish Volunteers, his opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and the hours before his execution in December 1922 by the Free State army.

Mellows is renowned in Galway for the part he played in the 1916 Rising locally. After it was put down, he escaped and spent several months hiding in the Sliabh Aughty mountains between Galway and Clare, before escaping to New York dressed as a nun.

In America, from 1917-1920, Mellows played a key role in raising awareness about Ireland’s struggle against England.

It was in America, in 1919, that Mellows was photographed with a young boy who has never been identified. When the Fenian leader, John Devoy wrote to Mellows asking ‘who is the child’? the brief response was ‘that’s my godson’.

That raises questions for Conor who feels it was an extremely non-informative reply from a man who had stayed in Devoy’s house in New York.

There had been rumours in Ireland that Mellows had fathered a child – if not two – and the photo of him with this unidentified boy deepens the mystery for the Athenry historian.

“Mellows was likeable but unknowable and he hadn’t many close friends,” according to Conor, who teaches history at the University of Minnesota’s Irish programme, having previously worked at NUIG as its 1916 Scholar in Residence.

That observation about Mellows being unknowable is apt, as it has also been claimed that he was gay.

The historian isn’t offering answers to any of these theories – and doesn’t debate them in the book. Rather, his exploration of Mellows’ writings aims to highlight “the personal toll the revolution took on a generation of young militants”.

Mellows’ writings were ‘the disparate public and private utterances of a young man who lived an itinerant life during a time of rapidly changing political realities’, Conor explains in his foreword.

The letters, in particular, offer an insight into this apparently fearless revolutionary, showing his many insecurities and his anguish over what he believed were his mistakes.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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