Dublin City’s first Chief Librarian and the Rising

A native of the Clogher Valley in Co. Tyrone, Róisín Walsh was born into a staunchly nationalist, Catholic family on 24th March 1889.  Walsh was a brilliant linguist and gifted scholar and received the best education then available to females.  She went on to become a teacher (she later switched career to librarian).  By 1914, due to the outbreak of the Great War, she had returned to Ireland from a teaching post in Germany.  From that time she was based in Belfast as a lecturer in Irish and English at St. Mary’s Training College (then a primary school teacher training college for Catholic women).

Image: Róisín Walsh (1889 - 1949)

A committed Republican, Walsh was closely associated with James Connolly’s two daughters, Nora and Ina, who were then based in Belfast; she promptly joined the Belfast Cumann na mBan on its foundation by Nora Connolly in 1915. Under the influence of Nora Connolly the Belfast Cumann na mBan was noted for its “assertive” nature in that the women, unusually, underwent regular practice in rifle marksmanship, with many becoming quite skilled.

Prior to the Rising, Róisín and her sister Bridget became friends with the charismatic Seán MacDiarmada on his travels as an IRB organiser around Ulster.  Both women were in close contact with him prior to the Rising, with Róisín helping him with correspondence to the United States while Bridget provided the covering address for letters to MacDiarmada from John Devoy, the Clan na nGael leader in the United States.

One of the key IRB members in Co. Tyrone was none other than the Clogher parish priest, Fr. James O’Daly who was one of  two “militantly nationalist clerics” who were  considered “vital in promoting the spread of revolutionary nationalism in Co. Tyrone” (the other was Father Coyle of Fintona).  Both clerics were, in turn, closely associated with the Tyrone doctor Patrick McCartan, who was a member of the IRB Supreme Council and a “mainspring of the Irish Volunteer movement in Co. Tyrone.”

At home in Clogher in Easter week, Walsh received advance knowledge of the Rising on Good Friday from Fr. O’ Daly. Due to the confusion that followed MacNeill’s countermanding order on Easter Sunday, the Northern Volunteers’ mobilisation in Tyrone was short lived and they dispersed. In Clogher, the Walsh family awaited news from Nora and Ina Connolly.  The sisters had returned to Dublin on Easter Sunday to report to the Military Council on the situation in Ulster, and had subsequently been sent back to carry dispatches from Pearse for the Tyrone men to commence hostilities.   The Walsh family, collectively and in close collaboration with Fr. O’Daly, the Connolly sisters and Archie Heron (Irish Volunteers, Belfast Brigade) played an active role in the concerted but ill-fated attempt to implement Pearse’s orders and bring about a remobilisation.

They carried out a range of activities, including providing a safe house for the Connolly sisters. Walsh’s younger siblings, her sister Teresa (Teasie), along with Ina Connolly, and her brother Joseph carried despatches around the county throughout the week.  On the Wednesday of Easter week, Róisín, her youngest brother Tom and Teasie helped to smuggle ammunition and supplies in a pony trap to the Volunteers Clogher Company which had assembled on Tuesday in the at Ballymacan on the orders of Fr. O'Daly.

Róisín Walsh left her lecturing post in Belfast in 1919 and returned to Clogher, where in 1921 she took up a position as a Rate Collector with Tyrone County Council. In 1922, she was dismissed from this post following her refusal to sign a mandatory declaration of allegiance to the King and the Northern Ireland Government. She was forced to move to Dublin in late 1922 to avoid arrest and prosecution following an RUC raid on her family home in Lisnamaghery, in which alleged seditious literature was found and an exclusion order was issued against her. The following year the Walsh family relocated to Cypress Grove Farm and House in Templeogue, Dublin.

By 1931, the Corporation Public Libraries Committee (who had begun employing females from the 1920s) was seeking to recruit graduate with librarianship diplomas.  Walsh held an honours BA from UCD and a library Associateship of the UK Library Association.  Her outstanding credentials secured her the historic appointment of Dublin city’s first chief librarian, a post in which she served with great distinction until her untimely death in office in 1949, aged just 60 years.

About our Guest Blogger

Evelyn Conway is Librarian at Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive.

The above is based on a essay in the book 'Dublin City Council and the 1916 Rising', published by Dublin City Council, March 2016. Evelyn is one of a number of contributors of essays exploring events of the Rising and biographies of persons involved and either employed by the Council at the time, or subsequently.

Part of a series looking at Dublin City Public Libraries staff and the 1916 Rising. See also:

• Tommy Gay: The Capel Street Librarian and the 1916 Rising
• Paddy Stephenson: Dublin City's Second Chief Librarian and The Rising
• James Thomas Dowling: Dublin's County Librarian and the Rising
• Michael McGinn: The Clontarf Town Hall Caretaker and the Rising
• James O'Byrne: The Kevin Street Librarian and the Rising