Dan Breen and the IRA (16 page)

As Breen's health declined, his fondness for letter-writing increased. These tended to be handwritten and hard to read. He held his pen in a claw because his hand bones had long before been shattered by bullets.

In 1960, a schoolteacher who'd met Breen when he was a young child, brought a group of schoolboys to visit the dáil. Breen eagerly came down to meet the children and to show them around.

That night the teacher wrote to Breen, thanking him for his gesture towards the boys and inviting him to visit his home. A reply came quickly: ‘There is no need for you to thank me for meeting yourself and the boys yesterday. As a matter of fact I love to meet young people and talk to them. I had hoped when I reached fifty years of age to retire from public life and devote all my time to going through our country, giving lectures and talks to our young folk. I feel it is more than ever needed today. I am now too old – I am sixty-six – and I am still in the same position, only worse than when I hit the fifty mark.

‘I feel a great lot could be done to save our people from the evil influence of Yankee and English ways of life if our youth got a proper grinding in the things that matter. I feel that the things I want done will never be done, as our educational system is so set that a pass in an exam is more important than truth, honour, citizenship. I won't worry you more. I may upset you and I don't wish in any way to do that. I was pleased to meet you and the lovely boys. I never visit anyone, I live within myself. So you will excuse me. Dan Breen.'

When Brian Inglis wrote his 1962 memoir,
West Briton
, about growing up a protestant in Ireland, he was surprised to get a laudatory letter from Breen: ‘Your grandmother would not like it – in fact she may now turn in her grave at you reading it. I only want to congratulate you on your book
West Briton
. You surely got to grips with the real position. It's sad for Ireland to lose men like you – you are needed back here to build up an Ireland not rich but with a culture.'

Inglis, aware that Breen had spoken about the need for the Republic to achieve reconciliation with northern protestants, recalled, ‘The handwriting was at times barely legible; he had been ill for some time, he explained and found it hard to write, “so excuse my effort”. I wrote back to tell him that I could think of no letter which had given me more pleasure.'

By 1965, Seán Lemass had replaced De Valera as taoiseach and Fianna Fáil was about to undergo a sea change. The War of Independence generation of politicians, taking their lead from De Valera, were gradually retiring. New bloods like Charlie Haughey, Donagh O'Malley and Jack Lynch were taking over. In 1965, Lemass wanted some of the old timers to make way for younger men.

Breen was on his list of deputies fit for retirement but, when efforts were made to track him down, Breen was nowhere to be found. He seemed to have gone on the run again. He eventually surfaced in a nursing home in Clonmel. Brendan Long, an able reporter from the local
Nationalist
newspaper, was summoned for a valedictory interview.

He told Long that he did not mind resigning, but wished to announce it to the
Nationalist
and to the people of Tipperary. ‘Maybe I wasn't a hell of a good representative for Tipperary,' he admitted, ‘because I always tried to think of the whole country.'

He was ready to retire from public life: ‘The Ireland of today is not the Ireland I grew up in. The ball is at the feet of the young fellows … I went seventy last August and I am glad to see the youth taking over. If they would only stop squabbling and get down to work, they could make a great country out of it.'

He returned to a favourite theme, the past slave mentality of the Irish: ‘The greatest kick I ever got was trying to get that slave-mindedness out of our people, trying to elevate them from the craven attitudes in which I saw them. When I was young the people were slaves to everyone and they were sat upon by everybody from the time they started. If they didn't have a cap to lift, they'd have to lift a handful of their hair. I detested that. I could never accept it – not even when I was a little boy. I could not and would not conform to this tyranny.'

In the course of the conversation he took ill and had to return to his bed but kept on talking as he still had things to say: ‘The world owes me nothing. I had a rough time, but I have no regrets in life for anything I did. I might have messed up a few things or I might not have done as much as I should have but to the best of my ability I did all I could.'

In retirement he moved into a nursing home, St John of God's, at Kilcroney, Co Wicklow. His time there was much taken up with visitors; researchers, writers, painters, TV crews, all wanting a final slice of an authentic Irish rebel. He found himself, nevertheless, with time on his hands. The days of dropping into pubs to enjoy a hero's welcome or seeing old pals in the homes of Tipperary were over. Like all old people, he really was living within himself now. In addition to writing letters he kept a diary of sorts containing meditations on what was happening in the world he was leaving behind.

On 23 May 1966, he turned to two pet hates, the catholic hierarchy and the Labour Party: ‘I read in today's papers about the plaque that President De Valera unveiled to John and Ned Daly in Limerick yesterday. I took special notice that the catholic high priest attended. Old John Daly died as he had lived, outside the church. The bishops kicked the dear old fenians out of the church. The Kerry bishop stated in his banishment that hell was not hot enough or eternity long enough to punish them. If there is such a place as an afterlife, I hope he is in it. Heaping on the coal, gas, oil, or electric power, whichever is best used for heating the place.

‘The new men in the Labour Party are a very poor type of manhood. They are one and all a gang of chancers with no interest in Ireland or the Irish people. They want a plaque put up by that crowd to the great James Connolly. What an insult to a great man and what he stood for! Connolly was FIRST Irish and he wanted his country free from the slave chains of England. When that job was done he wanted a social system set up for the benefit of all our people – not for the benefit of one section, one party.'

He'd started a love affair with Dublin before he'd settled there. Now that he was living on the city's perimeter, he had caustic things to say about it in his journal: ‘Dublin is Dublin and it is still the Pale. The Anglo blood is hard to change. You may change one or two of them but the great majority will always be anti-Irish. They tasted the ways of empire and served it for a way of life – so they can't ever change. The Castle catholic is far worse than the Anglo type. The crown servants are at heart loyal to the English. The bishops and clergy were ninety-nine per cent on the side of the enslavers.'

Diarmuid Crowley, a Provisional IRA activist in the 1980s, visited the old gunfighter as a child: ‘My dad was a civil servant in the department of finance and his dad had been in the IRA during the Tan War. Dad was active in Fianna Fáil and was all in favour of anything to do with Irish Ireland … he'd known Dan Breen since he was a kid. When Dan ended up out in Kilcroney he was pretty close to our home – we lived in Killiney – so dad would go out to visit pretty regularly. To bring him books and to chew the fat, usually on a Sunday afternoon. I'd have been about eight or nine at the time and dad wanted me to meet what he called “this great man”. Dan always made time for me; he was kind of like a teacher, really. He'd want to explain things. It might be a little lesson on Irish history or something about one of the shrubs growing in the grounds of Kilcroney. In a way, I think, he was more comfortable with me than he was with dad. Possibly because there was something innocent about Dan for all that he had done when he was fighting. I was too young to understand how “famous” he was. To me he was just an elderly man and I loved going to see him on that level. When I got old enough I read
My Fight for Irish Freedom
. It was all right … Dan had an influence on me as a human being … brave and dignified sitting there in his room in a nursing home. Waiting for death, I suppose. This big old man who'd seen and done more than I could ever hope to see or do.'

Donagh MacDonagh, the son of 1916 leader Thomás MacDonagh, was one of Breen's most frequent visitors at Kilcroney. A talented poet, playwright and balladeer, MacDonagh was a district court judge whose best known work was the 1946 comic verse drama,
Happy as Larry
. Through MacDonagh, Breen came into contact with diverse circles of artists and intellectuals. Wexford historian, Nicky Furlong, recalls sculptor John Behan, poet Patrick Kavanagh and movie director John Huston, as people who visited Breen via MacDonagh.

‘Donagh never told me anything about his past life, which must have been harrowing,' said Furlong. ‘Dan did. Donagh had been born into this world a physical wreck. His spine was so bad, his intestines so twisted, that no insurance company would take him on.

‘Dan told me that after the execution of his father, Thomás MacDonagh, various republicans got together and formed the Green Cross, an organisation which looked after the widows and orphans of executed men and men who were killed in active service.

‘It was through the Green Cross that Dan came to know Donagh and Donagh became friendly with him. For Donagh, you must remember, every day was a new life. He arrived on the scene full of stories and ideas, the life of the party. He did an immense amount of good for people. He looked after Dan extremely well.

‘Donagh used to bring Dan out for some wonderful get-togethers. He was always going to see him in Kilcroney, urging people to go out to see him, filling him in on the affairs of the day.

‘A favourite topic was fellows who were doing well and fellows who should be shot. One man for whom they had a particular dislike was Ernest Blythe.* MacDonagh used to report every slide from esteem, statement, abuse, and jeer relating to Blythe with great relish and Dan always enjoyed this, responding with seeming knowledge of the background. Of course he may have been greatly amused at MacDonagh's power of invective. I remember poor Dan laughing one day in the Glen of the Downs until it hurt. MacDonagh was brilliantly able to mimic Blythe, his accent, facial expression and hand gestures.

‘I remember Donagh and himself being completely antagonistic to Christmas, the sending of Christmas cards and the whole idea of Christ's birth being celebrated when the whole thing was a fairytale. The interesting point about Dan Breen was that, despite his attitude, he was a puritanical man; a stern father figure who might not let his children mix with undesirables. He was not a loose-living deviant type. He thought deeply about proper behaviour and how it should be enforced.

‘Donagh went off to Spain for a holiday. While there he contracted some bug, he came home and in a short time was dead. He died on 1 January 1968. The bottom fell out of our lives. Dan was shattered in as much as a man already broken could be shattered. We made all the arrangements to go to the funeral. My wife and I went to communion and Dan expressed his surprise at people going to communion at night. Years ago, he said, people had to fast before going to the rails. I explained about Vatican II and he said, “I suppose so.”

‘The next day we went to the burial at Glasnevin. I'll always remember the sight of the three of us, lonely people, with a great friend and a national figure dead and being buried. All the government ministers were around the grave. We kept away because we didn't want to be dragging Dan over headstones and kerbs. Nevertheless – he was there – a giant of the national struggle known the world over. A pitiful sight with the two of us standing there linking him. He was seen, known and recognised by several government ministers and not one of them came over to shake his hand, to say, “Hello, how are you?”, “Good Luck” or anything else. We just brought him out for a meal. That was the last satisfactory day out I had with Dan because whenever I went out to see him again, there was always the great absence and the great sorrow – Donagh MacDonagh not there.'

Towards the end of his life Breen returned publicly to the catholic church. He'd always attended church ceremonies (funerals, commemorative masses, etc.) and some priests were close friends but he was a notoriously forceful anti-clerical creature. Peadar O'Donnell recalled visiting him in hospital one day when a senior bishop came to pay his respects. A nurse came into the room to tell Breen that the bishop was outside. ‘Ah, just tell him to fuck off!' Breen told her.

In a press interview announcing his return to religion he said, ‘A canon – I forget his name right now – an old clergyman came here and we had a long chat for hours. So I decided to resume. Well, I didn't resume to accept everything … most things in reason, believing in God and that Christ was here …'

He argued that he'd always believed in God, ‘but not in the God that was put up by some clerics … a God that was terrifying, but a God who was charitable and lovable and that cared for the children of the world and didn't put them there for the pleasure of seeing them damned.'

‘I hate the creepy crawling thing,' he said. ‘God doesn't want us to crawl or He doesn't want you to humble yourself beyond what is dignified. There was no softness in Christ. He was a hard man. He gave the people what they deserved. He gave them a kick in the backside and told them not to be crying and grumbling and hypocritical. When we were young we were very much afraid of the priests. They were terribly bossy in my young days – they'd give you a clip on the ear for very little. What sins could a boy of that age have except that he stole a few apples out of an orchard? And I don't see that as a sin.

‘I see such a lot of shrines all over the country. I don't believe in shrines being put up to Christ or the Blessed Virgin on the roadside because people are not worthy of it. You have to be very spiritual and very holy before you put up shrines. They're too precious, too sacred and most of the shrines are shocking monstrosities.'