Irish institute of journalists Annual Dinner

The annual dinner in connection with the annual general meeting of the Irish Association District Institute of Journalists was held on Saturday evening in the Grand Hotel, Malahide. In the evening at 6.30 over sixty members and guests sat down to dinner in the spacious supper room.

Mr J.P. Hayden MP (chairman) presided. To his right sat the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, Mr W.C. Mills, chairman of the Dublin District; to his left Mr Geo. McSweeney BL, ex-chairman, and Mr Thos. Kennedy BL, Lord Mayor’s secretary. Those present included Mr F.J. Allan, C. Ryan, J.B. Hall, J. Sherlock BA; M.F. McGrenahan BL; W.F. Dennehy, J.P. Gaynor BL; John Magrath, M.P. Ryle, T.R. Harrington, E. Tuohy, Cork; W. Barrett, do.; J. Geary, do.; James Murray, J. Wyse Power, Edward Byrne FJI; M.J. Cosgrave, R. O’Dwyer, C. Lehane, A.J. Conway, V.D. Hughes, P.J. Meade, P.J. Hooper, M.A. Casey, Drogheda; R. Donovan, J. Linehan BL; J. Jameson, R.J. O’Mulrennin MA; T. Fitzpatrick, F.C. Wallis Healy, L. Dennehy, solicitor; W.M. Seaver, M. Wheeler, William Stewart, H. McWeeney, P. Delany, P.J. Griffith, V. Kilbride, solicitor; G. Sherlock, T.D. Fitzgerald, J. McNerney, J.W. Bacon, T.J. Condon MP; R.M. Peter, Lionel Johnson, J. Mooney, W. Clarke, hon. sec., Dublin District; E.H. Kearney BL; Frank Manley, Edwin Hamilton MA; Dr Joze, John O’Connell, T. O’Connor, W.W. O’Mahony (Naas), M. Code (Wexford), P.F. Keenan (Enniscorthy).

The vice-chairs were occupied by Mr J.B. Hall and Mr T.R. Harrington.

Our readers will please perceive that from this list of names it appears that every newspaper in Dublin was there represented – Dillonite, Healyite, Parnellite, they are all there. All the men who write the furiously patriotic leading articles, all the literary guides of politics, all the men who in season and out of season are protesting their love for Ireland, their hatred of tyranny, their unquenchable determination to follow in the footsteps of Tone and Emmet. Well, these hot-headed, high-minded patriots (sic) met together and at a purely social, non-political function, where they were in an overwhelming majority, they commenced proceedings by drinking a toast, to what, think ye? To our martyred dead, no; to our motherland, no; to Freedom’s cause, no; perhaps to the 1,225,000 persons who died of famine in the present reign in Ireland, no. But to

Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen.

The sovereign under whose rule those countrymen and women of ours were starved to death, in a land as fertile as any in Europe, in obedience to a hellish system of political economy, and in accordance with the deliberate government policy sanctioned and approved of by Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen.

The very next Sunday most of those journalistic patriots were at the demonstration in Bodenstown [3], the greatest rebels of us all (mar dhea) and outvying each other in enthusiastic cheers for the great republican of ’98, protesting their admiration for his inflexible purpose and democratic virtues, even while the liquor they had consumed in drinking the ‘loyal’ toast had scarcely died out in their veins. And the day after the Wolfe Tone demonstration all our Dublin daily papers in the Home Rule interest contained long editorials written by these same versatile gentlemen, complimenting the Irish people for their fidelity to the cause of freedom. Could arrant knavery and hypocrisy go further?

Irish political history, written by such men as these, has represented our middle-class Home Rulers and their journalistic allies as the high-minded apostles of a distressed people; future history will more correctly stigmatise them as the most unscrupulous political charlatans who ever imposed upon a confiding race.

Before leaving this unsavoury subject we would like to ask a civil question. In the list of names given as being present at the loyal function spoken of, we see the name of Mr F.J. Allan. Mr Allan is manager of the Independent, is a member of the ’98 Executive, is reputed to be an advanced nationalist. If he was present at the banquet, why did he not protest? If he was not present, why did he not repudiate the name of those who used his name in that connection? Was it because he did not like to expose the lily-livered hypocrites who call themselves nationalist journalists? Or is he himself as great a hypocrite as any? Mr F.J. Allan is an official of the Irish Institute of Journalists who gave this dinner – Treasurer in fact – and as such directly responsible for this loyal toast. Let him answer. [4] And let him and all others take notice that there is now entered into the journalistic world of Ireland a new force in the shape of a newspaper pledged to carry out the revolutionary principles of the United Irishmen, in accordance with the changed economical and political development of the time. [5] In accordance with that pledge, which we here make to our readers, there devolves upon our shoulders the duty, which we accept with pleasure, of relentlessly exposing to the public gaze and trampling into the mire to which they belong all the horde of middle-class tricksters and political wirepullers who have so long emasculated and weakened our political faith. Let those “hirelings of England in the green livery of our country” take notice.

Setanta

 

Notes

1. Healy, Thomas Sexton, Harrington, John Redmond, Dillon, O’Brien and O’Connor were Home Rule MPs. T.D. Sullivan was author of God Save Ireland and other nationalist verses.

2. After Charles Stewart Parnell’s relationship with a married woman was exposed in 1890, the Home Rule party turned against him and split into warring factions.

3. Called by the ’98 Executive to commemorate the centenary of the United Irish rising.

4. In the July 1, 1899 issue of The Workers’ Republic (after Connolly had accused him of acquiescing in another royal toast) Allan claimed that he had left the room when the toast was announced. Connolly replied that his explanation resolved nothing.

5. This was the first issue of The Workers’ Republic.