

205
The History Sale 2015
www.adams.ie718
KATHLEEN CLARKE
Her 1916 bronze medal, on a bronze clasp (without pin) and green and
gold ribbon, without the original box.
Kathleen Daly Clarke [1879-1972] was a daughter of the Limerick Fenian
John Daly, who shared many hard years of imprisonment in Britain with
Tom Clarke. Daly was the first of the two to be released; he returned to
Limerick where he opened a bakery and was elected Lord Mayor. When
Tom Clarke was released in September 1898, he took up a long-standing
invitation to visit his old comrade in Limerick, and there he struck up a
close friendship with Kathleen, then a young girl of some 20 years. They
went to the United States, where they married in 1901. In 1907 they
returned to Dublin, where Clarke opened a tobacconist’s and newsagent’s
shop, which functioned as unofficial HQ for the younger members of the
I.R.B., and a centre for planning for the Rising as 1916 approached.
Kathleen Clarke shared her husband’s political opinions completely. She
wished to take her place in the Rising, but was told there was other
important work for her. Tom Clarke gave her the money remaining from
Clan na Gael’s subvention to finance the Rising, which she was to use for
relief of Volunteer dependants once the fighting was over.
The day after the Rising ended, she founded what became the Irish
Volunteers Dependants and National Aid Association, and resisted
attempts to make her amalgamate with a Redmondite group. She
collected and administered large sums of money distributed on a basis of
need, to all those families who had lost their breadwinners in the Rising.
It was a most effective and influential organisation, and became more so
when she chose as her assistant in August 1916 a young man just out of
internment, named Michael Collins. It was the perfect position for Collins,
giving him direct access to what remained of the I.R.B., and facilitating his
reorganisation of the Volunteers.
She was briefly a member of the Dail, and later the Seanad, and in
1939 became the first female Lord Mayor of Dublin, after she declined a
suggestion from Eamon de Valera that she should stand aside in favour
of one of the Pearses (she is reputed to have said that Tom Clarke’s wife
would stand aside for nobody). She joined Fianna Fail, but in 1943 she
resigned over Government policy on Republican prisoners.
During her term as Lord Mayor she established the Irish Red Cross, and
presided over its inaugural meeting in the Mansion House. She raised her
three sons, and lived a long and fruitful life, though a lonely one.
(See her autobiography, Revolutionary Woman, 1991).
Provenance: Adams & Mealys, the first Independence sale, 12 April 2006,
lot 337, where bought by present vendor.
€25,000 - €35,000
Lot 727
Tom and Kathleen Clarke