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205

The History Sale 2015

www.adams.ie

718

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