31
Irish Women Artists 1870 - 1970
Summer 2014
19. *Estella Frances Solomons HRHA (1882-1968)
Darrell Figgis
Oil on canvas, 61 x 46cm
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Darrell Figgis (1882-1925) was born into a wealthy tea merchant family moving to Ceylon while an
infant but the tea business was not for him as he preferred to write both as a poet and journalist.
He moved home to Ireland around 1910 and quickly discovered Irish politics and nationality. In 1913
he joined the volunteers and was one of the instigators of the Howth gun-running incident of July
1914 having bought the arms in Hamburg and moved them to the Roetigen lightship off the coast
of Belgium where they were transferred to the yachts belonging to Erskine Childers and Conor
O’Brien.
Although not active in the 1916 rising he was arrested and transferred with the elite to Reading
prison, one of many detentions imposed in the following years. He wrote about these detentions in
two chronicles in which he apparently exaggerated his role as he was generally unpopular. However
Arthur Griffith admired and trusted him as they were both wary of the more militarist wing of the
Nationalist movement. He supported the treaty and was elected to the Sinn Féin executive in 1922
where he was appointed vice- chairman of the committee to draft the Free State Constitution.
He ran as a pro-treaty Independent candidate in June 1922 when he topped the poll. His political
career went into decline after that and eventually he took his own life in London in October 1925.
