Youghal Celebrates 1916
ed. Kieran Groeger (Youghal Celebrates History, €10; address Mary’s College, Emmett Place, Youghal Co. Cork; email: ytta@eircom.net)
This booklet marking Youghal’s contribution to the 1916 celebrations includes a number of interesting articles, one of them relating to Sir Roger Casement.
Patrick Cockburn writes about a link between his grandfather, Jack Arbuthnot, a major in the Scots Guards, and Casement. Major Arbuthnot was responsible for guarding Casement when he was in the Tower of London. Arbuthnot was a part-time journalist and artist.
Four of his sketches of Casement in the last days of his life are reproduced.
There are profiles of some residents of Youghal who were totally opposed to the Nationalist agenda and the Easter Rising. Rev. Richard Hodges, the rector of St Mary’s Collegiate Chapel and a Freemason, was editor of the Church of Ireland Monthly for the combined dioceses of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.
His son Eric Hodges, fighting with the Royal Munster Fusiliers, was fatally wounded at the battle of the Somme.
He also published a book of photographs of Co. Cork, with pen pictures and photos of the important people in the county. Few Catholics were listed, not even Canon Keller, the parish priest of Youghal.
Canon Kellar was imprisoned for refusing to give the authorities information concerning the Plan of Campaign funds.
Felix M. Larkin in his article continues the nationalist theme, pointing out that Youghal, and especially the Ponsonby estate nearby, were active locations in the Land War. The prosecution of the Plan of Campaign caused bitter civil strife on the estate and in the town of Youghal.
Larkin concludes his article contending that in the period 1869 – 1921 the cause of land reform and Irish independence were inextricably linked. In an addendum, Larkin traces an interesting connection between James Connolly and Youghal.
As a boy soldier, aged 14, in the King’s Liverpool Regiment he may have been with his regiment in Youghal from 1882 to 1884.
A section, ‘What was Youghal like in 1916’, reveals a thriving market town with a garrison of 400 soldiers. Pages of Guy’s Directory for Youghal 1916 provide a great deal of information on the town’s commercial life and much else besides.
The final chapter is a photographic record of the 2016 Flag Raising ceremony in the towns schools.