Courtney McGrailSir John Keane and Cappoquin House in time of war and revolution,
by Glascott J.R.M. Symes
(Four Courts Press, €9.95)
J. Anthony Gaughan
Author Glascott Symes is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin in science and of Maynooth University in history. Formerly Deputy Headmaster of The King’s Hospital, he now lives in Co. Laois.
But for his little book he has gone back to his native Waterford. Though he provides an interesting account of the restoration of Cappoquin House, its history, and its architectural features, this little book is essentially a biography of Sir John Keane – a man of remarkable ability, courage, and integrity.
Sir John Keane was born in Dublin on June 3, 1873. He was educated at Clifton College, near Bristol, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Commissioned in the Royal Field Artillery in 1893, he served with distinction in the Boer War and World War I.
He had succeeded his father as fifth baronet of Cappoquin at the age of 19, and later he was private secretary to the governor of Ceylon from 1902 to 1905.
From 1911 onwards Keane was a member of Waterford County Council. Although a unionist by birth and conviction, he allied himself with William O’Brien’s All for Ireland League. After the split in the Nationalist Party following the fall of Parnell, O’Brien had established the League in 1909 to campaign for dominion-status home rule by agreement between nationalists and unionists through his ‘3 Cs’ – conference, conciliation, consent.
At that time also Keane was an active member of the Irish Co-operative Movement, founded by Sir Horace Plunkett whom he greatly admired. He established a Co-operative in Cappoquin and had a leading role in the establishment of a co-operative bacon factory in Waterford city.
Keane was in France when he heard about the Easter Rising in 1916. He was most dismissive of it, writing to his wife: “They seem to have had a lot of fighting in Dublin. I imagine the rebels were full of drink. I see they looted the shops in the most wholesome manner”.
Peace
Not surprisingly he was equally unenthusiastic about the War of Independence, remarking on the announcement of the Anglo-Irish truce: “I am relieved but do not rejoice”; and he added prophetically: “They will find that peace is harder than war…!”
During the Civil War widespread labour unrest, particularly among farm labourers in county Waterford, posed a serious threat to the Irish Free State.
The national army was not able to cope with the problem but Keane, as a leading member of the Irish Farmers Union, organised paramilitary farmer vigilantes to break the farm labourers strikes in the county (troubles which provide the deep background to Liam O’Flaherty’s civil war novel The Informer).
Keane was a member of the Senate of the Irish State from 1922 to 1934 and from 1938 to 1948. Assiduous in attendance, he was a formidable debater and intervened in the discussions of most of the issues before the House.
He was a trenchant critic of the Irish censorship laws. A staunch defender of business and landlord interests, he called himself “an unrependent capitalist”. Unwilling to ally himself with an ex-unionist group and otherwise independent, he was regarded by his peers as a maverick.
During the war of independence many “Great Houses” in Munster were destroyed by the IRA as a reprisal for the torching by the crown forces of hundreds of the homes of ‘Shinners’.
In the final months of the Civil War the houses of some members of the Senate received the same treatment from the Anti-Treatyites. Keane’s home, Belmont (Cappoquin House), was burnt down on February 19, 1923.
From the outset Keane was determined to restore the house. His wife, Eleanor Hicks Beach, daughter of a former chief secretary for Ireland, was even more determined.
Most of the restoration was completed by 1930, and the house remained Keane’s home until he died on January 30, 1956.
This brief life revives a most interesting character, and as such Mr Symes book deserves to be warmly welcomed.