Cumann na mBan in Jarrow, 1920-1922.

In an earlier post to ‘Exiles in England’, that explored the support provided by Irish nationalist women in the North East of England to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the War of Independence, I wrote ‘Unfortunately, no one from any North East branch of Cumann na mBan applied in the 1930s to Dublin for a military pension or a service medal or left a witness statement or memoir.’[1]

Earlier this year, however, I was sent a paper written by Kevin Davies, whose exhaustive online research in Dublin’s Military Service Pensions Collection has uncovered one member of the North East’s Cumann na mBan, who died in the United States of America in January 1966.[2] She was Mary Casey (née Summerville) from Jarrow and this post is built on Kevin’s original research, for which many thanks.[3]

Mary Summerville was born in Jarrow on the south bank of the Tyne in July 1904. Both her parents had been born in County Galway and in 1921, when the census was taken, her father, Patrick, was working as an unskilled labourer at Palmers shipyard, the town’s main employer, whilst her mother, Catherine, assisted by seventeen-year-old Mary, looked after seven younger children and four lodgers in their terraced house at 15 Princess Street, Jarrow.[4]

According to her statements in support of her successful application for a pension, which were verified in 1940 by Gilbert Barrington, formerly Quartermaster of the IRA’s No.3 (Tyneside) Area in Britain, Mary Summerville joined the Cumann na mBan branch attached to the IRA’s ‘A’ (Jarrow) Company in late 1920.[5]

Cumann na mBan had been raised in Ireland in 1914 to act as the IRA’s auxiliary.[6] Mary Summerville, however, did not just work in an auxiliary role as a courier, intelligence gatherer, and nurse. Instead, she not only carried guns and ammunition, particularly when they were being used for training talks for Volunteers, but also took part in active IRA operations, including setting farm fires, cutting down telegraph poles (when she carried a hidden saw), and accompanying Volunteers ‘when sent out on certain jobs to take away suspicion’.[7]

During the summer of 1922, as civil war took hold in Ireland, she left Jarrow for the family home in Clonbur, County Galway, and, hoping to join a Cumann na mBan branch there, carried a letter of recommendation from her former commanding officer, Cecilia Brennan. There was, however, no branch near to her home, and, in 1923, she left Ireland for a new life in the United States of America.[8]

In her pension application, Mary Summerville named six members of her Cumann na mBan branch, with four from Jarrow and two from neighbouring Hebburn.[9] This post will look in detail at the four women from Jarrow, who were all born in the town. They were Cecilia Brennan, Catherine Conroy, Mary Joyce, and Mary Wallace.

Three of these women had both parents born in Galway, as had Mary Summerville, and in 1921, when the census was taken, all four were living in terraced houses in streets just a short Sunday morning walk to mass at St. Bede’s Catholic church, with Mary Joyce living just a few doors from Mary Summerville in Princess Street.

The oldest of these four women was Cecilia Brennan, who was born in Jarrow in November 1890. She trained as a teacher at St. Mary’s College, part of the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Fenham, Newcastle upon Tyne, and in June 1921, when the census was taken, was a ‘certified assistant school teacher’ at St. Bede’s school in Jarrow.[10]

When Cecilia Brennan became an active Irish republican is not known, but she joined the Jarrow branch of the Irish Self-Determination League (ISDL), formed in September 1919, served on the branch committee, was branch delegate to the ISDL’s District Council in Newcastle,^[11] and in late 1920, took command of Jarrow’s nascent Cumann na mBan branch.

She was then living at 43 Harold Street, Jarrow, which was identified by Michael Mackin in his successful pension application to Dublin, as the headquarters of ‘A’ Company, where, as Company Quartermaster, he ‘reported for duty every day’.[12] David Fitzgerald, the Tyneside Brigade’s Adjutant, and who lodged at an unknown address in Harold Street, also used the Brennan’s house as his headquarters.[13]

Living at this same address were Cecilia’s parents, Michael, who was a gas meter reader, and Sarah, and three younger unmarried sisters Frances, aged 24, Mildred, aged 19, and Rosalie, aged 17.^[14] All of whom must have been aware of the IRA using their home as a headquarters. Frances Brennan and, probably, Mildred Brennan, as shall be examined later, also joined their older sister in Cumann na mBan.

After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, whilst other ISDL branches stuttered and collapsed, Jarrow’s remained active, identifying itself as ‘a purely Republican Branch’.^[15] And the surviving minute book of Jarrow’s ISDL branch continues to record Cecilia Brennan as a republican activist until after the end of the Irish Civil War in May 1923 and the defeat of the republican forces.^[16]

Cecilia Brennan, who never married, was appointed head teacher of St. Bede’s Infant School in 1928.[17] She died in Jarrow in December 1962.[18]

Late on Saturday 21 May 1921, police arrested two men after a fire at a boatyard in Wallsend, one of whom was twenty-five-year-old James Conroy from Jarrow. When stopped by the police, both men’s clothes ‘smelt strongly of paraffin’ and both were carrying loaded pistols, though neither attempted to use their weapon to resist arrest. As he was being sentenced to seven years in prison at Northumberland Assizes, James Conroy waved to the crowded court and, to cheering, shouted ‘Stand firm’.^[19]

Conroy, who was a teacher at St. Bede’s boys’ school, had been secretary of Jarrow’s ISDL branch,^[20] and was captain of the IRA’s ‘D’ (Wallsend) Company.[21] His father, Martin, who in 1921 was an unemployed unskilled labourer, had been active in the Jarrow branch of the Irish National League of Great Britain in the 1890s.^[22] And his sister, Catherine Conroy, was one of the four Cumann na mBan members from Jarrow named by Mary Summerville.

She had been born in Jarrow in April 1900 into a staunchly nationalist family. When the census was taken in June 1921, she was working as a clerk for a tug and lighter company in the town and living with her parents and two older siblings at 27 Dee Street, Jarrow.[23] Her brother, James, however, was not recorded at this address, as he was then in custody awaiting trial.

Sadly, little is known about Catherine Conroy’s life, other than she was an active member of Jarrow’s ISDL branch,^[24] and a member of Cumann na mBan.

Born in 1903, Mary Joyce was living in 1921 with her parents and four siblings at 7 Princess Street, Jarrow. Her father, Michael, was working as an unskilled labourer in a copper works, but Mary was unemployed when the census was taken, having previously worked in a rope works in Willington Quay.[25] Mary Joyce lived just a few doors away from Mary Summerville in Princess Street and these two young women must have known each and almost certainly had attended St. Bede’s school together.

In her pension application, Mary Summerville did not explain why she had joined Cumann na mBan. It is noticeable, however, that in her application she only referred to Cecilia Brennan as ‘Miss Brennan’, and it is possible that she had been taught by ‘Miss Brennan’ at St. Bede’s school, who then radicalised her, and then recruited her. Mary Joyce may have been similarly recruited by Cecilia Brennan.

Princess Street, where these two young Cumann na mBan women lived, lay just to the north of Jarrow’s High Street and in 1921 was home to at least five of ‘A’ Company’s IRA Volunteers, two of whom were arrested after incendiary attacks on farms in March 1921.[26]

Again, little is known for certain about Mary Joyce’s life after 1921.

Born in 1895, Mary Wallace was living in June 1921 with her parents and four younger siblings at 15 Burns Street, Jarrow, and working as a shop assistant across the Tyne at the Meadow Dairy in Wallsend.[27] Little is known about her nationalist activism except for Mary Summerville’s naming of her as a member of Jarrow’s Cumann na mBan branch and a letter held in the National Library of Ireland.

This letter was written in May 1922 by John Edward Connolly,[28] secretary of Jarrow’s ISDL branch and formerly commanding officer of the IRA’s ‘A’ Company in the town, to the Irish National Aid’s office in London asking for financial help for Mary Wallace.^[29] The letter explained that Mary had been ‘apprehended by the Police and taken from her place of employment, in connection with the arrest of D. Fitzgerald of this town’.

Tipperary-born David Fitzgerald, who was the Tyneside IRA’s Adjutant, had been arrested at a house in Harold Street, Jarrow, in early May 1922, after the police uncovered a plot devised by anti-Treaty IRA members in England to steal rifle ammunition from a Birmingham works and smuggle the proceeds to Ireland.[30] Documents found during the police operation showed that Fitzgerald had been using Mary Wallace and her home address at 15 Burns Street as his poste restante.[31]

Mary Wallace was soon released by the police, but was subsequently ‘dismissed by her employer’ and, explained Connolly, ‘has been out of work for four weeks’. Connolly’s letter went on to explain that Mary’s father, Thomas, who had worked as a labourer in a lead works, had been unemployed for almost a year and that, with Mary no longer earning, ‘the income of the household is absolutely NIL… Will you please try to send some assistance, even if only £1, to help to ease the position of this family’. It is not known, however, if the Wallace family received any help from Irish National Aid or the ISDL.     

Mary Wallace, who never married and who in later life kept a grocery shop in Albert Road, died in Jarrow in 1964.[32]

So, Jarrow’s Cumann na mBan branch comprised eight known members – its commanding officer, Cecelia Brennan, her sister Frances Brennan, Catherine Conroy, Mary Joyce, Mary Summerville, and Mary Wallace, plus, from Hebburn, Miss Connolly and Miss Robinson.[33]

To this list, however, should almost certainly be added another of the Brennan sisters. This was Mildred Brennan. She appears to have become romantically attached to David Fitzgerald, the Tyneside IRA’s Adjutant, whilst he was using the Brennan’s house as his headquarters. ‘Millie’ may even have been engaged to Fitzgerald and she visited him in Dublin in June 1922, accompanied by ‘Mollie Finnegan’ [sic]. The romance, however, came to nothing and Fitzgerald, in a letter written in 1931 to Mildred’s sister, Frances, admitted that he had chosen his commitment to the republican cause ‘knowing full well that it excluded consideration of domestic affairs’.[34]

Finally, a tenth member of Jarrow’s Cumann na Ban branch was named by Michael Mackin as one of his references (along with ‘Miss C. Brennan’) in his pension claim of 1935. She was ‘Miss M Finnigan 9 Field Terrace Jarrow’ (her address in 1935).^[35] This is almost certainly the same ‘Mollie Finnegan’, who accompanied Mildred Brennan to Dublin in 1922.

Mary Ann Finnigan was born in Sunderland in October 1896, and, though her parents were both Jarrow-born,[36] her paternal grandmother had been born in Ireland.[37] After training as a teacher at St. Mary’s College in Newcastle, she began work in 1916 as an assistant teacher at St. Bede’s Senior Girls’ School in Jarrow.[38] Through her respected social position as a school teacher in St. Bede’s parish, she must have been known to fellow-teachers Cecilia and Mildred Brennan and was sufficiently trusted by the Brennan family to accompany Mildred Brennan to Dublin in 1922.

In 1939, Mary Finnigan was still working as a school teacher and living with her two sisters, both teachers, in Jarrow.[39] She died in Jarrow in July 1973.[40]

Using the 1911 and 1921 censuses, it is possible to examine the social structure of Jarrow’s Cumann na mBan branch, eight of whose ten known members have been positively identified. The oldest, the commanding officer, was thirty years old and the youngest seventeen in 1921. All were unmarried (though one, Frances Brennan, was to marry in September 1921^[41]) and all were living at home with their working-class parents, when IRA activity in the North East of England was at its peak. Three were school teachers in St. Bede’s parish; two were helping their mothers run the family home; one was a general clerk; one a shop assistant; and one unskilled and unemployed. And all may have known each other long before they joined Cumann na mBan, through their shared experience of church, school, and the ‘intense national spirit’ that saturated the terraced streets around St. Bede’s church and gave Jarrow the name of ‘Little Ireland’.[42]

It is very likely that these eight women, plus the two women from Hebburn, comprised Jarrow’s Cumann na mBan branch. And the size of this branch may be compared to Scotland, where the estimated sixteen Cumann na mBan branches there had a total of one hundred and thirty members.[43] An average of eight members per branch.

In October 1940, Gilbert Barrington was asked by Dublin to comment on Mary Summerville’s pension claim. He clearly remembered her and wrote:[44]

‘About 6 good [meaning Cumann na mBan members] – This one about 3^rd best.’

Joint first place being awarded to the ‘Misses Brennan of Jarrow’ in the opinion of both Barrington in his witness statement of 1952 and Michael McEvoy in 1939.[45]

Finally, an intriguing and, so far, unanswered question remains. The Military Service Pensions Act of 1934 enabled Cumann na mBan members to claim a pension for the first time, but why was Mary Casey (née Summerville), who was then living in the USA, the only one from Jarrow’s branch to apply? Twenty-nine Cumann na mBan members in Liverpool claimed a pension, seventeen in Manchester, forty-four in London, but why only one from Jarrow?[46] And what of the women, who joined the Cumann na mBan branches in Newcastle upon Tyne and Chester le Street?[47] Not one claimed.

Acknowledgement:  Special thanks must go to my sister, Clare Wright, for her invaluable help in tracking down the census returns and other on-line sources that have enabled the story of these Jarrow women, who joined Cumann na mBan, to be told.

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[1] ‘The women were better than the men’: Irish nationalist women and the IRA’s Tyneside Brigade, 1920-1922. https://exilesinengland.com/2023/04/30/the-women-were-better-than-the-men-irish-nationalist-women-and-the-iras-tyneside-brigade-1920-1922/

[2] Kevin Davies, ‘The Military Service Pension Collection and the Tyneside Brigade of the IRA’ (unpublished paper, 2024).

[3] Military Archives of Ireland, Military Service Pensions Collection [hereafter MSPC], MSP34REF17327, Mary Casey.

[4] The National Archives, Census Returns of England and Wales, 1921, ‘Mary Summerville, 15 Princess Street, Jarrow, County Durham’.

[5] MSPC, Mary Casey. In 1942, she was awarded a Grade ‘E’ pension of £6.13.4 per annum backdated to October 1934, when women had first become eligible for a service pension. In 1962, she was awarded a Service Medal (1917-1921) with Bar.

[6] Cal McCarthy, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Revolution (Cork, 2007); Gerard Noonan, The IRA in Britain, 1919-1923: ‘In the heart of enemy lines’ (Liverpool, 2014), p. 48.

[7] MSPC, Mary Casey.

[8] Ibid. Mary Summerville married twice in the USA and died in Illinois in January 1966.

[9] Ibid.

[10] For Cecilia Brennan and her sisters see https://exilesinengland.com/2023/04/30/the-women-were-better-than-the-men-irish-nationalist-women-and-the-iras-tyneside-brigade-1920-1922/

[11] Tyneside Catholic News, 16 April 1921; Jarrow ISDL, Minute Book, 1922-23 (Private Collection), 29 September 1922.

[12] Michael Mackin named Miss C. Brennan as one of his referees, MSPC, MSP34REF44399, Michael Mackin.

[13] Ibid. Letter from Mackin in support of his pension application, 19 December 1935. Also see https://www.donmouth.co.uk/local_history/ira/david_fitzgerald.html

[14] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1921, ‘Cecilia Brennan, 43 Harold Street, Jarrow, County Durham’.

[15] Jarrow ISDL, 5 January 1923.

[16] Ibid. 9 October 1924.

[17] Cecilia Brennan was appointed head teacher of St Bede’s Infant School in 1928. Shields Daily Gazette, 27 July 1928.

[18] Newcastle Journal, 14 December 1962.

[19] Blyth News, 4 July 1921.

[20] Tyneside Catholic News, 16 April 1921.

[21] MSPC, MA/MSPC/RO/610, Newcastle on Tyne IRA (including Tyneside Division IRA), ‘Michael McEvoy describing events that occurred pre-Truce in Newcastle upon Tyne’, 26 September 1939.

[22] The Nation, 9 May 1891.

[23] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1921, ‘Catherine Conroy, 27 Dee Street, Jarrow, County Durham’.

[24] Jarrow ISDL, 10 February 1922.

[25] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1921, ‘Mary Joyce, 7 Princess Street, Jarrow, County Durham’.

[26] Patrick Canavan (acquitted) and Patrick John Coyne (found guilty) were both of 31 Princess Street, Jarrow. Auckland and County Chronicle, 31 March 1921; IRA Volunteers Michael Coyne, Peter Coyne, and John Joyce also lived in Princess Street, Jarrow, Mary A. Barrington (compiler), The Irish Independence Movement on Tyneside 1919-1921 (Dún Laoghaire, 1999), p. 31.

[27] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1921, ‘Mary Wallace, 15 Burns Street, Jarrow, County Durham’.

[28] John Edward Connolly was the brother of Joseph Patrick Connolly. See https://exilesinengland.com/2023/08/02/these-things-i-have-done-i-have-done-as-an-irishman-joseph-patrick-connolly-1921/

[29] National Library of Ireland, Ó Briain Papers, MS 8432/43/18, 22 May 1922.

[30] David Fitzgerald was probably arrested at his lodgings in Harold Street rather than at the Brennan’s home at 43 Harold Street, Jarrow, where evidence incriminating the family may have been found.

[31] Birmingham Gazette, 11 May 1922. David Fitzgerald was release on bail in Birmingham and promptly left for Ireland, where the civil war was starting. See https://exilesinengland.com/2023/08/02/these-things-i-have-done-i-have-done-as-an-irishman-joseph-patrick-connolly-1921/

[32] The National Archives, 1939 Register, ‘Mary Wallace, 77 Albert Road, Jarrow’.

[33] In her pension application, Mary Summerville named ‘Miss Connolly & Miss Robinson of Hebburn who gave us lessons on first aid.’ Without Christian names or addresses, however, it has not been possible to identify these two women.

[34]  Letter from David Fitzgerald to Frances Hanratty, née Brennan, Dublin, 22 October 1931. https://www.donmouth.co.uk/local_history/ira/david_fitzgerald.html

[35] MSPC, MSP34REF44399, Michael Mackin.

[36] Mary Finnigan’s father, Patrick, was a shipyard labourer, Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, ‘Mary Anne Finnigan, 45 Randolph Street, Jarrow, County Durham’.

[37]Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, Class: RG11; Piece: 5022; Folio: 17; Page: 25; GSU roll: 1342210.

[38] Teachers’ Registration Council, No:86066, 1931.

[39] The National Archives, 1939 Register, ‘Mary Finnigan, 9 Field Terrace, Jarrow, County Durham.’

[40] Principal Probate Registry; London, England; Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England, Mary Ann Finnign, July 1973.

[41] Free BMD:  https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=CWyQLrIOwivloIyKc1VETg&scan=1

[42] Michael J. Young, Catholic Jarrow. St. Bede’s: 1860-1940. The Story of Our Parish, Church and School, (Sunderland, nd, p. 21)

[43] Noonan, The IRA in Britain, pp. 48-9.

[44] MSPC, Mary Casey.

[45] Witness Statement, WS 773, Gilbert Francis Barrington, 1952; MSPC, MA/MSPC/RO/610, ‘Michael McEvoy describing events that occurred pre-Truce in Newcastle upon Tyne’, 26 September 1939.

[46] The Military Archives of Ireland, http://mspcsearch.militaryarchives.ie/search.aspx?formtype=advanced

[47] Noonan, The IRA in Britain, p. 49.