1. Terence James MacSwiney was an Irish playwright, author and politician.
22 Facts About Terence MacSwiney
1. 2.
Terence MacSwiney was elected as Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920.
3.
Terence MacSwiney was arrested by the British Government on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton Prison.
4.
Terence MacSwiney's mother, Mary, was an English Catholic with strong Irish nationalist opinions.
5.
Terence MacSwiney was educated by the Christian Brothers at the North Monastery school in Cork city but left at fifteen to help support the family.
6.
Terence MacSwiney became an accountancy clerk but continued his studies and matriculated successfully.
7.
Terence MacSwiney continued in full-time employment while he studied at Queen's College, Cork, graduating from the Royal University with a degree in Mental and Moral Science in 1907.
8.
At Christmas 1915, Terence MacSwiney spent a night at the home of the Fleischmanns.
9.
Terence MacSwiney was from a rich brewing family in Cork with conservative politics, but in 1915 she became a member of the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan.
10.
In November 1917, Terence MacSwiney was arrested in Cork for wearing an Irish Volunteers uniform, and, inspired by the example of Thomas Ashe, went on a hunger strike for three days prior to his release.
11.
However, along with 27 other elected members, Terence MacSwiney joined the first Dail Eireann rather than take up his seat in the UK Parliament.
12.
On 12 August 1920, Terence MacSwiney was arrested in Cork for possession of "seditious articles and documents", and possession of a cypher key.
13.
On 12 August, the day he was imprisoned in Cork, Terence MacSwiney joined the prisoners there who had started the 1920 Cork hunger strike one day prior.
14.
Attempts at force-feeding Terence MacSwiney were undertaken in the final days of his strike.
15.
Terence MacSwiney's body lay in St George's Cathedral, Southwark in London where 30,000 people filed past it.
16.
Terence MacSwiney's family planned on having his body taken to Dublin but fearing large-scale demonstrations, the authorities diverted his coffin directly to Cork, reportedly on the insistence of Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet.
17.
Terence MacSwiney is buried in the Republican plot in Saint Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork.
18.
Terence MacSwiney's collected works, prose, plays and poetry, The Art and Ideology of Terence MacSwiney: Caught in the Living Flame, were published in 2023.
19.
The Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh was an admirer of Terence MacSwiney and wrote about him in his memoirs.
20.
When Singh's father petitioned the British Government in India to pardon his son, Bhagat Singh quoted Terence MacSwiney and said "I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release" and told his father to withdraw the petition.
21.
Terence MacSwiney was executed on 23 March 1931 with two other men for killing a British officer.
22.
In 1945 his only child, Maire Terence MacSwiney, married Ruairi Brugha, son of the nationalist Teachta Dala Cathal Brugha.