Archive of the Month01 Dec 21

Christmas 1921

By Susan Hood

December 2021 sees the milestone of the 120th Archive of the Month from the RCB Library – representing ten years of consecutive monthly online presentations, aimed at capturing and sharing aspects of Church of Ireland history.

The focus this month is simply Christmas 1921 through the lens of the Church of Ireland Gazette and other sources available at the Library.

Each year covered by the Decade of Centenaries (1912–1923) was significant in its own way. However, 1921 is perhaps the most pivotal, shaping the political realities for the next century and with which we continue to live today. As featured by two earlier Archive of the Month presentations, 1921 was the year of the partition of the island.

It was also the year that Northern Ireland came into being as the result of the Government of Ireland Act (1920) see here.

The Northern Ireland parliament was established in June 1921, but Sinn Féin rejected the Act and the subsequent months saw spiralling violent conflict. Finally, on 6 December, following weeks of intense negotiations, the Anglo–Irish Treaty was signed at 2.30 in the morning. The subsequent December editions of the Church of Ireland Gazette were upbeat and optimistic. Indeed under the banner headline “Religious Safeguards” the paper expressed palpable relief “that the settlement agreed upon by the representatives of the Government and Sinn Féin” had included “the clause safeguarding religious freedom and the absolute prohibition of any religious disability whether as regards Church or school”. Speaking specifically from a Southern Loyalist perspective, the column went on to optimistically reassure readers of its conviction of the sincerity of Arthur Griffith’s intention:

to treat Unionists of the new Irish Free State with every consideration. They intend to respect the loyalists’ traditions and principles, and in no way to interfere with them or subject them to discriminatory laws. We welcome Mr Griffith’s assurance and can assure him that the loyalists of the South and the West are as good Irishmen as any, and that they will never cease to work in the future, as they always have worked in the past, for the prosperity and glory of their native land. When peace comes, and the new Parliament shall be set up, all the old differences which have kept the Irish people divided for so long should begin to disappear. “Politics” as we have known them for generations should vanish … the loyalists of Ireland will take their rightful place among their own people

The 16 December 1921 edition continued the positive vibe, with the lead story stating simply:

“Christmas this year will be a happy one for Ireland. During the last few weeks the sorrow of centuries have been buried, an age–old wound has been healed, and across the threshold the New Year, a new and glorious destiny is beckoning. Ireland has been born again“

The more detailed editorial of the same edition fleshed this out as the Treaty awaited ratification by both parliaments in London in Dublin. Whilst the vote in London was in its opinion guaranteed, there was nervousness about what might happen in Dáil Eireann:

“the vast majority of the House of Commons and a substantial majority of Lords … is delighted to give its assent to an instrument which is calculated to end once and for all the bitter strife that has been raging intermittently between Ireland and England for over seven hundred years. The settlement has been welcomed by the whole world”

Dáil Eireann had conversely “gone into secret session and prolonged discussion has so far produced no tangible result”. The writer then did his best to urge things forward, praying that:

the counsels of these men and woman, who have accepted such an enormous load of responsibility will be informed with wisdom and good sense and that God will guide them into the paths of sanity and statesmanship. That the Irish people welcome the pact with open arms is obvious…

The same edition devoted an entire full page to a sermon preached by the Revd T.W.E. Drury MA (1872–1960) – the rector of All Saints, Raheny (Dublin) and also significantly chaplain to the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd John Gregg.

In it, Drury exhorted the Church’s thanks for the “political event of last week.” which he described as “momentous”, offering the “prospect of the hateful controversy which has been smouldering for centuries”:

We have, I believe, really made a sudden step forward in the path of charity and unity – and for that we must, from our hearts thank the God of Hope. Far more serious than whether we were to live under a Republic or a Monarchy, or any other variety of Government, was the increasing spirit of lawlessness, contempt for human life, untruthfulness, and sectarian and class hatred

Undoubtedly spinning the central Church’s policy to get behind the newly– constituted government of the Irish Free State, he repeated the optimistic and supportive outlook that:

“We can become loyal citizens of the new Irish State, and remain so as long as we have liberty to exercise life and liberty to exercise life and religion according to conscience. We must be loyal as a matter of principle”

Not everyone agreed. Writing under the pseudonym “Southern Vestrymen”, one letter writer published in the 30 December edition challenged the “indecent haste” of the “paeans of joy into which [the previous editorial article] had broken forth”, on the benefits of the “so–called Treaty” and the “wonderful statesmanship” that had brought it into being. However, an editorial note responded firmly with a final word which seemed to reflect the Church’s new reality:

We are prepared to accept this Treaty lest our country, including ourselves, become involved in the fate of Humpty Dumpty – Ed. Gazette

The outcome of the deliberations would carry over into the early days of 1922, but again the lead story of the subsequent edition, published on 23 December 1921, continued to be upbeat:

We pray, and we believe that the Dáil will ratify the Treaty, which has been offered as a Christmas gift to Ireland by the British people, and in that event, Christmas will be the happiest festival our country has ever know in the course of her long and sorrowful history

Elsewhere, columns set the scene for “Christmas” and “the Christian spirit”, “righteousness and peace”.

Full–page advertisements too were aimed at readers getting into festive spirit.

Elsewhere, readers were also reminded to make self–sacrifices for the needs of others. The abject poverty on the streets of Dublin was highlighted with “its thousands of unfortunates to whom the coming of peace means nothing”. The editorial of 16 December urged how “they need food for their starting children and clothes for their own ill–nourished bodies”. Hoping that an early task of the Irish Free State would be to reform the Poor Law, the writer continued: “These are the people of whom we should think”.

A complimentary source to the Gazette for the period is the “Record” of the Library’s founding benefactor – Rosamond Stephen (1868–1951) – being a collection of diary entries and outward correspondence which remains in typescript format in the Library’s manuscript collections (MS 253).

An English woman by birth, who had made Ireland her home, she became a founding member of the Irish Guild of Witness, which operated from her residence “Ardfeenish”, 21 Upper Mount Street in Dublin, in 1918. The purpose of the Guild was to: ‘encourage patriotism and discover fresh ways by which the Church could fulfil her mission to the nation”, while Stephen’s “Record” gives colourful insight to the thoughts of one influential lay member of the Church in these tumultuous times.

Addressing her sister in England, “KS”, she revealed a general nervousness about the unlawfulness in parts of the country when she asked: “Do the English papers tell about Donegal?” as “highwaymen have possession there” – holding roads and raiding houses to levy money for the armed campaign.

Meanwhile the location of her house in the vicinity of the military barracks at Beggar’s Bush had led to some local drama – the recovery of a grenade in the garden, which she speculated might have been there since the rebellion in 1916 or more likely had been “dropped in by the next door neighbours in a more recent raid”.

Additionally a blank cartridge “perhaps that some solider had dropped out of his pocket when climbing over the walls … to frighten the people” had also been recovered.

More can be found about Rosamond Stephen’s involvement in the origins of the RCB Library here – while the “Record” has already been used to present an online presentation on the Irish Convention of 1917–18, when Stephen sent her “good wishes for the great adventure” to Sir Horace Plunket here

There is a sense from her 1921 entries that she was not as optimistic for positive political outcomes as the Gazette, but she took refuge in her faith. After the disturbances in Dublin, subsequent diary entries recount her attendance at uplifting Christmas services, including the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. Remarkably, just two years after still to date largest killing pandemic the world has ever known – the so– called ‘Spanish’ Flu – (resulting in excess of 50 million deaths, 23,000 of them in Ireland) she was glad to record the cathedral being “cram jam full”.

As the Decade of Centenaries moves towards a climax in 2023, and in conjunction with this online exhibition the RCB Library is pleased to announce that thanks to support provided by Ms Catherine Martin TD, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, free public access to all its digital archives and exhibitions relevant to the Decade of Centenaries programme will continue to be available online until the end of 2033. Funding provided by the Department will cover the costs associated with e–cloud hosting. The resources available include the complete digital archive of the highly–valued Church of Ireland Gazette, 1856 to 2010, the Church’s weekly newspaper available in full to read and search through this online portal