John Edward Daly (known as Ned) was born into perhaps the most republican family in Ireland, on 25 February 1891. The Dalys of Limerick were well known for their involvement in the IRB. His father, Edward, had been imprisoned for his IRB activities in 1866 but was released in time to participate in the Fenian Rising of 1867. He died as a result of a heart condition six months before Ned was born. His uncle John Daly had been one of the principal organisers of the IRB and at the time of Ned’s birth he was serving a life sentence in Portland Prison, England. He had been convicted of treason felony for possession of explosives at Wolverhampton train station.
Ned Daly was the youngest of nine children and the only son born to his mother, Catherine (née O’Mara), a native of Ballingarry, Co. Limerick. The death of his father left the family in financial difficulty and a fund was set up locally to support them, which helped them to buy a pub on Shannon Street in Limerick city. The business failed, but the family were rescued from hardship by the return from Australia of Ned’s uncle James Daly, who purchased a house for them. Known as Clonlong, the house has been described as a ‘large two-storey house with extensive grounds on the Tipperary Road’.1 Ned attended the Christian Brothers school on Roxborough Road in the south of the city. He was not a bright student and it was said that he showed ‘an aversion to school life in general’.2
In 1896 Ned’s uncle John secured his release from prison on health grounds, after a long campaign by the Amnesty Association. A crowd of 20,000 greeted him on his arrival home to Limerick. Donations presented to him in Ireland and during a speaking tour of America enabled him to open a bakery at 26 William Street in the summer of 1898. The following year John Daly was elected mayor of Limerick.
At the age of fifteen Ned began attending Leamy’s Commercial School with the intention of learning the business skills needed to eventually take over his uncle’s business. He then left for Glasgow where he learned bakery skills at a technical college. On his return to Limerick he was refused admission to the Limerick Bakers’ Society on the grounds that his father had not been a baker. Ned’s relations with his uncle John were strained, and after a bitter argument with him in 1913 he left for Dublin. As his biographer notes of his situation at this time:
The young Ned Daly, escaping from his uncle’s disapproval and the limited opportunities for employment in Limerick, had by now come of age and must have wanted to start making his own way.3
Daly had shown a strong interest in the military but, given his family’s republican past, there was no possibility of him joining the British Army. The move to Dublin provided new opportunities for a frustrated young man.
On arrival in Dublin, Daly stayed with his sister Kathleen, the wife of Thomas Clarke. He was living in a house that was no less republican in its politics than the one he had left. Living with the Clarkes brought Daly into contact with his brother-in-law’s republican associates, including Seán Mac Diarmada. Daly worked for a building contractors and a wholesale chemist, but a turning point in his life came with the foundation of the Irish Volunteers in November 1913, which provided him with an outlet for his enthusiasm for soldiering. Kathleen Clarke recalled her brother’s joy on his return from the Rotunda Rink having become a member of the Irish Volunteers: ‘I never saw a happier young man than he was the night he joined. He told me it was what he had always been wishing for.’4
Daly joined B Company, 1st Battalion and his dedication and family credentials led to his promotion to captain and later to the rank of commandant. Daly was absorbed by his activities with the Irish Volunteers and when he was not out drilling with them he was reading military manuals.
Daly was present in Howth for the landing of arms for the Irish Volunteers from Erskine Childers’ yacht, the Asgard. Returning to his sister’s house, exhausted after a day of transporting weapons around Dublin, he described to Kathleen an encounter with a group of British soldiers. On their way back to Dublin the Volunteers spotted a party of officers at the junction of Howth Road. Ned decided to proceed ahead of the Volunteers and speak with the soldiers so as to distract them. In the meantime all Volunteers approaching the junction were given word to clear away. According to Kathleen, ‘the ruse worked so well that when the attention of the officer who was parleying with Ned was drawn to what was happening … very few Volunteers were left’.5
When the subsequent split occurred in the Irish Volunteers, Daly addressed each company of the 1st Battalion in an effort to persuade them to remain with the organisation, but the majority left to join the Redmondite National Volunteers.
Daly’s closest associate in the Irish Volunteers was Séamus O’Sullivan, adjutant of the 1st Battalion. Brighid Lyons-Thornton, a member of Cumann na mBan, recalled the striking impression made by the two young men: ‘They were the nearest approach to British officers in appearance and inspired us girls with feelings of enthusiasm and caused us many heart throbs.’6 She noted that Daly was quiet ‘but very forceful’.7 Paddy Stephenson, a member of the 1st Battalion, also remembered Daly’s ‘soldierly figure’ and observed that he had a very ‘serious-looking face’.8 Ned Daly was a talented baritone singer and during route marches he would lead the Volunteer companies in singing ‘Eileen Óg’, which became the anthem of the 1st Battalion. He was a regular attendee at social events held to raise funds for the Irish Volunteers, where he was ‘always the life of the gathering’.9
Daly participated in many key events in the run-up to the Easter Rising. He was present for an Irish Volunteers parade in Limerick in 1915, at which Patrick Pearse and Seán Mac Diarmada were also in attendance. Daly suffered the indignity of having stones, rotten vegetables and other objects thrown at him in his home city as the Volunteers came under attack from a hostile crowd. By the time of the O’Donovan Rossa funeral in August 1915, he was commandant of the 1st Battalion and he led his men in the procession.
Although he was not a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB, nor was he a member of the military committee that planned the Rising and so was unaware of the details of the plans for the rebellion, Daly did sense that a rising was imminent. According to his sister, Ned did not know about the Rising until the Wednesday before it was due to take place, when Tom Clarke informed him of the plan. By Good Friday he was informing Séamus O’Sullivan of the detailed plans for his area of command, the Four Courts on the north quays in Dublin.
On Holy Saturday Daly and O’Sullivan spent the day hurrying around Dublin ensuring that as many Volunteers as possible would turn out the next day. They stayed in the Clarence Hotel on Saturday night and on leaving the hotel on Sunday morning to attend Mass, the pair saw the Sunday Independent newspaper containing MacNeill’s notice cancelling Volunteer manoeuvres for that day. O’Sullivan recalled that such was their state of confusion that he could not remember ‘if we went to Mass at all afterwards’.10
Daly and O’Sullivan went to Liberty Hall, where Seán Mac Diarmada informed them that the rebellion was postponed until the next day. Late on Sunday evening Daly attended a meeting at the battalion’s training centre at Colmcille Hall on Blackhall Street to finalise arrangements for Easter Monday.
The 1st Battalion assembled at Blackhall Place at 11 a.m. on Easter Monday. Only one-third of the total membership turned out. Daly, as commandant, addressed the Volunteers in Colmcille Hall and explained the reason for their mobilisation. He informed them that an Irish Republic would be declared shortly and that their duty would be to defend this republic. Any Volunteers who did not wish to participate were allowed to leave. Daly was in command of a large area of strategic importance, stretching from the Mendicity Institution on the south quays as far north as Cabra in the Dublin suburbs. The battalion companies were dispersed to various outposts, including Broadstone railway station, Monks’ Bakery, the Four Courts and houses and buildings on Church Street, Brunswick Street and North King Street. Cumann na mBan established a field hospital at Father Mathew Hall on Church Street and barricades were erected throughout the area. Daly established his command position at the Convent of St John, between North King Street and North Brunswick Street. On Tuesday he moved his position to the Father Mathew Hall, ‘in order to be in the centre of the Battalion zone’.11
Daly was involved in some of the earliest action in his command area, shooting dead a British Lancer on Easter Monday afternoon. He established communications with the GPO via couriers from Cumann na mBan and the Irish Volunteers and requested reinforcements. His main duty early in Easter Week was touring his command area and inspecting each position held by the rebels. One of his great achievements, later highlighted by James Connolly, was the taking of the Linen Hall Barracks. Daly needed to gain control of this building, as it overlooked the Volunteer outposts and it would have been disastrous for the rebels if the British Army occupied it. Lacking the numbers to take the building as an outpost, Daly set it on fire instead.
On Thursday the area of the Four Courts came under heavy attack from British forces, as units of the Sherwood Foresters Regiment began to surround the positions under Daly’s command. By this time Daly had hardly slept since Monday and was beginning to look tired and haggard. Nonetheless he kept going and was a source of inspiration for his battalion members. One of his messengers to the GPO, Ignatius Callendar, observed that ‘he cared nothing for himself or any hardship he endured’.12
On Friday Daly was forced to withdraw his headquarters position to the Four Courts and release the civilian, police and military prisoners who were being held at Father Mathew Hall. The British began to form a military cordon around the command area, and intense and fierce fighting took place on North King Street and Church Street.
On Saturday news of the surrender of Pearse and the rebels was conveyed by a local priest, Fr O’Callaghan, who was accompanied by a British officer. It was confirmed with the arrival of Elizabeth O’Farrell, who handed the surrender order to Daly. Vice-Commandant Piaras Béaslaí recalled Daly’s reaction:
He showed it to me and his eyes filled with tears. He had borne himself like a gallant soldier through the week of fighting. Again he rose to this fresh test of soldiership. He checked the murmuring of those who objected to surrender by an appeal to discipline.13
Daly was permitted to march to Sackville Street at the head of his party of rebels, where they surrendered.
Daly awaited his court martial in Richmond Barracks along with the other rebels. His brother-in-law, Tom Clarke, was tried the day before Daly and was awaiting his death sentence in Kilmainham Gaol in the early hours of 3 May 1916. Clarke asked to see Daly. His request was granted, but there was some difficulty bringing Daly to Kilmainham given that he was a high-profile prisoner in Richmond Barracks. Michael Soughley, a DMP sergeant stationed at Kilmainham, recalled that Daly did not arrive until after Clarke had been executed:
Daly said he would like to see him dead or alive and he was allowed to remain. When the three men [Clarke, Pearse and MacDonagh] were executed their bodies lay in an old shed in which prisoners broke stones in bad weather. Daly went out to this shed – stood to attention and saluted the remains. He then took off his cap, knelt down and prayed for some time. He put on his cap again, saluted again and returned to his escort.14
Daly would return to this yard the following morning for his own execution.
During his court martial two prosecution witnesses, both of whom were military officers held prisoner in the Four Courts, testified against Daly. He cross-examined both witnesses and made a statement to the court in which he explained that his reason for pleading not guilty was because he had ‘no dealings with any outside forces’ and claimed he had no knowledge of the rebellion until the day it began. Daly was found guilty and sentenced to death.15 Although he had not signed the Proclamation, Daly held the rank of commandant and so Commander-in-Chief John Maxwell felt justified in confirming his death sentence.
The night before his execution his sisters Kathleen, Madge and Laura visited Daly in his cell in Kilmainham Gaol. Madge found him still wearing his Volunteer uniform and observed that he ‘looked so proud and strong and noble with eyes alert and full of the fire of enthusiasm that it was hard to believe that he was a captive doomed to be shot in a few hours’. They discussed the charge brought against him during the court martial and the treatment of prisoners in the Four Courts. He gave messages for his mother, aunt and sisters and said to ‘tell Uncle John I did my best’.16
Ned Daly was the first of four prisoners to be executed at dawn at Kilmainham Gaol on 4 May 1916. John Daly passed away following an illness just two months after Ned’s execution.