John MacBride, an accidental participant in the Easter Rising, was born in Westport, Co. Mayo, on 8 May 1868. His father, Patrick, was an Ulster-Scots Protestant from Glenhesk, Co. Antrim. Patrick’s merchant shipping business brought him to Westport, where he met a local woman, Honora Gill. Following their marriage they ran a shop on the quays in Westport. John was the youngest of their five sons and was educated by the Christian Brothers in Castlebar and later at St Malachy’s College, Belfast. He worked for some time in a drapery business in Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, and later found employment with Hugh Moore and Company, wholesale druggists and grocers in Dublin.
MacBride was an impressionable young man when, in the late 1870s, the Land League movement swept across Co. Mayo. The Irish National Land League was founded in nearby Castlebar and the subsequent Land War, during which tenant farmers refused to pay rents and resisted evictions, was at its most intense in the West of Ireland. MacBride is believed to have been present at a ‘monster’ meeting held in Westport in June 1879, where Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, spoke alongside Michael Davitt, the leading campaigner for tenant farmers and a member of the IRB.1 Just four years later MacBride himself joined the IRB, later recording this event in his draft autobiography: ‘when 15 years of age I took an oath to [do] my best to establish a free and independent Irish Nation’.2
Following his move to Dublin, MacBride’s involvement with the nationalist movement intensified. In 1891 he attended the funeral of Charles Stewart Parnell as a member of the GAA, forming a guard of honour of men holding hurling sticks draped in black cloth. He attended meetings of nationalist debating clubs, including the Young Ireland Society and the Leinster Literary Society, where he met the poet W. B. Yeats, the Fenian John O’Leary and the young political activists Arthur Griffith and William Rooney. In 1896 MacBride travelled to Chicago to attend the Irish National Alliance Convention as an Irish delegate and member of the IRB. On his return, MacBride described himself as ‘the most protected man in Ireland’ as everywhere he went he was followed by detectives tracking his movements.3
Meanwhile events were occurring thousands of miles away in South Africa that would later bring MacBride to national prominence in Ireland. Tensions had existed for some time between the British living in the colonies of Natal and Cape Colony and the Boers (old Dutch settlers) living in the area known as the Transvaal. On 31 December 1895 the British colonial politician Dr Leander Starr Jameson led a group of 800 mounted policemen in a raid on the Transvaal, which ended in disaster when the Boers ambushed the raiders at Krugersdorf. The incident caused international outrage. According to MacBride, it prompted him to leave Ireland:
Shortly after the Jameson Raid I resolved to go to the South African Republic, as I knew then England had her mind made up to take the country, and I wanted to organise my countrymen there so as to be in a position to strike a blow at England’s power abroad when we could not unfortunately do so at home.4
MacBride moved to South Africa in 1896 and began working at the Langlaagte gold mine near Johannesburg. He held meetings to raise support among the Irish living in South Africa for the protection of Boer independence and organised a parade in Johannesburg on 15 August 1898 to mark the centenary of the 1798 rebellion, with prominent Boer politicians in attendance. In anticipation of the outbreak of war, MacBride helped to raise an Irish brigade of 300 men to fight with the Boers against the British Army in South Africa, which included battalions of Irish soldiers. On 1 October 1899 MacBride was made second-in-command of the newly formed brigade and given the title of major.
The Second Boer War started on 11 October 1899. The Irish Brigade moved south and first saw action during the Battle of Ladysmith on 30 October. They endured fierce fighting. Three members of the brigade were killed and many were wounded. But the Irish men fought bravely and MacBride later recorded that ‘the conduct of the brigade that day won the admiration of the whole Boer army’.5 MacBride was also involved in battles at Tugela and Colenso, where a shell killed his horse and he was thrown off.
In Dublin the Irish Transvaal Committee had been set up to support the Boers and it raised support for what had become known as MacBride’s Brigade. The committee sent out a green poplin flag embroidered with a gold harp to the brigade, which MacBride kept until his death. He was put forward by the Irish Transvaal Committee as a candidate for South Mayo during a by-election in February 1900 brought about by the resignation of Michael Davitt over the House of Commons’ support for the Boer War. He suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Irish Parliamentary Party candidate, however. Meanwhile in South Africa, after a series of defeats the Boers were on the retreat and many members of the Irish Brigade deserted. The brigade disbanded in September 1900 and the Boer government chartered a steamship to transport the remaining members to Trieste.
MacBride arrived in Paris in early 1900, where he was welcomed by Arthur Griffith and Maud Gonne, a wealthy heiress of English parentage who had spent much of her childhood in Ireland, where her father had served in the British Army. She adopted many Irish nationalist causes and was a prominent member of the Irish Transvaal Committee. MacBride was unable to return to Ireland for fear of arrest and, in need of an income, he decided to embark on a speaking tour of the USA. However, he was not a natural public speaker and shortly after his arrival in New York he wrote to Maud Gonne, requesting that she accompany him on the rest of the tour. She duly travelled with him to Boston, Philadelphia, St Louis, Chicago and San Francisco, tutoring him on how to address the large audiences that turned out to hear him speak.
Maud Gonne and John MacBride were an unlikely pairing. Her upbringing was one of wealth and privilege, while he came from a modest background and had no steady income following his return from the USA. Gonne was renowned for her beauty and elegance; by contrast, MacBride, a short man with red hair and a long nose, looked worn after his adventure in the Transvaal and was known to drink heavily. Yet Gonne seems to have been attracted to MacBride’s dedication to Irish nationalism and she eventually accepted his proposal of marriage. The wedding took place against the advice of their friends on 21 February 1903 at the Church of Saint-Honoré d’Eylau in Paris. Gonne had converted to Catholicism some months beforehand. Their son, Seán (who was later a founder member of Amnesty International), was born on 26 January 1904.
Almost from the time of their honeymoon the marriage of MacBride and Gonne showed signs of strain. Gonne was frequently absent from their home in Paris, and in the meantime MacBride’s drinking escalated. She filed for divorce in January 1905, citing cruelty, infidelity and alcoholism. The bitter court battle took place in Paris, but was widely reported in the Irish press, tarnishing MacBride’s reputation at home. The subsequent separation left MacBride an embittered man. He described his marriage to Gonne as ‘the greatest and most unfortunate’ of all the sacrifices he made for Ireland.6
MacBride returned to Dublin in 1906 and looked for work as a journalist. The Freeman’s Journal published a series of articles containing his account of his experiences in the Boer War. He eventually obtained more secure employment with Dublin Corporation in 1911, when he was appointed to the position of water bailiff. He was at times a sorry figure, forced to keep a low profile in Fenian circles because of his damaged public image. He lodged with Fred Allan, an IRB member, but was left isolated following the death of his close friend John O’Leary in 1907.
MacBride’s reputation as a Boer War hero was sufficiently intact for him to be elected to the Supreme Council of the IRB in 1911, but he was soon replaced by Seán Mac Diarmada, who was seen as part of a younger generation leading the IRB in a more radical direction. But MacBride remained involved in nationalist activities even if he was not at the centre of the organisation. In 1912 he spoke to the boys at Patrick Pearse’s school in Rathfarnham about his experience of the Boer War. At a meeting in Cork in 1914 he spoke out against John Redmond’s efforts to encourage the Irish Volunteers to join the British Army and fight in the war against Germany. He was present at the meeting held in the library of the Gaelic League on 9 September 1914, when it was decided to organise a rising while England was at war.
The circumstances through which John MacBride became involved in the Easter Rising were outlined by MacBride himself in a statement made during his court martial following the rebellion:
On the morning of Easter Monday I left my home at Glenageary with the intention of going to meet my brother who was coming to Dublin to get married. In waiting round town I went up as far as Stephen’s Green and there I saw a band of Irish Volunteers. I knew some of the members personally and the Commander [Thomas MacDonagh] told me that an Irish Republic was virtually proclaimed. As he knew my rather advanced opinions and although I had no previous connections with the Irish Volunteers I considered it my duty to join them. I knew there was no chance of success, and I never advised nor influenced any other person to join. I did not even know the positions they were about to take up. I marched with them to Jacob’s Factory.7
Therefore it is evident that MacBride was not involved in the planning of the Rising and that the rebellion probably came as a surprise to him. He certainly stood out from the Volunteers assembled at St Stephen’s Green, looking dapper in his blue suit for the wedding and carrying a ‘walking cane and smoking a cigar’.8 He was appointed second-in-command by Thomas MacDonagh and marched with the men the short distance from the Green to Jacob’s biscuit factory on Bishop Street. As they entered the building, an overzealous Volunteer let off his shotgun and MacBride was heard warning the Volunteers to treat their weapons carefully as he brushed the pellets from his moustache.9 Although the Volunteers at Jacob’s biscuit factory saw little action compared with other garrisons, MacBride still demonstrated the qualities of courage and leadership that he had developed during his time fighting in the Boer War. He took charge of bringing parties of Volunteers to outposts surrounding the factory and was seen leaving the factory at dawn via the lower windows on Bishop Street to conduct the rebels to their positions.10 He won the admiration of the garrison at Jacob’s. MacDonagh’s brother John later noted that ‘MacBride’s influence was useful in steadying our men’ and Seosamh de Brún admired MacBride for the ‘inspiring language’ he used when addressing them.11
It was during the surrender of the garrison that MacBride’s coolness under pressure was most in evidence. Early on Sunday morning Elizabeth O’Farrell arrived at Jacob’s, bringing with her the order from Pearse to surrender. MacDonagh insisted on negotiating directly with Brigadier General Lowe, whom he met at noon at St Patrick’s Park. He agreed to accept the order to surrender and on his return the garrison greeted the news with consternation. MacBride intervened to calm the men, as Joseph Furlong recalled:
Capt. Tom Hunter and some of the men kicked against surrendering and wanted to continue the fight, but McBride [sic] asked them did they think he would surrender if he thought there was any chance of success, adding, that we must now save the lives of our people. This had the effect he wanted, and we all agreed.12
MacBride also suggested to the men and women present that they should take the opportunity to escape. However, he himself remained with the garrison, insisting that he would not leave his men. MacBride stood alongside MacDonagh as they marched the men to the surrender point at St Patrick’s Park.
MacBride’s court martial took place on 4 May 1916. Three prosecution witnesses were called and the evidence brought against him included his presence at St Patrick’s Park on Sunday evening, his use of the title ‘Major’ when giving his name to the lieutenant who searched him in the gymnasium at Richmond Barracks and the fact that he was found in possession of incriminating documents. MacBride called his landlady, Mrs Allan, in his defence and she corroborated his statement that he happened upon the Rising by accident while on his way to meet his brother. MacBride was found guilty and sentenced to death. His death sentence was confirmed that evening. It is worthy of note that both Brigadier General Blackader, who presided at MacBride’s court martial, and General Maxwell, who confirmed his death sentence, had served during the Boer War. Although it cannot be proven decisively, these men may have harboured some resentment towards MacBride for fighting with the Boers, and that possibly influenced their decisions.
MacBride was transferred to Kilmainham Gaol on the evening of 4 May and at 2 a.m. the next morning Fr Augustine was called to the prison to attend to him before his execution. He made his confession and gave Fr Augustine a set of rosary beads to give to his mother. MacBride requested that his hands would not be tied during his execution and that he could face the firing squad without a blindfold. Both requests were refused. He turned to the priest and said: ‘You know, Fr Augustine, I’ve often looked down their guns before.’13 John MacBride was executed at 3.47 a.m. on 5 May 1916.
Maud Gonne learned of the news of MacBride’s death when she read about it in a newspaper while holidaying in Normandy.