By early afternoon on Saturday, 27 December 1930, a large and boisterous crowd had gathered in the public gallery of the council chamber of Castlebar courthouse. They had come to attend a special meeting of Mayo County Council. Much controversy had been stirred up in Mayo in the previous weeks over the issue of who was to be appointed the next county librarian. Despite the scheduling of the meeting in the middle of the Christmas holiday period, the sizeable gathering was determined to show its concern.
In many ways the atmosphere was similar to that at a football match. As the correspondent of the Roscommon Herald put it, ‘How humorously inconsistent is this latest “crisis” then, for it originated in the act of a deceased Scotch millionaire, old Andrew Carnegie, who, when he conceived the benevolent idea of presenting free libraries in these countries, never dreamt that he would provoke a free fight in County Mayo.’1
Miss Letitia Dunbar Harrison was a graduate of Trinity College and a Protestant. In July 1930 she had been successful at interview for the vacant post of Mayo county librarian. Mayo County Council’s library committee refused to endorse her appointment and subsequently a full meeting of the council also rejected her. The reason they gave was that she did not have sufficient knowledge of the Irish language.
The Cumann na nGaedheal government, led by the President of the Executive Council, William T. Cosgrave (the equivalent of the present-day taoiseach), and the Minister for Local Government, Richard Mulcahy, or General Mulcahy as he was widely known at the time even though he was no longer a member of the army, insisted that the recommendation of the Local Appointments Commission (LAC) be enforced and that Miss Dunbar Harrison be employed. The County Council maintained their resistance. A tense stand-off ensued, with each side waiting to see if the other would be the first to back down.
News of ‘the Mayo library row’, as it became popularly known, was not confined to the county. Not only did it make headlines in Ireland, but it also caught the attention of newspapers in places as far away as Boston and London, mainly among the immigrant Irish population.2 The assembled multitude in Castlebar were aware of the background to the crisis and that the special meeting had been convened with Mayo County Council under threat of abolition. For many this aspect of local politics was merely a spectator sport. As the Roscommon Herald put it, ‘Even if they could not observe the peace and goodwill part of the Christmas tradition towards “Dick Mulcahy”, as they called the Minister for Local Government and those who supported his “brow-beating”, still they were not going to let that spoil the festive side of the season.’3
The Irish Independent reported that ‘the proceedings and the discussion, which was throughout lively and occasionally acrimonious, was keenly followed by a crowded and at times noisy gallery, the occupants of which sent up spirals of pipe and cigarette smoke which at times seemed to challenge the illuminative power of the Shannon [electricity] in the chamber.’4
Outside, an orchestra of optimistic Wren Boys from Ballina tried in vain to make themselves heard above the rumblings of a howling gale. Local amusements at this time of year were scarce so the crowd was in a festive mood. According to the Roscommon Herald, the entertainment provided by the Wren Boys, who were grotesquely costumed and had a limited repertoire, held the crowd’s interest for only ‘a short period at any time, but when it is kept up for a week it is small wonder that any other little diversion is welcome.’5
Inside the courthouse the crowd were in high spirits. Forecasts of the result of the voting, which proved to be ‘remarkably accurate’ according to the Irish Independent, were passed around during the debate along with ‘clever Limericks’, many of them ‘amusingly explanatory of the attitude of certain persons towards the appointment of Miss Dunbar.’6
The Roscommon Herald gave its account of events under the headline, ‘Drama and Comedy at Mayo County Council Meeting’. The paper asserted that ‘if the oratory of Mayo’s elected representatives, which we listened to for three hours in the council chamber in Castlebar on Saturday, be a true index of local sentiment, the people of that part of Connaught are ardent disciples of “Ourselves Alone”.’7
The meeting began promptly at 1 p.m. under the chairmanship of Pat Higgins. He stood in for the County Council chairman, Michael Davis, also a TD for Mayo North and a senior member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, who had refused to attend. In fact Michael Davis had declined to have anything to do with the meeting. Out of a possible thirty-eight councillors, twenty-seven were in attendance. The majority of the absentee councillors were of the Cumann na nGaedheal persuasion.
The office of Mayo county librarian was hardly a crucial post. It was normally little more than a routine appointment, yet its filling had escalated into a conflict that had national consequences. It had pitted church against state, county council against government department and even members of the same political party against each other. Most of Cumann na nGaedheal’s local politicians were very unhappy with what they saw as their own party’s obdurate stance on the issue.
The crisis began with a dispute over the filling of a minor post, but the quarrel spread so rapidly that it now called into the question the continued existence of Mayo County Council. Such was the heat generated by the dispute and so fundamental were the issues it raised, particularly in the area of church-state relations, that it could even have brought down the Cumann na nGaedheal government. And all over one small job in Mayo.
Investigating the background to the squabble uncovers many of the fault-lines of the newly formed Free State. Examining the anatomy of the crisis lays bare the tensions of society in 1930s Ireland as it moved away from colonial rule. These tensions were all the more obvious given that the dispute was over a relatively trivial local appointment.
Notes
1.Roscommon Herald, 3 January 1931, p.4.
2.Ibid.
3.Ibid.
4.Irish Independent, 29 December 1930, p.5.
5.Roscommon Herald, 3 January 1931, p.4.
6.Irish Independent, 28 December 1930, p.5.
7.Roscommon Herald, 3 January 1931, p.4.