2017
September Document of the Month
(NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/52)
The September Document of the Month is a large file relating to the inquest of Thomas Ashe, who died on 25th September 1917 from force feeding following his participation in a hunger strike in Mountjoy prison. Ashe was the commandant of the 5th (Fingal) battalion of the Irish Volunteers at the Battle of Ashbourne, County Meath during the 1916 Rising. He had been tried for his part in the Rising and sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to penal servitude for life. Following his release in 1917, Ashe continued to actively participate in the struggle for independence. On 25th July 1917, Ashe was arrested following a speech he gave at a Sinn Féin rally in Ballinalee, County Longford in which he stated ‘he was prepared to call out his men again as he did in Easter week’ (NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/33). He was again arrested and tried and convicted by District Court Martial on 3rd September 1917 and sentenced to two year’s hard labour.
Ashe joined with fellow inmates to campaign for special status as political prisoners. He refused to ‘work or obey any order relating to criminal prisoners…I do not consider myself a criminal’ (NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/3). In a letter, dated 16th September 1917, J Boland, deputy governor of Mountjoy prison, outlines his belief that a hunger strike is inevitable. He states ‘we are dealing with a class of prisoners whose avowed object is to defeat the application to them of the existing Prison rules, and I believe one of their aims in future in this respect is to have recourse to the method of hunger strike when as they hope, large numbers of such prisoners will be in custody and on hunger strike that by combined action – that it will be impossible for the prison officials to cope with them all successfully’ (NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/4).
Ashe began his hunger strike on Thursday 20th September 1917 and ‘refused all food until the forenoon of Saturday the 22nd instant when artificial feeding was begun and continued until he collapsed on Tuesday the 25th instant when he was removed, by order of the Lord Lieutenant on the recommendation of the Medical Officer, to the Mater Hospital where he died the same evening’ (NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/33). The file contains a report, dated 23 November 1917, from the Chairman of the Prison’s Board, Max Green, providing details and justification of the prison authorities for the way in which the hunger strikers were treated and the use of the ‘Churchill Rules’, which allowed for the force feeding of prisoners. The report also contains descriptions by RG Dowdall the Medical Officer in Mountjoy into the methods used to feed the prisoners, including the use of a chair and straps to prevent refusal (NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/26).
The file shows the political fallout from Ashe’s death, including the concern of prison authorities that he should not die in Mountjoy and newspaper reports about his treatment and the conditions of his fellow prisoners. The Press Censor, Lord Decies, was particularly concerned about the potential damage from a letter published in the Clare Champion and the Freeman’s Journal, and later reprinted in the Irish Nation, from the Bishop of Killaloe Michael Fogarty who referred to Ashe’s death as ‘slow murder’ (NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/60). Authorities were also anxious to prevent his death from being used for propaganda purposes. The jury in the inquest returned a verdict condemning the authorities for ‘inhuman treatment’. This was rejected by Dublin Castle as ‘irresponsible and in some respects absurd and against the weight of evidence’ (NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/2)’.
Despite objections from Dublin Castle, Ashe’s remains lay in state in City Hall before his burial in Glasnevin Cemetery on 30th September 1917. Michael Collins gave the eulogy at the funeral. The State commemoration of the death of Thomas Ashe will take place on Friday, 22nd of September 2017 in Glasnevin Cemetery.
To view the entire file please see:
NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/part 2.1.
NAI, CSO/RP/1918/2000/part 2.2, including a published account of the Inquest.
