Terence MacSwiney - the Hunger Strike That Made World Headlines

"It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer."

• "I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release."

• "I want you to bear witness that I die as a Soldier of the Irish Republic."

• "If I die the fruit will exceed the cost a thousandfold. The thought of it makes me happy. I thank God for it."

Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne (Terence MacSwiney) was born in Cork City on March 28, 1879.  His mother, Mary, was an English Catholic with strong Irish nationalist opinions. He left school at fifteen to help support his family.  He became an accounting clerk but resumed his studies until he graduated from the Royal University in 1907.

In 1901 he helped to found the Celtic Literary Society, and in 1908 he founded the Cork Dramatic Society.  MacSwiney's writings in the newspaper Irish Freedom brought him to the attention of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.  He was one of the founders of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and was President of the Cork branch of Sinn Féin. He founded a newspaper, Fianna Fáil, in 1914, but it was suppressed after only 11 issues. In April 1916, he was intended to be second in command of the Easter Rising in Cork and Kerry, but stood down his forces on the order of Eoin MacNeill.

Following the rising, he was imprisoned by the British Government under the Defense of the Realm Act in Reading and Wakefield Jails until December 1916. In February 1917 he was deported from Ireland and imprisoned in Shrewsbury and Bromyard internment camps until his release in June 1917. During his exile in Bromyard he married Muriel Murphy of the Cork distillery-owning family.  In November 1917, he was arrested in Cork for wearing an Irish Republican Army uniform, and, inspired by the example of Thomas Ashe, went on a hunger strike for three days prior to his release.

In the 1918 general election, MacSwiney was returned unopposed to the first Dáil Éireann as Sinn Féin representative for Mid Cork.  After the murder of his friend Tomás Mac Curtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork on 20 March 1920, MacSwiney was elected as Lord Mayor. On August 12, 1920, he was arrested in Cork for possession of “seditious articles and documents", and also possession of a cipher key. He was summarily tried by a court on August 16 and sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Brixton Prison in England.

When sentenced he responded, “I have decided the term of my imprisonment. Whatever your government may do, I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month.”  The quote quickly turned a local squabble into international front-page news, creating a very modern media moment with people all across the globe suddenly consumed by each fresh bulletin about this indomitable character’s diminishing weight, his inexorable deterioration.

"Yesterday he was unknown outside Ireland, " wrote Madrid's El Sol in a profile of MacSwiney. "Today the whole world is familiar with his name."  In New York, a group of Irish-American actresses led by Eileen Curran went to the docks and persuaded 2,000 longshoremen (including a huge number of African-Americans) to put down tools and to stop unloading ships in what the city's newspapers dubbed "The Irish Patriotic Strike". 

After briefly creating havoc for the Cunard and Red Star lines, and causing copycat protests to break out on the waterfronts of Boston and New Jersey, the women sent this cable to Lloyd George in Downing Street, “The sound of death in the throat of Terence MacSwiney is the death knell of your adventure in Ireland,” they warned. “We hear the bells tolling. The people are gathering. Oil your tanks, polish up your guns.”

Elsewhere in New York City, at the final session of the first United Negro Improvement Association convention in Harlem, Marcus Garvey, the famed black nationalist leader who thought Irish republicans offered a great example to his own people, told his followers he'd sent a telegram to Fr Dominic O'Connor (MacSwiney's prison chaplain). It read: "Convey to MacSwiney sympathy of 400,000,000 Negroes." All this before the hunger strike had finished its third week.

In New York, a group of Irish-American actresses led by Eileen Curran blagged their way on to the docks and persuaded 2,000 longshoremen (including a huge number of African-Americans) to down tools and to stop unloading ships in what the city's newspapers dubbed "The Irish Patriotic Strike". 

After briefly creating havoc for the Cunard and Red Star lines, and causing copycat protests to break out on the waterfronts of Boston and New Jersey, the women sent a cable to Lloyd George in Downing Street which said, “The sound of death in the throat of Terence MacSwiney is the death knell of your adventure in Ireland,” they warned. “We hear the bells tolling. The people are gathering. Oil your tanks, polish up your guns.”

Elsewhere in the city, at the final session of the first United Negro Improvement Association convention in Harlem, Marcus Garvey, the famed black nationalist leader who thought Irish republicans offered a great example to his own people, read a telegram he’d to Fr. Dominic O'Connor (MacSwiney's prison chaplain). It read: "Convey to MacSwiney sympathy of 400,000,000 Negroes." All this before the hunger strike had finished its third week.  In Paris, the demands for information led theaters to issue updates about MacSwiney's physical condition in between acts each night.  

MacSwiney died October 25, 1920.  The New York Times noted that Fr. Dominic administered the sacrament of extreme unction and recited the rosary with his brother Sean MacSwiney as the last breaths were drawn. It was reported that they recited the rosary in Irish an expression of cultural nationalism.

On October 31st, 1920, 40,000 people filed into the Polo Grounds, then New York's largest open-air stadium, to hear Éamon de Valera speak on MacSwiney's death. An estimated 10,000 more were stranded outside as the city's Irish community gathered to mourn his passing, and to vent 2½ months of pent-up anger and rage. When de Valera took to the stage, three turbaned Hindus sprinted across the outfield, carrying a tricolor and the flag of Indian independence. They mounted the platform and draped both emblems over his shoulders in a gesture that sent the crowd into a frenzy and caused a band to strike up Amhrán na bhFiann.

MacSwiney’s legacy continues to the present day.  His life and work had a particular impact in India. Jawaharlal Nehru took inspiration from MacSwiney's example and writings, and Mahatma Gandhi counted him among his influences.  The Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh was an admirer of MacSwiney and wrote about him in his memoirs.  When Singh's father petitioned the British Government in India to pardon his son, Bhagat Singh quoted Terence MacSwiney and said "I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release" and told his father to withdraw the petition. 

Other figures beyond India who counted MacSwiney as an influence include Ho Chi Minh, who was working in London at the time of MacSwiney's death and said of him, "A nation that has such citizens will never surrender".  

In Ireland MacSwiney's sister Mary MacSwiney took on his seat in the Dáil and spoke against the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. His brother Seán MacSwiney was also elected in the 1921 elections for another Cork constituency. He also opposed the Treaty.  MacSwiney’s hunger strike set an example for future hunger strikers with nationwide strikes taking place in 1923.

In 1945 his only child, Máire MacSwiney, married Ruairí Brugha, son of the Fenian and Nationalist Teachta Dála Cathal Brugha.  Ruairí later became a TD, Member of the European Parliament, and Senator.  Máire MacSwiney is the author of a memoir History's Daughter: A Memoir from the Only Child of Terence MacSwiney. She died in May 2012.