Family Fortunes: De Valera, my parents and a man called George Plant

The small, rotund man the constable is holding back in this photograph is my father, Mick Dowling. It appeared in the London Evening News on January 17th, 1938.

Éamon de Valera had just signed the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, which brought an end to the trade war and the British use of Irish ports in the Republic. The return of the ports to Irish control was of huge significance because it ensured Irish neutrality during the second World War.

The photograph shows de Valera with the Irish high commissioner, John Whelan Dulanty, who later served as Irish ambassador in London.

My father was born into a small farm in Tullaroan, Co Kilkenny. He was the youngest of three children, and, as the holding could not support all three, he left for Dublin and served his time as a barman in Hanlon’s Corner.

There he met my mother, Julia O'Connor from Oxmantown Road. They married in 1918. Dublin at that time didn't offer many prospects for a young married couple, so they emigrated to London and settled in Victoria, where they rented a large house. Mick worked as a porter in a fashionable hotel called the Rubens, and Julia opened their rented home as a boarding house. They advertised in An Phoblacht, and many of the lodgers became their friends, especially when war broke out.

My parents were very interested in politics and were supporters of de Valera. When the sirens went during the London Blitz, and everyone had to evacuate to the cellars, my mother would always take a small porcelain bust of de Valera, which was a treasured possession, with her.

Many of the lodgers would recommend the house to friends and relatives in Ireland. One such person was a young man from Tipperary called George Plant. He was an active member of the republican movement who was convicted by a military court of murder. He was executed in 1941, under the de Valera government, which was difficult for my parents to come to terms with.

The bust was kept on one end of the mantelpiece. On the other was a Christmas card from Plant, sent from Portlaoise jail before his execution.

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