AMONG THE items in the recent auction of independence related material at Adam's salerooms were a number of books written by a long-forgotten Irishman.
A little over 80 years ago, in late October 1925, his body was discovered lying on a bed in the gas-filled room of a London boarding-house. The man in question had been acknowledged as a writer of some distinction, having penned biographies of such diverse figures as George Russell and William Shakespeare. He had also worked as a freelance journalist, drama critic and playwright, before nationalist inclinations led him to support the Irish separatist movement.
In 1914 he took part in the famous gun-running events at Howth. For a brief period, he lived happily on Achill Island whose desolate landscape greatly influenced him. He was arrested and imprisoned after Easter Week 1916, again in February 1917 and finally in May 1918. On that occasion, he spent almost a year in jail. On his release, he was appointed secretary of the Commission of Inquiry into the Resources and Industries of Ireland by the newly constituted Dáil Éireann.
After the acceptance of the Treaty by the Dáil in 1922, he was appointed acting chairman of the committee which drew up the Free State Constitution. He was first elected to the Dáil in 1922 and retained his seat in the 1923 general election, albeit on a considerably reduced poll. Shortly before his death, he ran unsuccessfully as a candidate in the Seanad election.
Despite all of the above facts, no one has yet sought to produce even a slim volume on the remarkable life of Darrell Figgis, who was born in Rathmines in 1882 and worked as a tea buyer and broker in London and Calcutta until his writing career began. Indeed, he appeared frequently in the news pages or book sections of this newspaper from 1911 onwards.
Among the early news items was a 1913 review of a play entitled Queen Tara, which featured a strikingly named 20-year-old actor in a small role. Childhood memories of watching all the old Sherlock Holmes films came flooding back to me when I read that Dublin's Gaiety theatre could count Basil Rathbone among the many significant actors who had trod its boards.
As well as being the author of several highly regarded books, Figgis was a frequent contributor to the letters pages of various national newspapers and often suggested amendments to important pieces of legislation or asked probing questions of various ministers and deputies in Dáil Éireann. Not surprisingly, he also wrote two volumes about his prison experiences.
Figgis was perhaps influenced by Roger Casement's earlier work on behalf of impoverished Connemara people when he lent his support to a campaign to ease the plight of those suffering food shortages on Achill in February 1918. He wrote a letter to the Irish Independent to explain that Sinn Féin had arranged for potatoes to be sent there, the Gaelic League had procured for him a supply of flour and a cheque donated by two ladies had ensured that "a portion of this flour is now being distributed free in cases of real indigence and need".
That same month, a humorous account of the guarding of ballot boxes for the South Armagh by-election, in which the Irish Party candidate easily defeated the Sinn Féin candidate, appeared in the Belfast News Letter. Apparently, not content that the ballot boxes locked in the strongroom at Newry Workhouse under police guard were fully safe, Sinn Féin supporters, led by Figgis, "carrying quantities of white tape and sealing wax, obtained permission to affix seals to the door of the strongroom and certain windows".
When the Redmondites heard what had happened, they did likewise, rendering the entrance doubly sealed. Still unhappy, the Sinn Féiners left four of their number behind to stand guard with the police. The episode reached a happy conclusion when the Redmondites followed suit, so that "eight politicians joined the armed policemen in their all-night vigil outside the strongroom".
On a more serious note, a wealthy English businessman, referring in 1917 to Irish deportees such as Figgis and future president Sean T. O'Kelly, remarked that "if gentlemen and men of culture like you can be shipped out of your country in this way without any charge, then there is something very wrong with the running of things in Ireland".
Several years later, in 1922, Figgis had some interesting points to make about unemployment which remain relevant today: "When men have been a certain length of time out of work. . .a despair is bred in them that is the most awful experience that man can know. That despair in time leads to vindictiveness. That vindictiveness leads in time to criminality in some cases, and sheer irresponsible destruction in others."
A poignant illustration that this was not perhaps confined to the ranks of the unemployed was made known to readers of the June 18th, 1922 issue of this paper when they learned that by several young men "acting under army orders" - ie, anti-Treaty republicans - had broken into Figgis's house and brutally cut off part of his beard. His wife, Millie, was so traumatised by this and other events of these troubled times that she took her own life in November 1923.
It is sad indeed to discover that in a memorandum stating how he wished his personal belongings to be disposed, Darrell Figgis wrote: "There are not many who will care to remember me." Sadder still is the fact that a subsequent relationship with a young dancing teacher named Rita North also ended in tragedy when she died following a miscarriage - a week before Figgis took his own life.
If only for the sake of acknowledging someone who was largely responsible for framing this State's first independent constitution, a biography of Darrell Figgis surely merits someone's attention.