Sir, – I read with interest Oliver O’Hanlon’s article on James K McGuire, the youthful mayor of Syracuse, New York (Irishman’s Diary, January 16th), and in particular the references to McGuire’s relationship with Corkman Diarmaid Fawsitt (my late grandfather). Your readers might like to know that there are over 40 letters from McGuire to Fawsitt in the Cork City and County Archives, part of an extensive collection donated by the Fawsitt family of Laurelmount in 2019 (Cork Archives ref PR81).
The friendship began in 1915 during Fawsitt’s stay in New York following his deportation, and continued during Fawsitt’s time as consul-general for the Irish Republic in New York (1919-21), and after his return to Ireland to serve with the Treaty delegation.
McGuire’s informative letters from New York and Washington include references to leading Irish and Irish-American personalities, and range over many topics such as Irish-American reactions to the Treaty and Civil War, the new Irish State, rival Irish missions in the US, and the drive for funds, shipping, tariffs, etc. There are poignant references to the deaths of Barry, Boland, Brugha, Griffith and Collins, and to the “shocking and horrible deaths” of Cork Protestants in early 1922. McGuire’s relaying of a threat to Collins’s life was duly passed on by Fawsitt, and Collins’s reply – written three days before his death – is in the Fawsitt Papers (Fawsitt later copied it to McGuire). The letters show that while there may well have been “disagreements over Ireland’s future” at the time of the Treaty, these seem to have been resolved and there is no indication of a souring of their relationship. Quite the contrary – the friendship continued right up until McGuire’s death in late June 1923. In a letter to McGuire’s widow Frances, Fawsitt wrote: “his life and his labors were an inspiration and a strength to us in days of doubts and distress when friends – real friends – were few and sundered . . . . I thank God I saw him so recently.” (Fawsitt had visited him on his deathbed). – Yours, etc,
JULITTA CLANCY,
Batterstown,
Co Meath.