Sir, – My grandfather, Dr Séamus Ó Ceallaigh, an obstetrician and early Irish historian, was a close friend of Eoin MacNeill. The meeting to countermand the Easter Rising was held at his house 53 Rathgar Road. His detailed account of that meeting is published in “Gleanings from Ulster History” by Séamus Ó Ceallaigh (Ballinascreen Historical Society, 1994, pp 141-152). This contains details which are not consistent with Michael Parsons’s report “Order cancelling 1916 Rising for auction” (Home News, March 3rd).
That article says that copies of the order were written at Eoin MacNeill’s house “Woodbrook”. In fact it is written on paper headed “Woodtown Park, Rathfarnham, Co Dublin”, which was the house of Eoin MacNeill’s brother, James. It was there, on the morning of Saturday, April 22nd, 1916 (the date of the copy of the order to be auctioned), that MacNeill asked my grandfather if he could “see a couple of people” in his house at 53 Rathgar Road.
It is unclear precisely where all copies of the order were written out. However, my grandfather describes how that evening Arthur Griffith and Eoin MacNeill signed orders in his front room, while a large number of people came and went, “most coming on bicycles, some in cabs, some in motorcars”. These included The O’Rahilly, Thomas MacDonagh, Sean T O’Kelly, as well as the many individuals who were to be the messengers to the counties later on in the night. “There never was a plot or conspiracy attended by more noise or less concealment.”
After midnight, by which time most of the messengers carrying copies of the countermanding orders had left, Eoin MacNeill went into town to get the announcement published in the Sunday Independent . It was then that "he learned that a ship or boat had landed in Kerry and someone on the boat had been captured by the police".
In other words, contrary to the report, it was only then that the news of Casement’s arrest reached MacNeill, and thus in no way did this inform his decision to countermand the Rising. – Yours, etc,
Dr NIAMH WHITFIELD,
Faroe Road,
London W14.