Song Playing:
"Patriot Game"


In Fermoy, Ireland

619

 


Thomas Ashe (1885-1917).

School teacher, member of the Gaelic League and Irish Volunteers.
Thomas Ashe was born in 1885 in the village of Lispole, near Dingle. He was educated in Lispole and at the De La Salle Teacher Training College in Waterford City. After qualifying as a teacher, Ashe took up the position of Principal at Corduff N.S. in Lusk, Co. Dublin.

Map of Dingle
Thomas Ashe had great interest and involvement in the Nationalist Movement and was a member of the Irish Volunteers and the Gaelic League. The years leading to the Uprising in 1916 saw Ashe take a more important role in these groups, and by Easter Sunday, 1916, Ashe was the commanding officer of the Dublin 5th Battalion, North County Dublin (The Fingal Volunteers), the only unit outside the city of Dublin to engage the enemy during the 1916 Rising of the Volunteers.

Commemorative Stamp

During the Rising, Ashe and his Battalion of just 48 men, led many successful attacks and ambushes on military barracks around the Dublin Area. The most famous victory of this band of men was in Ashbourne, Co. Meath, when Ashe and his men made an ambush on an RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) unit at Ashbourne, and captured four police barracks with large quantities of arms and ammunition. Even as the leaders of the Rebellion were being rounded up in Dublin and around the country, Ashe's group kept their guerrilla war going.

Ashe was arrested soon after, court-martialled and sentenced him to death. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. However he was released as part of the General Amnesty in June 1917. On his release, Ashe immediately became involved again in the by now rapidly growing nationalist movement. Thomas Ashe was elected President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a group aligned with Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers. He travelled the country campaigning for Sinn Fein, making speeches, which the authorities deemed were "calculated to cause disaffection". Ashe was re-arrested for sedition and incitement of the population on July 15th, 1917 and sent to Mountjoy Jail for one year.


Entrance to Mountjoy Prison

It was here that Thomas Ashe made the ultimate sacrifice for his beliefs. He demanded that he be given Prisoner of war status including the right to wear his own clothes and associate with his fellow inmates as soldiers. When the authorities refused his demand, Thomas Ashe and six of his fellow prisoners went on hunger strike. Refusing to take food, Ashe was put in a straitjacket and force-fed by the authorities. Tragically, the cruel practice went wrong and he died on September 27th in the Mater Hospital, due to complications brought on by the force-feeding.He was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

"The Last Poem of Thomas Ashe"
written in Lewes Jail, England

Let me Carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord
by Thomas Ashe

Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord
The hour of her trial draws near,
And the pangs and the pains of the sacrifice
May be borne by comrades dear.

But, Lord, take me from the offering throng,
There are many far less prepared,
Through anxious and all as they are to die
That Ireland may be spared.

Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord
My cares in this world are few.
And few are the tears will for me fall
When I go on my way to You.

Spare. Oh! Spare to their loved ones dear
The brother and son and sire.
That the cause we love may never die
In the land of our Heart's desire!

Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord!
Let me suffer the pain and shame
I bow my head to their rage and hate,
And I take on myself the blame.

Let them do with my body whate'er they will,
My spirit I offer to You.
That the faithful few who heard her call
May be spared to Roisin Dubh.

Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord!
For Ireland weak with tears,
For the aged man of the clouded brow,
And the child of tender years;

For the empty homes of her golden plains;
For the hopes of her future, Too!
Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord!
for the cause of Roisin Dubh.

©   Paudie McGrath Cork Ireland 2003 -