George Lennon

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George Lennon
Born	25 May 1900 Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland
Died	1991 (aged 90–91)
Allegiance	Irish Republic
Service/branch	Irish Volunteers Irish Republican Army (1919–1922) Anti-Treaty IRA
Rank	Vice Commanding Officer/Commanding Officer ASU
Unit	Fianna Éireann Waterford Brigade
Battles/wars	Irish War of Independence Irish Civil War
Spouse(s)	May Sibbald

George Lennon (25 May 1900 – 1991) was an Irish Republican Army leader during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

Background and early Republican activities[]

George Gerard Lennon was born in Dungarvan, Co Waterford on 25 May 1900;^[1] his parents were George Crolly ( aka "Gas") Lennon,manager of the local gas works, and Ellen Shanahan. He was the second of their their five children. At the time of the 1911 census the family lived on Grattan Square, Dungarvan in a Devonshire built 2 storey home at 81 O'Connell Street.

As a young member of Na Fianna Éireann ( the Irish Republican Scouts) Lennon, with companion "Barney" Dalton, was arrested by the Royal Irish Constabulary based upon testimony of a youthful informant, for activating an explosive device (I.E.D.) along the Dungarvan quay. West Waterford Officer Commanding (O/C) P.C. O'Mahony listed him, in October 1914, as a fourteen-year-old "Adjutant" in the newly formed Dungarvan Volunteers. An I.R.B. ( the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood) circle of twenty, organized by O'Mahony, included Lennon, Pax Whelan and Dan Fraher, all later prominent during the Irish War of Independence.

Irish Volunteers and IRA[]

After the Easter Rising (in which he stopped a train in a futile search for arms with Pax Whelan), Lennon left Abbeyside School just prior to his sixteenth birthday to devote himself full time to the Irish Republican cause.^[2] Initially imprisoned as a seventeen-year-old at Ballybricken Prison, Waterford City, he was "on the run" for nearly a year before being captured and sentenced at Lismore Court House to Cork Male Gaol. Incarcerated with Charlie Daly of Kerry and Sean Moylan he was released prematurely, due to ill health at the time of the third outbreak of Spanish Influenza, in May 1919. He served as West Waterford Vice O/C under O/C Pax Whelan. With Liam Lynch on 7 September 1919, Lennon took part in the first attack, since Easter Week 1916, on British military forces at Fermoy's Wesleyan Church. In May 1920 he participated in "one of the fiercest of all barracks attacks..." directed at the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in Kilmallock, County Limerick. After this, Lennon was attached to the East Limerick Flying Column (the first organised of "men on the run") and took part in a series of attacks on Crown forces including Bruree, Co. Limerick and Kildorrery, Co. Cork with Tom Barry (Irish republican). He also served with the West Limerick Column and, at Liam Lynch's request, helped organise the famed Cork No. 2 Column portrayed in Sean Keating's iconic Men of the South.

Circa September/October 1920 he took command of the West Waterford Flying Column as the youngest leader, with Belfast's Roger McCorley, of an active service unit. Operating from the Comeragh Mountains and the Drum Hills, Lennon, with Great War veteran John Riordan, planned and led the Piltown Cross ambush on 1 November 1920 (the date of the execution, in Dublin, of Kevin Barry) in which a British Army unit was overwhelmed and armaments seized. In January 1921 the flying column took part in the unsuccessful Pickardstown ambush near Tramore and the Burgery ambush in March 1921. Capturing childhood acquaintance RIC Sergeant Hickey, he had him executed as a "police spy".^[3] In all, Lennon was involved in some 17 engagements, not including gun-running activities and arms seizures. The activities of Lennon's column resulted in nearly a thousand British soldiers being deployed to Waterford, along with over two hundred RIC and Royal Marines. The local newspaper in 1924 referenced "...in the struggles that took place he had many hair-breadth escapes." These included while being "on the run:" Kilkenny, Fermoy and Ballyhooly, Co. Cork and Cappagh, Kilmacthomas, Cappoquin and Grawn (Faha Bridge), Co. Waterford. Escapes as a Republican "Irregular" from Irish Free State Forces in County Waterford were made in July 1923 from his Ballybricken Gaol redoubt and Barnakill, Kilrossanty.

Following the 11 July Truce Lennon was the designated IRA Brigade Liaison Officer for County Waterford. IRA Liaison Officers duties were to smooth out any difficulties that might arise between the IRA and the Free State authorities.^[4] Lennon led his men into a generally non-receptive Waterford City. In January 1922, staying at Vaughan's Hotel with I.R.A Chief of Staff Liam Lynch (Irish republican) (shot 10 April 1923) of Cork and Charlie Daly of Kerry, ("Drumboe Martyr" executed 14 March 1923) he was present at the Mansion House when the Dáil voted to accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In the subsequent Irish Civil War, he took the anti-Treaty side and fought at the Battle of Waterford of July 1922 (See Irish Free State offensive) against former comrade and East Waterford Commanding Officer Paddy Paul. The first and last shots of the battle were fired from his command at Ballybricken Gaol. Retreating westward he subsequently resigned in a letter to Liam Deasy when it became obvious that the war would prove ruinous for Ireland.

In America[]

He emigrated to New York City in 1927 where he was employed in the insurance and hotel businesses.^[5] Lennon was also the business manager and contributor (aka "George Crolly") to the short-lived art/literary magazine The Irish Review edited by Ulster poet Joseph Campbell. An earlier Irish Review had been published in Dublin by executed 1916 martyr Joseph Plunkett. Listed as managing editor in 1934 was brother in law George H. Sherwood. The magazine included portrayals of the works of Sean Keating and Power O'Malley, born Michael Augustine Power in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford.

Out of his New York City apartment, he campaigned for pensions via the West Waterford Brigade Old I.R.A Men's Association.

Return to Ireland[]

In poor health, both mentally and physically, he returned to Ireland in August 1936; eventually securing, through Republican connections, the position of inspector with the Irish Tourism Association (I.T.A.), directing the "Irish Topographical Survey" viewed as " one of the most important and lasting projects carried out" during the"Emergency" (World War II) war years. Lennon also served as the County Waterford representative on the executive of Liam Deasy's All Ireland Old I.R.A. Men's Organization. His last position in the Free State was Secretary to The National Planning Conference (1943–1944) which mounted a Mansion House exhibition 25 April to 5 May 1944. Per Sean O'Leary (Sense of Place: A history of Irish Planning) "he appear(ed) to have grown disillusioned with the reaction to the Conference...." His return to Ireland was detailed in the novel "Dead Star's Light" (1938) written by Una Troy Walsh under the nom de plume of Elizabeth Connor. Troy and her husband Joe Walsh (brother in law of Sean Keating, RHA) were subsequently effectively expunged from the roles of their Clonmel parish church.

Although he listed many clerical antecedents, including O Leannain/O Luinin lay abbots (erenaghs) at County Fermanagh monasteries, Reverend George Crolly of Maynooth and noted Roman Catholic Archbishop Primate of Ireland (1835–1849) William Crolly, he was critical of the "special position" of the Catholic Church in Free State Ireland. Lennon also spoke out against the Church and the Ancient Order of Hibernians for their positive outlook on the Fascists in 1936 Spain. He was married outside the Church in 1939 to May Sibbald (b. Kingstown, 1909), former secretary to Government Minister Sean MacEntee, Fianna Fáil T.D. May was the sister in law of An Phoblacht assistant editor Geoffrey Coulter. In seeming violation of the Ne Temere decree, their only child, Ivan, was baptized as a Presbyterian in Dún Laoghaire.

During the "Emergency"( World War II period) he made contact with future English Poet Laureate to be John Betjeman who, as a British Embassy "press attache", had earlier been marked for assassination as a spy by the I.R.A. Betjeman had written a number of poems based on his experiences in West Waterford including "The Irish Unionist's Farewell to Greta Hellstrom" which ended each stanza with the refrain "...Dungarvan in the rain".

Suffering from "reactive depression" (neurasthenia or PTSD) and pulmonary disease (consumption or T.B.) attributable to military service in Óglaigh na hÉireann" (I.R.A.), Lennon was belatedly granted, in perpetuity, an 80% "wound pension" effective 22 May 1944. This was in addition to his 1935 military service pension.

Return to the US[]

Unemployed, from the summer of 1944, he re- emigrated, for the second and final time in early 1946, on one of the first post war flights out of the newly opened Shannon Aeroport; ultimately moving to Rochester, New York where he secured an entry level position with the Eastman Kodak Company. In May 1947 "Dead Star's Light" was performed on the Abbey stage as" The Dark Road". In the play, it was noted that in 1930s Ireland "heroes are out of fashion" and that some viewed him (aka protagonist "John Davern") as "a communist, an anti-cleric, an agitator, a gun-man...." His wife and son reluctantly left Ireland to join him in late 1947; departing from Dún Laoghaire aboard the Princess Maud for Holyhead, ultimately bound for New York City on the Cunarder Mauritania via Southampton.

In his later years, Lennon became attracted to the religious tenets of the Unitarians, Quakers and, through a small study group, Zen Buddhism whose precepts he generally adheared to. With Chester Carlson ( inventor of electrophotography) and others he was a founding member of the Rochester Zen Center in 1967. Lennon was a pacifist and anti-war activist during the Vietnam war.^[6][7]Rochester artist and friend Ruth Carver painted his portrait which was displayed in the mid 1960's at Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery. In the late 1950's he wrote an unpublished play "Down by the Glen Side" and, in the 1960's a short remembrance entitled "Trauma in Time." Widowed in 1983, he died, largely unknown, in 1991.

Controversy over legacy[]

Due arguably to Lennon's stand regarding positions taken by the Irish Catholic Church and his emigration to the US, Irish military historian Terence O'Reilly noted that "incredibly, George Lennon has until recently been effectively airbrushed from Irish history, meriting only fleeting references in a few accounts of the time, although the 1947 Abbey Theatre play and earlier novel were transparently based upon his life."

In 2009 it emerged that a Republican Sinn Féin Cumann had named the Waterford branch of its organization after George Lennon without the permission of his family [1]^{[permanent dead link]}. In 2010 the Lennon name was deleted and replaced by that of Thomas McElwee, a blanket protester and hunger striker who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a non-jury diplock court for the incineration death of Yvonne Dunlop in a bomb attack.^[8]

This, in turn, brought to light other issues, including the refusal by a West Waterford Republican organization, originally established by Lennon in 1930s New York City, to allow his ashes to be scattered amongst his comrades at the IRA Republican plot in Kilrossanty, Co. Waterford. Prior to this denial, in December 2008, the Department of Defense refused a military presence at the proposed ceremony. A possible dispersal of ashes at the family's Roman Catholic parish church St. Mary's in Dungarvan was complicated by an inability to locate the plots, although 1920s newspaper accounts and anecdotal evidence clearly note his family being buried there. In that he was a founding member with Chet Carlson ("Xerography") of the Rochester Zen Center, his ashes were subsequently received by Zen Centers in Rochester and Surry, Maine. July 2014 witnessed the installation of a plaque at St. Mary's noting the nearby presence of the remains of his parents ( George Crolly Lennon/Ellen Shanahan Lennon ) and grandparents ( James Lennon/Mary Anne Crolly Lennon).

Belated recognition[]

Portrait by Ruth Carver

In September 2009, under the auspices of the Waterford County Museum in Dungarvan, talks and an exhibit entitled "The Road to Independence" prominently noted Lennons role in attaining a measure of Irish independence. This event coincided with the release of "Rebel Heart: George Lennon Flying Column Commander" by Terence O'Reilly and "Lennons in Time" by his son.[2]

In 2010, events at St. John Fisher College, Pittsford, New York, included a visual presentation ("George Lennon: I.R.A. Rebel to Zen Pacifist") and his oil portrait by Ruth Carver was included in an exhibit of Irish art entitled "Forgotten Ireland". Featured, inter alia, were the works of Dublin friend Harry Kernoff, Dungarvan artist Michael Augustine Power-O'Malley and Blawnin Clancy, daughter of Joan and Tommy Clancy of the folk singing Clancy Brothers.

In early 2011 a documentary film of Lennon's life was filmed in various locales in West Waterford, including the Waterford County Museum and Mt. Mellary Abbey. The documentary, "O Chogadh go Siochain: Saol George Lennon", shown on Irish television (TG4) in September 2011, had an American premiere in the Autumn of 2011 at the Irish Film Feis, sponsored by the Rochester, New York Chapter of the Irish American Cultural Institute. Presented in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford in November 2012 was Muiris O'Keeffe's play, "Days of Our Youth", dealing with the impact upon Lennon of the 1920 Piltown Ambush and the 1921 Burgery Ambushes. In conjunction with the play, the Waterford County Museum presented a series of lectures featuring Dr. Pat McCarthy of the Military History Society of Ireland and Lennon's son, Ivan, who detailed his twenty-five year investigation into his father's largely forgotten role in the development of the Irish Free State. National Heritage Week 2015 in Tramore and 2018 in Dungarvan witnessed a PowerPoint presentation of some 110 photographs entitled "George Lennon: A Forgotten I.R.A. Commandant." A similar 2016 lecture was delivered at Rochester Institute of Technology's OSHER Program. 2017 saw the completion by his son of a revised 272-page family history entitled "Lennons In Time," based on the earlier 2009 work. In 2021 a NewsTalk FM hour-long radio programme on George Lennon's life, hosted by Simon Maguire, was broadcast throughout the Irish Republic.

Sources[]

• Trauma in Time by George Lennon 1970
• Lennons in Time OCLC 1017569341, by Ivan Lennon.
• Rebel Heart: George Lennon Flying Column Commander Mercier 2009, ISBN 1-85635-649-3
• The Irish Revolution, 1912-23: Waterford Four Courts Press ISBN 978-1-84682-410-4, by Pat McCarthy.
• Cry of the Curlew: A History of the Deise Brigade IRA and the War of independence, by Tommy Mooney.
• The Deise Divided: A History of the Waterford Brigade IRA and the Civil War, by Tommy Mooney.
• The Comeraghs: Gunfire and Civil War, Comeragh Publications, 2003, by Séan & Síle Murphy.

External links[]

• Rebel Heart: online biography
• Lennon's memoirs
• Munster Express
• Sunday Mirror
• West Waterford Flying Column

Online documentary

• Saol George Lennon From War to Peace

References[]