Cumann na mBan commander to be honoured

The lonely life of a leading member of Cumann na mBan who was consigned to a mental asylum for more than 40 years is due to be remembered in Athenry, Co Galway, this weekend).

Julia Morrissey was just 24 years old when she commanded 50 women during the Galway Rising of 1916, as part of a poorly-armed force of more than 600 Irish volunteers under the direction of Liam Mellows.

Royal Irish Constabulary stations at Clarinbridge, Oranmore and Carnmore were attacked. But the offensive lasted just five days as the insurgents – who had been relying on Roger Casement's failed munitions delivery to Kerry – had just 30 rifles between them.

Morrissey was Mellows's landlady when he came to Athenry to enlist support in March 1915. NUI Galway historian Dr Conor McNamara says the pair "developed a bond typical of the intensity of many young idealists" and both shared an interest in music. Mellows played the fiddle and Morrissey the piano.

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Mellows spent four years in New York after the Rising, was opposed to the treaty that ended the War of Independence and was executed along with three colleagues by the Free State government in December, 1922.

Morrissey never recovered from his death and Dr McNamara says neighbours remember her using an Ouija board in an attempt to make contact with her dead comrades. She continued to live in Athenry with no immediate family, as her sole relative, a brother, Martin, had been deported to the United States in 1916.

"At some point in the 1930s she was confined to the mental asylum in Ballinasloe, and there is a record of correspondence in 1934 from a government pension scheme set up to recognise the service of veterans of the independence struggle," says Dr McNamara.

The application form was sent to Morrissey in Ballinasloe, but was never returned – either because she was too ill or had no one to assist her, he says. The local bank manager was also the financial guardian for the Ballinasloe asylum. And he informed the pension scheme that her brother could not be located.

“The Morrisseys became just another family torn apart in the aftermath of the revolutionary struggle,” says Dr McNamara. “Julia’s later life reflected a society in which the unwell, the unwanted and the unlucky frequently fell through the cracks.”

On her death in March, 1974, she was buried in her parents’ plot in the Dominican Abbey, Athenry, but with no inscription. A headstone with her name – donated by a local stonemason – is due to be unveiled at her grave this weekend by Friends and Relatives, Galway 1916.

Relatives of members of Cumann na Ban are attending the Dominican Abbey ceremony at 2pm on Saturday, November 18th, and interested individuals and groups are invited to attend and lay a wreath. The tributes will include poetry readings, a musical recital and an oration outlining her life.