An Irishman’s Diary about Molly Clancy, a formidable woman of Limerick

We called her Auntie Molly Clancy, though she was not actually our auntie; she and my father were cousins. In the Limerick of the 1950s, she was a formidable figure: elderly, bulky, dressed in heavy tweeds, with a stick and often a Celtic brooch pinned to her overcoat. She was the widow of George Clancy, the mayor of Limerick murdered in 1921 by the Black and Tans. She saw him die – her own father had died just two days before and her mother was also in the house at the time – and was herself wounded in the hand in that attack. She only became aware only later that she had been shot. The mark of the wound was still there, like a stigmata, 35 years later.

Certain doubting Thomases have asserted that the wound was actually on her forearm, and that it was transferred to her hand in nationalist mythology to enhance the Christ-like analogy, but I recall seeing this dark mark on the back of her hand, a badge of honour.

Born in 1882, she was from Limerick city, while her husband, George, born in 1881, was from Grange, Co Limerick, and went to school in Bruff nearby.

He was always an enthusiastic nationalist and Irish revivalist, and when he entered the royal university (later UCD) in Dublin in 1899, such was his passion that he even persuaded his friend James Joyce (or Jimmy, as George – uniquely – called him) briefly to attend Irish classes. He was an excellent linguist, studying French with Joyce as a fellow student. On leaving college, he taught briefly in Clongowes and then returned to Limerick where he continued his involvement in nationalist and Irish language activities. He married Máire Ní Chillín, also an Irish teacher, in 1915, and the Limerick republican, John Daly, in a note, wished him and his bride “a long and happy life together, in a free Ireland”. It was not to be.

A fact about Molly Clancy – the kind of fact which so frequently complicates and thereby enriches the narrative of Irish history – was that her father, Timothy Killeen, had been an RIC man (this matter went unmentioned in the family). In the 1901 census, the family names are given in English; by 1911, they are defiantly in Irish.

Molly, as I mentioned, was herself a national school teacher. An article by her, under the name Máire Ní Chillín, in the Catholic Bulletin in December 1911 gives a revealing notion of her views at a particularly delicate moment in nationalist discourse. It is addressed to new national teachers, like her, and is intended to encourage them to use their positions to advance the cause of nationhood, in tandem of course with the faith of our fathers.

But it begins by painting a vivid picture, which sounds suspiciously autobiographical, of the loneliness and isolation of the life of a young, clearly female, national teacher in a rural school: “the long grey roads” outside the school door; the recalcitrant pupils; the “dreary lonesome evenings” in fairly bleak accommodation. But of course the tone is mainly one of moral uplift: faith and fatherland ride to the rescue, and the noble task of inculcating these values in the young supersedes these unpromising conditions. There is an interesting nuance where Molly appeals to even those teachers who are not wedded to the revolutionary tradition at least to tell them about Brian Boru and other heroes of pre-Norman invasion times – hope springs eternal.

In later years, following her husband’s murder, Molly became a bastion of the Fianna Fáil presence in Limerick. She was loyal to de Valera all the way, supporting his rejection of the Treaty, the foundation of Fianna Fáil, and the decision to enter Dáil Éireann. She adorned many a Fianna Fáil platform in the city, sitting supportively behind Dev, complete with wound. Her allegiances had at least the merit of being clear-cut: only one national newspaper was allowed into her house.

Visits to that house, on the North Circular Road, were memorable. The sitting room was darkened, the curtains heavy, the atmosphere solemn, almost sepulchral. It was as if a death that occurred decades before was still being mourned. She sat very straight in an arm chair, wearing a long old-fashioned dress that reached down to her ankles, and interrogated us about our progress at school as we sipped lemonade (my cousins tell me that she took a strict view of the length of their skirts on their visits). On our last visit, Molly’s mind was wandering, and she mostly did not recognise us. The whole experience, uncanny enough already, took on an extra spectral dimension. She died in 1962, and is buried of course beside her husband in Mount St Lawrence Cemetery.

On one of our visits to her, the mayor of Limerick, a successor of George, Ted Russell, was there, and we admired the medallions on the lord mayor’s chain, marking the tenure of various mayors.

Our father told us the motto of Limerick: "Urbs antiqua fuit, studiisque asperrima belli": "An ancient city, and harsh in the arts of war". A living example of it was before our eyes.