and sometimes play cards. While still a schoolboy, Emmet came to know some of the prominent people in the Home Rule movement.
James F. Dalton was held in such high esteem by those involved in the Home Rule movement that he was the guest of honour at a banquet given for him at the Gresham Hotel on 21 December 1911. The dinner sold out, and senior figures in the IPP were present, including Willie Redmond and Tom Kettle. Though Joe Devlin was unwell, he still made sure to turn up at the Gresham to pay tribute to his friend. Dalton was presented with an illuminated address by an Irish Party activist, Lawrence Wickham, a member of Blackrock Urban Council, in recognition of his work for the ‘National Cause’. The address referred to the ‘sacrifices’ made by Dalton, his ‘unselfish patriotism’ and the ‘great personal regard in which he is held’. The address also referred to his ‘almost unique faculty of attracting universal friendship’.
During his address, Tom Kettle said that the most brilliant student that he knew in their Dublin College was a son – Martin J. Dalton – of their guest that night. Joe Devlin said of James F. Dalton, that ‘no more loyal friend, no more affectionate comrade’ had ever appeared in Ireland. Touched by the occasion, James F. warmly thanked the attendees. ‘It has often been told to you by our leaders and others who have visited this great Republic of the West, of the love that is borne not only by the exiles, but also by the children of the exiles, for Ireland. I am proud to say, as the son of an exile, that I intensely love this dear old land…’
It was not surprising that Martin Dalton had come to the notice of Tom Kettle. Apart from being a ‘brilliant student’ at UCD, Martin was also active in the college’s renowned debating society, the Literary and Historical Society, known as the L&H. Kettle had once held the prestigious position of auditor of the society. Martin helped Arthur Cox secure election for auditor in 1913 over the future Taoiseach, John A. Costello. Cox later became a prominent solicitor and ultimately a Jesuit priest. He recalled that Martin ‘learned much of his politics from his father, organizer of the Irish Parliamentary Party’, and ‘steered me to victory’.10
James F. Dalton helped to organize a massive Home Rule rally held in Dublin on 31 March 1912, with son Martin coordinating the attendance of university students.11 Dalton senior also played a key role in organizing the elaborate welcome given by the IPP to British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith when he visited Dublin in July 1912 to support Home Rule. The Liberal leader was shepherding a Home Rule Bill through Parliament, and was given a rapturous reception in Dublin, driving through the city in an open-topped carriage with John Redmond. As Organizing Secretary of the Reception Committee, James F. attended a reception for Asquith in the Gresham Hotel. Through his father’s activities, Emmet would have gained some understanding of the Home Rule politics of the day.
As he became a citizen of some prominence in Dublin, James F. Dalton became a Justice of the Peace (JP), and went into the insurance business. In 1913 he helped launch the Catholic and General Assurance Association Limited, becoming a director along with luminaries such as the Earl of Orkney.12 An office was set up at 22 Westmoreland Street and Dalton was on a very good salary of £500 a year. Unfortunately this arrangement ended in acrimony. In early 1916 he launched a legal action in the Dublin courts against his former employer for unfair dismissal, though in April the company settled the case.13
Cistercian College, Roscrea
After primary education at O’Connell’s, it might have been expected that young Emmet would continue his secondary education at the school. However, in 1912, he was sent away to a boarding school run by monks in County Tipperary. In his retirement, Brother Allen told a story to a friend about the background to Emmet’s change of school.14 The Brothers had installed a new instrument at O’Connell’s – a telephone. The Superior of the community, Brother John A. O’Mahony, a man in his sixties, wanted to test the instrument and decided to make a telephone call. One of the few families he knew with a telephone was Emmet Dalton’s family. He called the Dalton home in nearby Drumcondra and Mrs Dalton answered. He introduced himself and said he was sorry to hear that influenza had invaded her home. There was a pause, and Mrs Dalton asked, ‘Do you have the right family, Brother? There is no influenza in my house. Both Emmet and Charlie went to school this morning.’ It was now the Brother’s turn to be taken aback. He said only one boy, Charlie arrived at school and this boy apologized for Emmet’s absence due to influenza. Alarmed by this information, Emmet’s parents carried out inquiries. It emerged that Emmet had been regularly indulging in truancy from school, or ‘mitching’ as he described it himself in later life, using a traditional Dublin expression.15 As a result, his parents decided to send him away to boarding school. Looking back on his school days, he said he was not a brilliant student, but was able to pass examinations. He was mainly inclined towards sport and athletics, implying that he was not enormously interested in academic subjects. Referring to his ‘mitching’, he reckoned he was a ‘difficult pupil’.
Emmet was sent for secondary education to the Cistercian College, Roscrea, set in countryside more than 80 miles from Dublin. It was a more exclusive establishment than O’Connell’s, and perhaps more exotic as well. The college had been set up a few years earlier, in 1905. Travel to the school entailed a lengthy train journey from Dublin. The extra expense involved in sending 14-year-old Emmet to such a school would suggest a certain affluence on the part of his father at this period. The boarding school, which is still in operation, is run by the monks of Mount St. Joseph Abbey. They belong to the contemplative Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO). The school, located in an imposing, grey stone building set in green, wooded countryside, provided a striking contrast to the urban environment which Dalton had hitherto experienced. In later life, Dalton talked with affection of his days at O’Connell’s, where he said he had received ‘brilliant’ teaching. But he was also taken with Roscrea, where he felt inspired by the Cistercian monks he encountered. In old age, he would talk of the many happy days he had at Roscrea, and his pride at being associated with the various people he met there, and the example set by the monks’ life of ‘unselfish devotion’.16
Irish Volunteers
With his nationalist background, it was not surprising that Emmet was among the 4,000 who joined the Irish Volunteers, at the inaugural meeting in the Rotunda Rink in Dublin in November 1913.17 James F. Dalton became heavily involved in the movement, as did his friend Tom Kettle. The organization had been founded by Gaelic scholar Eoin MacNeill, in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force by Ulster Unionists opposed to Irish Home Rule. The bill to enact this legislative autonomy for Ireland was then working its way through the House of Commons. Many nationalists were not yet ready to accept the idea that the Ulster Protestants might be regarded as a separate people entitled to self-determination.
In April 1914 the UVF raised the level of tension on the island of Ireland by landing 25,000 rifles at Larne, Bangor and Donaghadee. On 26 July a small consignment of about 900 Mauser rifles was landed by the Irish Volunteers very publicly at Howth, County Dublin from the yacht Asgard skippered by the writer Erskine Childers. Authorities attempted to capture the rifles landed at Howth; a small number seized by the police were returned later as they had been confiscated illegally. Soldiers from a detachment of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers had been involved in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the rifles. When they were jeered by a crowd at Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin city centre some soldiers lost control and opened fire, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. The deployment of the military that led to the shooting aroused considerable outrage throughout Ireland. James F. Dalton attended a meeting of Dublin City magistrates who protested at the military being called out.18
In June, James F. Dalton was one of twenty-seven nominees submitted by John Redmond to join the ruling Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers. However, the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 quickly split the Volunteer movement. To avoid a civil war, the British government placed Home Rule on the statute book, but postponed its implementation until the end of the war. On 20 September IPP leader John Redmond made a historic speech in Woodenbridge, County Wicklow, where he declared it was in Ireland’s interest for the Volunteers to enlist in the British forces and fight in the war in defence ‘of right, of freedom, and religion’. He reasoned that Irish nationalists by fighting in the war alongside Ulster Unionists, would ensure