Rathfarnham residence of President Cosgrave destroyed in arson attack
Dublin, 15 January 1923 - The country residence of the President of the Executive Council, William T. Cosgrave, was gutted in an arson attack on the 13th of January. The destruction included that of valuable furniture, as well as documents of great historical interest.
The house, Beechpark, is situated in Ballyboden, a mile and half from Rathfarnham, and nobody was in occupancy at the time. The incendiaries took great care to ensure that an early alarm could not be raised to save the property, cutting the telephone wires in the area.
President Cosgrave has told reporters that he was not surprised by the attack. The property had been purchased in 1919 but Mr. Cosgrave had not lived there for more than eight months as he had initially been ‘on the run’ during the War of Independence.
The fire at Beechpark was discovered at 6.30am by a young man living some distance away who placed a phone call to the Rathmines Fire Brigade. By 7.30 am President Cosgrave, accompanied by Commandant O’Reilly, was at the site to supervise the salvage operation. Except for a few items of furniture saved by a caretaker who had been in bed in an adjoining building when the fire was started, much of the contents of the house were destroyed.
Mr. Cosgrave noted, that these items included: a number of Dun Emer carpets, valuable rugs, furniture and artifacts of considerable historical interest - a large collection of manuscripts and letters from most of the men who had taken part in the 1916 Rising and letters and documents belonging to the late President Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. In all, the estimated cost of the damage to Beechpark and its contents comes to £7,000-£8,000.
British Pathé footage of President Cosgrave visiting his burned-out home at Rathfarnham
The Freeman’s Journal, in condemning the attack on Mr. Cosgrave’s house, has used the occasion to remind readers of his life of service and sacrifice to the nation. Mr. Cosgrave, it notes, was a pioneering member of Sinn Féin, attending the organisation’s first convention in 1905 and serving as one of its first representatives on Dublin Corporation. He also joined the Irish Volunteers on their inception in 1913 and during the 1916 Rising, he was one of the garrison who defended the South Dublin Union, becoming a prisoner on his surrender of that post to the British forces.
In more recent times, it was the premature deaths of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins that put him in the role of President of the National government. The Freeman’s also notes that President Cosgrave refused extra protection for the house in Rathfarnham as there were already exceptional demands on the military which were needed for the safeguarding of citizens as a whole.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
