The Friends of Irish Freedom & the Irish Race Convention
By Dr Michael Doorley
On 22 February 1919, the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) organisation held a two day Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia. The FOIF was the public face of Clan na Gael, an Irish-American revolutionary society with close links to the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland. The FOIF had been founded at an earlier Race Convention, in New York, in March 1916, and had pledged itself ‘to encourage and assist any movement that will bring about the national independence of Ireland’.
The emergence of the FOIF coincided with the decline of John Redmond’s American support organization, the United Irish League of America (UILA).
Redmond’s support for the British war effort in 1914 alienated Irish-American nationalist opinion and lost him the support of the influential Irish-American newspaper the Irish World. Irish-American support for the FOIF also grew following the British executions of captured rebel leaders of the failed 1916 Rising. The leader of the FOIF, Daniel Cohalan, who also acted as ‘Permanent Chairman’ of the Convention, was a New York State Supreme Court Justice with close links to members of Congress, Tammany Hall, and the Catholic hierarchy. Cohalan’s family had emigrated from Cork during the Famine, and from an early age he had become involved in Clan activities. In 1919, Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised Cohalan as ‘one of the ablest men who ever came to Washington to plead a cause. The citizens of Irish blood are fortunate in having him as a leader’.
In September 1917, five months after the United States entered the First World War, Justice Cohalan had faced media accusations of links to German agents, and had narrowly escaped impeachment. Now that the atmosphere of war-time hysteria had passed, he believed that holding a convention, coinciding with the post-war Paris peace talks, would help mobilize American opinion behind the cause of Irish independence. In particular, the Convention sought to bring pressure to bear on American President Woodrow Wilson to apply his declared principle of national ‘self-determination’ to the case of Ireland.
Judge Daniel Cohalan (Image: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA)
At the end of the war, the FOIF had staged rallies and demonstrations in support of Irish self-determination. Members of Congress, especially Democrats representing Irish-American voters, were especially sensitive to such pressure. Cohalan, who opposed Wilson’s plan for a League of Nations, also had close ties to the Republican Party in both Houses of Congress. On 4 March 1919, the House of Representatives approved Chicago Congressman Thomas Gallagher’s resolution that the Paris Peace conference should favourably consider Ireland’s claim to self-determination, by a vote of 246 to 45.
Irish nationalists in Ireland also recognized the important role that the United States would play in the post-war peace settlement. At its first meeting, in January 1919, Dáil Éireann had appointed Patrick McCartan as ‘envoy’ of the Irish Republic to the United States. Despite being in the United States since 1917, McCartan, from Carrickmore, County Tyrone, had been elected to the Dáil in an April 1918 by-election for King’s County. Along with fellow Carrickmore-native Joe McGarrity, the powerful Clan leader in Philadelphia, McCartan founded the Irish-American newspaper the Irish Press in late 1918. This newspaper sought to publicize the convention and both men worked with Cohalan in drafting the convention resolution.
The Clan newspaper the Gaelic American (1 March 1919), described the Race Convention as ‘the greatest gathering of our people ever held in America’ and stated that it would put the Irish question to the forefront of American opinion.
Over 5,000 delegates attended the convention drawn from FOIF branches and Clan ‘camps’ across the United States, and also from affiliated societies such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH). Reflecting the tensions of the war years, the Convention ‘Declaration of Principles and Policies’ proudly declared the loyalty of the Irish race to the United States from ‘the revolution to the present day’.
The presence of Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, one of the most respected Catholic prelates in the United States, was significant. Gibbons had formally been a firm supporter of John Redmond and the UILA but Cohalan had persuaded him to attend. His presence on the platform added respectability to Irish demands and symbolized Irish-American nationalist unity. Gibbons also presented the Convention’s major resolution which called upon the Peace Conference, then meeting in Paris, to apply Wilson’s doctrine of national self-determination to Ireland. In his later work, With de Valera in America (1932), McCartan recounts how tensions emerged over the wording of the Convention resolution. McCartan, supported by McGarrity, argued that the phrase ‘self-determination’ was too vague and that the resolution should explicitly seek recognition of the Irish Republic from the nations of the world. However, Cohalan claimed that Gibbons had warned him that he would only ‘go as far as President Wilson and no further’ and that the resolution had been framed with American opinion in mind. In the end McCartan relented but, in his later work, accused Cohalan of ‘taking shelter behind the Cardinal’s robes’.
In contrast, Clan leader John Devoy, who generally supported Cohalan on such issues, believed that Gibbons, and 30 Catholic bishops and archbishops, had helped publicize the Convention, both nationally and internationally. In a letter to McCartan in April 1919, Devoy claimed that their presence had helped to swing ‘our people into line, made the newspapers feature it [the Convention] and sent it over the cables to Ireland and Europe as evidence of the union of our race in America’. Articles on the Convention appeared in the New York Times, the New York World, the Boston Globe, and, of course, in popular Irish-American newspapers such as the Gaelic American and Irish World.
Éamon de Valera during his trip to America in 1919. Picture also features John Devoy and Daniel Cohalan. (Image: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA)
The Convention provided a much needed boost for FOIF membership which grew from approximately 6,000 in February 1919 to over 70,000 by the end of the year. The Convention also endorsed an ‘Irish Victory Fund’ to aid the objectives of the FOIF in furthering the cause of Irish independence, both in Ireland and the United States. The fund closed in August 1919 to make way for Éamon de Valera’s bond drive, but by then over $1 million dollars had been collected. Part of this fund was later used to fund de Valera’s ‘tour’ of the United States and establish a bond drive. Illustrating the global reach of the FOIF, another portion of this fund was used to cover the expenses of the Sinn Féin envoy to Paris: Seán T. O’Kelly.
The Convention appointed 25 of its members, led by Cohalan, to present President Wilson with their resolution demanding self-determination for Ireland. Wilson had, at this point, temporarily returned to the United States from the Paris peace talks. These developments were followed closely in Ireland and prior to the meeting on 4 March, de facto Dáil President Éamon de Valera, cabled Cohalan the following message:
The Executive of Dáil Éireann warmly appreciates the magnificent work for Ireland of the Irish Race in the United States of America and places the highest value on the active co-operation of the Irish Race Convention. The Executive welcomes the forthcoming reception of the Convention’s delegates by President Wilson, whose clear enunciation of the true principle of international right has kindled throughout Ireland the firmest confidence in an early restoration of her inalienable liberties.
A reluctant Wilson met the delegation, though only on condition that Cohalan, who he perceived as disloyal, absent himself from the meeting. Even still, the Irish-American delegation achieved little. From Wilson’s perspective, the establishment of a League of Nations, with Britain’s cooperation, was central to his post-War vision. He believed that this would provide a mechanism for the resolution of questions of nationality such as that presented by Ireland. Unwilling to offend Britain, he took an evasive and noncommittal stance.
The delegation that met Wilson, acting under the authority of the Irish Race Convention, now appointed three of its members to form the ‘American Commission on Irish Independence’ to go to the Paris Peace Conference. Financed by the Victory Fund, the Commission sailed for Paris on 31 March 1919.
The Commission was made up of three prominent Irish-Americans: Frank Walsh (former co-chairman of the National Labor Board), Edward Dunne (former Mayor of Chicago), and Michael J. Ryan (former President of the UILA). The Commission sought to obtain safe conduct for an Irish Dáil delegation, led by de Valera, to present Ireland’s case. Despite a request from the US delegation in Paris, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, refused to allow this. The Commission also sought to enlist support from Wilson to be allowed to present Ireland’s case and meet with Lloyd George. Wilson seemed at first sympathetic to the Irish-American requests. However, after the Commission visited Ireland on a 10-day mission to see conditions at first hand, Wilson’s position hardened. According to British press reports the members of the Commission had made ‘scandalous speeches’ in support of an Irish Republic. An embarrassed Wilson now refused to help.
Despite the failure of the Commission to achieve its aims, it had done much to publicise the Irish cause in the United States. This was also true of the Irish Convention in general. In June 1919, the American Senate introduced a resolution expressing sympathy for Irish self-determination. While Wilson chose to ignore this and other congressional resolutions in favour of Ireland there is no doubt that as a result of the Irish Race Convention, the Irish question became an issue of intense interest in the United States throughout 1919.
Dr Michael Doorley is an Associate Lecturer with the Open University in Ireland. He is the author of Irish American Diaspora Nationalism: The Friends of Irish Freedom, 1916—1935 (Four Courts Press, 2005). He is currently working on a biography of Irish-American nationalist, Judge Daniel Cohalan (1865-1946).
