Life
1898-1975 [prop. Ernest; var. Earnán]; b. Castlebar, Co. Mayo,
son of a Catholic father connected with the contemporary administration;
moved to Dublin on his father’s promotion, and educated there; joined
Irish Volunteers 1917 [err. DIH et al. active in 1916 and interned]; commanded
company in Coalisland; roving commission for Michael Collins; IRA organiser
of North-West Ulster after 1917; attached to Sean Treacy’s 3rd. Tipperary
Brigade, participating in attack on Hollyford Barracks, 10-11 May 1920;
wounded in attack on Rear Cross Barracks, 11 July; captured in Kilkenny
under name of Bernard Stewart, held for three months, and tortured by
Black and Tans, 1920; escaped Feb. 1921, with aid of boltcutters; commander
of 2nd Southern Division, consisting of five brigades, March 1921; administered
Gen. Mulcahy’s orders to cease active operations, Monday, 11th July,
1921; earliest divisional commander to reject Treaty; raided Clonmel Barracks,
16 Feb. 1922; Officer Commanding Headquarters Section of Four Courts garrison
with Rory O’Connor, Cathal Brugha, and other republicans (3rd Dublin
Brigade) in Civil War, 14 April 1922; triggered off explosion that destroyed
Public Records Office by fire; captured and escaped; organised IRA in
southern Ireland after his escape from custody, an event omitted in the
1936 ed. of his autobiography; participated in raid on Enniscorthy Castle;
Army Council, 16 April 1922; received 21 bullet wounds from Free State
soldiers during capture on Ailesbury Rd., Nov. 1922; hunger striker in
1923 (41 days); Sinn Féin TD, N. Dublin, 1923, refusing to take Oath of
Allegiance or Dáil seat; remained under sentence of death in Mountjoy
to July 1924; travelled in Spain, among the Basques; returned to Ireland
and shortly travelled to America,1927; raised funds for the Irish Press,
1927; wrote pieces for the Sunday Press, published as Raid and
Rallies (1928); supporter of Jack Yeats’s reputation; travelled
in California, Mexico, working at various jobs; drafted On Another
Man’s Wounds (ser. Irish Press; publ. 1936) while staying
with a family at Taos, New Mexico; Irish representative at Chicago World
Fair (1933); on Fianna Fáil gaining power Frank Aiken telegrammed, ‘Come
home immediately; satisfactory openings available’ (1932); m. Helen
Hooker Roelofs, New York, and returned to Ireland, 1935; close friend
of Jack B. Yeats in later life, and collector of his paintings; called
to stand N. Dublin, May 1938; in 1945, contributed a memoir of Jack Yeats
to the collection edited by Roger McHugh (1945); elected MIAL 1947; The
Singing Flame (1978), an autobiographical sequel, edited from papers
in UCD by Frances-Mary Blake (1978). DIW DIB DIH DUB
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Works
On Another Man’s Wound (Dublin 1936), issued in US as Army
Without Banners (NY 1937), also in UK pb.; The Singing Flame
(Dublin 1978); Richard English and C[ormac] O’Malley, eds., Prisoners:
The Civil War Letters of Ernie O’Malley (Poolbeg 1991). Contrib.
afterword to Dorothy Walker, Louis le Brocquy (Dublin: Ward River
Press 1981).
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Criticism
Peter Costello, The Heart Grown Brutal: the Irish Revolution in Literature
from Parnell to the Death of Yeats, 1891-1939 (Dublin: Gill &
Macmillan 1977), pp.124-26.
Padraic O’Farrell, ‘Researching an Enigma: Ernie O’Malley’s Many Lives’, in Etudes Irlandaises, VIII (1983), pp.229-36.
Richard English, ‘The IRA’s Richard Hannay, Ernie O’Malley, John Buchan, and the Irish Revolution’, in Causeway, Cultural Traditions Journal (Summer 1994), pp.29-34.
Richard English, essay on O’Malley, in Boyce, D. George, Robert Eccleshall, and Vincent Geoghegan, eds., Political thought in Ireland since the 17th c. (Routledge 1993). See review in Irish Literary Supplement, Fall 1992, q.p.].
Richard English, Ernie O’Malley: IRA Intellectual (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998; rep. 2000), 220pp., 4pl.; Declan Kiberd, review of Richard English, Ernie O’Malley, in Times Literary Supplement (31 July 1998), p.25; Tony Canavan, review of Richard English, Ernie O’Malley, in Books Ireland (March 2000), pp.68-69.
C[ormac] O’Malley, eds., Prisoners, The Civil War Letters of Ernie O’Malley (Dublin: Poolbeg 1991)..
Roy Foster, ‘Varieties of Irishness’, in Maurna Crozier, ed., Cultural Traditions in Northern Ireland: Varieties of Irishness, proceedings of the Cultural Traditions Cultural Traditions Group Conference (Belfast: IIS 1989).
John McGahern, ‘In pursuit of a single flame’, review essay on ‘neglected classic of the War of Independence’ (Irish Times, 17 Feb. 1996, Weekend, p.8.
Richard English, ‘Revolutionary writing’, Fortnight, 404 (May 2002), pp.22-23.
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Notes
Belfast Public Library holds On Another Man’s Wound (1936)
[quoted under ‘present title’ as Army Without Banners, pbk.
ed. 1967, in F. S. L. Lyons, 1971].
Etain O’Malley, ed., The Irish Sculptures of Helen Hooker O’Malley
Roelofs 1905-1993 (1993) exhibition in Univ. of Limerick, Sept 1993,
four heads being subsequently housed in Glucksman Ireland House, NY University
by permission of her executors; former US Junior Tennis Champion; eloped
to marry Ernie O’Malley, 1935; lived with him in Dublin and Mayo,
and bore three children; remarried in America in the 1950s, and spent
half her time in Ireland after; establish O’Malley Art Award and
Collection, part on loan to Municipal. and part looked after by Mayo County
Council.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)