Tom Kettle was the poet of Fingal
HUBERT MURPHY LOOKS BACK ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE FAMED POET, TOM KETTLE, INSPIRED TO SIGN UP AND FIGHT - AND DIE - DURING WORLD WAR 1 AFTER WITNESSING ATROCITIES IN BELGIUM AGAINST INNOCENT CIVILIANS.
THE Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave
One name stands bright in that massive list, the name of Thomas Michael Kettle, a true son of Fingal and a hero to the last. He was just 36-years-old when a single bullet to the chest from a Prussian Guard’s rifle sent him crashing into the muddied soil on Saturday, September 9, 1916.
With Tom Kettle’s death that day went a dream and a man of vision who took up the cause of fighting for liberty on the green fields of France. Many criticised the former Nationalist MP for fighting with the British but
Kettle was different. He was a man born before his time.
The native of Drinan, Swords could have been the greatest statesman ever to have come out of this fair land, never mind Fingal. He had everything in terms of imagination, diplomacy and courage. He believed in a United Ireland but in terms of a changed Europe where everybody should be free. He would have been a great leader of this country.
Ironically, it was while in Belgium, buying guns for the Irish Volunteers, that war broke out and he witnessed at first hand the cruelty endured by the natives of that country as the German army advanced. The flames of freedom that inspired his Irishness, suddenly found a home in Europe. He would fight for the cause.
From a relatively early age Tom Kettle’s health was poor but not even that prevented him from joining up. One wonders how he passed any medical.
He was a Lieutenant, 9th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. They say that Kettle’s mess was the place to be and it had the largest wine bill of the lot. Many nights as the war raged close by, Kettle would tell stories, his wit and comment a source of encouragement to colleagues.
Then, one faithful day, as the Battle for Guincy intensified, Kettle led his men on a charge at Messines Ridge. He was killed instantly and later his body recovered by troops from the Welsh Guards.
A few days later there was to be double grief for the Kettle family, listed as Andrew J. and Margaret Kettle (nee MacCourt), of Newtown, St. Margaret’s, Co. Dublin and husband of Mary S. Kettle (nee Sheehy), of 3, Belgrave Park, Rathmines, Dublin. His father, Andrew, himself a warrior of the Land League era, died suddenly.
Two men, who had given their lives in the fight for justice and equality, had gone.
Kettle had shown much in his early education to suggest he could go far. He was called to the bar in 1905 and a year later, defeated a colleague he had fought with in France, Somerset Saunderson, by 16 votes for the seat of MP for East Tyrone.
He held that post for four years before taking on a role as Professor of National Economics at University College Dublin in 1909.
All along he was regarded as a wonderful writer and poet and orator. He was first president of Young Ireland Branch of United Irish League, advocating Home Rule and was on the board of Theatre of Ireland with the likes of Thomas MacDonagh and Padraig Pearse. He also established and chaired the Peace Committee during the Lock- Out Strike of 1913, alongside Joseph Plunkett.
Having joined the Dublin Fusiliers in late 1914, he visited many areas, looking for further volunteers.
The events of the 1916 Rising troubled him, not least the murder of his brother-in-law, Francis Sheehy Skeffington. He was part of a civilian group trying to prevent looting of business premises but was arrested by the British and executed without trial.
Kettle reputedly called the Rising a ‘Sinn Fein Nightmare.’ He felt his dream of Home Rule had died and a different course was needed.
Soon after, despite being overage for frontline duty and with his health poor, he headed for France, in the firm belief that if Irish volunteers aided the British cause, then they would surely have to grant Ireland her place in that united Europe.
Through the trials and tribulations, he wrote many great works, Irish Orators and Oratory from 1914 now famed while His wife Mary, whom he had married in 1909, edited The ways of War, his writings from the frontline, in 1917.
One wonders what his state of mind was as he left for France in 1916, renewed for the fight, or disillusioned by it all. One feels, from reading his work, Kettle was never a quiter and vowed to see Ireland free.
It is reported he was once quoted as saying ‘Pearse and the others will go down in history as heroes, and I will be just a bloody English officer.’
Kettle, the man, is summed up in a poem he wrote for his beloved daughter Betty, five days before he died.
‘In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
To beauty proud as was your mother’s prime,
In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
You’ll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
To dice with death. And oh! they’ll give you rhyme
And reason: some will call the thing sublime,
And some decry it in a knowing tone.
So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
But for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed,
And for the secret Scripture of the poor.’
A bust of Tom Kettle by Francis W. Doyle-Jones stands in St. Stephen’s Green and bears the final three lines of that poem to hus daughter.
The next time you get a chance to stroll through the park on a bright summer’s day, take the time to view a little bit of Fingal in the heart of a bustling city and remember the name of Tom Kettle – Fingallian, freedom fighter, hero.