Joseph (usually known as Joe) McGuinness, who was born 150 years ago on April 10th, was part of that extraordinary generation of young people that delivered Irish independence in the early decades of the 20th century.
His winning of a byelection in 1917 was an indication of a profound change in the direction of Irish politics.
He was born in Cloonmore, Tramonbarry, Co Roscommon, one of seven surviving children of Martin McGuinness, who was a farmer, and Rose Farrell. Following attendance at Cloonmore National School, he became an apprentice to a draper in Castlerea.
During the 1890s, he emigrated to the United States and became active in a Gaelic League branch in New York.
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On his return to Ireland, he lived for a time in Longford town, where he helped set up a Gaelic League branch.
Once settled in Dublin, he ran drapery shops in Camden Street and Dorset Street. He joined the Irish Volunteers on their foundation in late 1913 and became a lieutenant in C Company, 1st Battalion, whose commanding officer was Limerick man Edward (Ned) Daly, a member of the Keating Branch of the Gaelic League.
McGuinness’s wife, Katherine Farrell, was a member of Cumann na mBan, the women’s auxiliary to the Irish Volunteers. They had no children.
During the Easter Rising, he took part in the fighting with the garrison in the Four Courts. There are some suggestions that he was second-in-command to Commandant Ned Daly. Their area saw some of the fiercest fighting during that week. After the surrender, Daly was executed (at 25, the youngest to be executed); McGuinness was sentenced to 10 years’ penal servitude (later reduced to three) and was transferred to Lewes Prison in East Sussex with other combatants.
While in prison, he was selected as the Sinn Féin candidate to contest the South Longford by-election in May 1917.
The prisoners in Lewes did not want to put forward a candidate in a constituency where the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) appeared so strong and likely to win, and McGuinness declined to participate.
But Michael Collins had him nominated despite the opposition and he went on to win by 37 votes after a recount. The clever election slogan used for him during the campaign was “Put him in to get him out!” (ie, elect him to parliament to get him out of prison).
Historian T Ryle Dwyer described this by-election as having “a profound impact on Irish history” because it showed both “the brilliant initiative of young Michael Collins” and that “Irish public opinion had changed enormously in the year since the Easter Rising” (Irish Independent, May 9th, 2017).
Collins brought 300 young men from Dublin with him to Longford to campaign for their candidate and while there, he stayed at the Greville Arms Hotel in Granard, where he met the love of his life, Kitty Kiernan, whose family owned the hotel. Despite IPP heavyweights such as John Dillon and Joseph Devlin spending much time in the constituency campaigning for their candidate, McGuinness still emerged victorious.
Dillon’s biographer FSL Lyons wrote of the 37-vote margin that, to the IPP, “the blow was as heavy as if it was 100 times as much. To some members of the party, this defeat seemed nothing less than a notice to quit and the idea began to circulate that they should resign as a body.”
McGuinness was released on amnesty in June 1917 and held a number of positions in Sinn Féin subsequently: member of the standing committee (1918-22), director of elections (1919) and member of a committee to investigate forming an Irish stock exchange. He was re-elected for the new Longford constituency at the 1918 general election and, like the other Sinn Féin members returned, did not attend the British House of Commons but sat instead as a TD in the newly established Dáil Éireann, where he became substitute Director of Trade and Commerce in late October 1919. He was returned unopposed to the Dáil in 1921 for the new Longford-Westmeath constituency. He was serving periods of imprisonment during each of his election campaigns.
McGuinness supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and in early May 1922 was made a member of what was called the “Committee of Ten”, appointed by the Dáil to try to prevent civil war from breaking out, a task at which it failed. He died on May 31st, 1922, shortly before the general election in June that year and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
His older brother Francis was elected for Longford-Westmeath at the June 1922 election and was afterwards a Cumann na nGaedheal senator, and his nieces, Margaret, Brigid and Maureen McGuinness and Brigid Lyons Thornton, were all active in Cumann na mBan.
