Sean Treacy is a character of great importance to the War of Independence period, indeed he was among the men of the Third Tipperary Brigade who fired the opening shots of that conflict at the Soloheadbeg ambush. Treacy would lose his life on October 14th 1920 on the streets of Dublin, owing to a shoot-out on Talbot Street that would also leave Gilbert Price of the British Secret Service lying dead on the street. A small plaque on Talbot Street today marks the spot where Treacy was killed. The incorrect spelling of his name should be noted, a common error.
The plaque was unveiled by the National Graves Association in 1937, with a huge crowd gathering for proceedings.
Each time Tipperary reach an All Ireland Final, Tipperary fans gather at the spot on Talbot Street to remember Sean Treacy. The video below shows the 2011 commemoration at the site.
Following Irish independence, the renaming of streets became common place in Dublin. In March 2011 I posted a copy of a 1922 Dublin Corporation report which recommended a number of street name changes in the capital. That report proposed radical changes, including the re-naming of Beresford Place (home to Liberty Hall) as Connolly Place, and not all of its recommendations were implemented. Interestingly, absent from the list was the issue of Talbot Street. In the decades following independence, members of a wide variety of nationalist organisations would call for the renaming of that street to honour Sean Treacy.
Among the organisations demanding the changing of the name Talbot Street in the 1940s were Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, a fascist movement whose name translated into ‘Architects of the Resurrection’ and who were led by Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin. The movement produced the paper Aiséirghe, a copy of which was previously uploaded to this very blog. The politics of the movement very much fused European fascism with a deep sense of Irish Christianity and cultural nationalism. An impressive collection of election literature and propaganda from the group has been uploaded to the Irish Election Literature Blog, which provide interesting insight into the ideology of the group. In their 1943 General Election leaflet outlining principal points of policy, the organisation noted that: “Your duty to Ireland does not end with the casting of your vote. Serve Ireland always. Speak the language. Encourage others to speak the language. Help everything Irish and national and clean!”
On November 1st 1943, members of Ailtirí na hÁiseirghe created uproar at a meeting of Dublin Corporation, by shouting from the public galleries while the Corporation was sitting. At the time of the interruptions, the Corporation was discussing the planned removal of Queen Victoria’s statue from Leinster House. One man rose and shouted: “Get rid of all the symbols of slavery in the streets! We demand that Talbot Street be renamed Sean Treacy street. Young Ireland is awakening.”
It was reported that another member of the group shouted: “Honour Sean Treacy, despite the shopkeepers of Talbot Street. If you do not, you are not worthy of the name of Irishmen.”
Following their interruptions, the men began to file out, loudly chanting “Éire aiseirghe, Aiseirghe abú!”
On April 6 1944 a letter appeared in the Irish Independent in which it was noted that:
When passing down Talbot Street the other day I was surprised to see the printed words: “Sraid Sean Ui Threasaigh” (Sean Treacy Street) high up on the wall, pasted over the ordinary Talbot Street name-plate. As I have not heard of any indication recently that Dublin Corporation has sanctioned the changing of the name of Talbot Street I was astonished to see the change already carried out.
The writer noted that three days prior The Irish Press had actually written of an event occuring on “Sean Treacy Street”, a street which on paper didn’t exist! “I wonder if this sentence was written as a result of some knowledge of official approval for the change?” the writer asked.
The paper noted in response to the letter that a recent Corporation meeting had passed a motion urging a change of name, and that it now required only the support of the majority of rentpayers on Talbot Street. Ultimately, the rentpayers of the street voted by an overwhelming majority not to rename the street, which led to considerable controversy.
The Irish Press objected strongly to this move by the rentpayers, and noted that street names in Dublin had long been used “…to commemorate foreign pro-counsuls or titled non-entities. The Rutlands, the Mountjoys, the Brunswicks, the Ormondes, the Talbots and the rest – these are not names that we remember with any particular pride, though it may be useful to preserve one or two as a reminder of the historic past.”
It was found that most ratepayers who voted against the name had done so on two grounds. Firstly, the belief that the name ‘Sean Treacy Street’ would lead to some confusion with the nearby Sean MacDiarmada Street, and secondly the belief that the propsed name should be shortened to ‘Treacy Street’ alone. No such compromise was ever reached however.
At their annual conference in October of 1944, the Gaelic League passed a motion in which they called for the trade union movement, the Old IRA, the GAA and other nationalist organisatons to boycott the shops of Talbot Street as “they were showing disrespect to the memory of Sean Treacy and all those who believed in national freedom.” In reality however, of the 100+ business premises in the area, the name change had been defeated by a vote of 30 to 3.
The campaign to rename the street continued well into the 1950s, and in October 1955 it was reported in The Irish Times that:
In broad daylight, often during the busy lunch hour period, multi-coloured Sraid Ui Treasaig posters are being pasted on hoardings and house-corners in Dublin’s Talbot Street.
A member of one of several political organisations anxious to see the name of the street changed to Sean Treacy Street said: “The posters are put up when the street is at its busiest. No one takes any notice of them then. If the posters were put up at night we might get arrested.
Efforts to rename the street Sean Treacy Street, or even Treacy Street, ultimately failed. While several streets in the vicinity have seen name changes in the decades following independence, Talbot Street has remained the same.
It’s time to do it now before the 100 anniversary.. Just do it!!!!
There are some extraordinary pictures of that shoot-out in a book I read back in the eighties; It’s either Guerilla Days in Ireland, can’t remember author, or Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom. I got through a lot of them back then so apologies for lack of precision.
Hi Niall.
I know the photo’s your talking about. While there were some photo’s of the scene shot by a 16 year-old amateur photographer named Horgan, the famous photo of agent Price firing his weapon is actually an actor in a 1926 film about the War of Independence called ‘Irish Destiny.’ The film was thought to be lost up until 1991 when a copy was found in the US library of Congress and restored. I rented a copy of it from Deansgrange library a while back. There’s a great account by Horgan somewhere on the Cairo Gang website about him taking the photos.
Thanks for that James. I’m fairly sure now it was Dan Breen’s book where I saw the pictures. The next picture was of the unfortunate Price lying dead on the ground, that must have been from the film also – same quality, ‘look’ etc.. By the way the other book was by Tom Barry (woke up at half three this morning with that name and nothing else in my head).
QUOTE:”One man rose and shouted: “Get rid of all the symbols of slavery in the streets! We demand that Talbot Street be renamed Sean Treacy street. Young Ireland is awakening.”
If they were not so collectively short sighted, getting rid of the “symbols of slavery” would be levelling every Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. At the end of the day the big winner out of all this was, and still is, the Vatican. This whole period of history has been distorted to the point it’s just one sided bollocks. I think if you have plaques to those who lost their lives it shouldn’t matter what side they were on. There should be just as many plaques to 19 year olds who were wearing British army uniforms.
Before change to the name of the street we should know who Talbot was and why was he so honoured to have a street named after him.
There are worse names…how streets are named Victoria etc after the Famine Queen? Windsor this that and d’udder? Mountjoy Sq named after a pactitioner of “kill + raze warfare”?
Where to start…the trendy students should artfully, humourously + non-violently change the name of anything ‘Victoria Stree’t to ‘bothar Ban Ri Gort Mor’. Metal workers should adjust the plaques for the ROYAL college of surgeons and the ROYAL dubin society etc. If allowed I’ll touch an angle grinder off any post box with a ER or VR on it and adjust it to P+T or Telcom Eireann.
Debaters should ask why we have duplicate services of the Rnli when we have a fully functioning Irish Coast Guard? Why in the grounds of Govt buildings Merrion Rd do we have a statue celebrating a Maj Surgeon Parke who “purchased” a woman in 19th centary ‘for his comfort’ for a number of years!!!
Have we read miles of print about Sean Russell’s statue’s arm in St Annes Pk and nothing about the Nazi supporters in the Guinness family?
The list is endless in John Bull’s Other Island; I’d like to hear any1 else’s suggestions + comments
Both Sean Russell and Parke will be popping up in the statues series soon! That’s madness re: Parke, isn’t it?
Human trafficing for sexual purposes honoured in the grounds of our national parliment!!
Or is that applying contemporary standards to early 19th century behaviour? But if that rule is applied to Parke then Russell shud also get a ‘pass’ and not be condemned for Nazi links and honoured 4 republican links otherwise statue-honouring in Ireland is skewed.
And here’s me raeding The Irish Thames and thinking that the British element to society was under represented and not recognised!!!
I shud have checked the ol’ wikipedia b4 I posted the last thing…………”The street is named after Charles Chetwynd, 3rd Earl of Talbot, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1817-21.”
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talbot_Street
If culchies in Tipperary want to name a street after a Tipperary man then they can pick a street in Tipperary. Dubliners know the street as Talbot street and that’s what it should remain. The city is bad enough. We have a bridge named after an idiot who wrapped chains around his leg and now some bunch of historic pall bearers want to name a street after a killer. There was no War of Independence: the British marched out and the Vatican crawled in to take over and commit even worse crimes.
I wonder if some of the commenters missed the part that said the name change was demanded by a fascist group in the 1940s as an attempt to gain publicity for themselves, and is not an ongoing concern? You’re safe from the Tipperary muck savages for a while yet. (Seriously, who says “culchie” any more?)
[…] of a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the third Earl of Talbot Charles Chetwynd. We’ve previously looked at the movement to rename this street in the 1940s after Irish republican Sean Treacy, a campaign […]
Still a lot of Southern Unionists around judging by some of the above comments.
Politics is not dictated by compass points. The biggest problem Ireland has ever had is Rome no matter what you are or where you live. Talbot street is Talbot street. The clumps of historically one eyed clowns who glorify gunmen will be regurgitated in every generation as long as a foreign state runs 92% or the schools in Ireland. They’re the same clowns who insist on wasting millions on the delusion that English is not the chosen, preferred language of the Irish people and always will be. Like footballers wives who think having tattoos in Latin or Chinese is somehow more meaningful they insist on using a dead language that the Irish have wilfully abandoned.