Life
[ top ] Works
Saorstát Eireann: Irish Free State Official Handbook, ed., Bulmer Hobson (London: E. Benn [1932]), 2p. 1, [9]-323pp. incl. ills. & pls., with front., maps [1 fold., in pocket], 25 cm. Irish Year Book [c. 1919] Sinn Féin, notice on Conradh na Gaedilge, pp.461-[4]69 by Cathal Brugha, The Ethics of Sinn Fein by Riobard Ua Floinn, et al. This book has been written under the general direction of a committee appointed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. [ top ] Criticism For an ascerbic account of Hobsons part in the Howth Gun-running see George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England (?1932; and rev. ed. 1972) [see also under Darrell Figgis, q.v.]. D. E. S. Maxwell (Modern Irish Drama, 1984), cites Brian of Banba as heroic but deficient in imaginative scope. [ top ] Commentary [ top ] Leon Ó Broin, Protestant Nationalists in Revolutionary Ireland: The Stopford Connection (1985), p.34: Bulmer Hobson ... rightly described in The Dictionary of Irish Biography [by Harry Boylan] as a revolutionary ... one time regarded by British Intelligence as the most dangerous man in Ireland; b. Cromwellian planter stock in Hollywood, Co. Down in 1883, Gladstonian Liberal a member of Society of Friends until 1914, when he resigned over physical force [pacificism]; ed. Quaker School, Lisburn; present at centenary of 1798; Tones statement of his object won his instant assent; his mind peopled by characters from readings of Standish OGrady and Yeats; also influenced by Alice Miligan, Ethna Carbery, James Fintan Lalor, and Arthur Griffith; founded Ulster Debating Club for boys, and a Protestant National Association, leading to the Ulster Literary Theatre to which he contributed one of the early plays; joined GAA and Gaelic League, secretary of Antrim County Board of one and the Coiste in Belfast of the other; friendship with Casement began in the League; member of Cuman[n] na nGaedeal [IRB], sworn in by Denis McCullough; started a Dungannon Club in Belfast, 1905; published The Republic, and collected money; put Sean MacDermott, IRB organiser, on the road; P. S. OHegarty began writing for the Republic; amalgamation of Dungannon Clubs with Cummann na nGaedheal, as Sinn Féin League and subsequently Sinn Féin, 1907; dropped out of Sinn Féin quietly in 1911 to concentrate on IRB planning; active IRB member since 1904; produced Irish Freedom paper, The Republic collapsing through lack of funds; encouraged IRB drilling; started the Fianna on the Falls Road, giving it a Constitution; moving to Dublin, his Fianna was supported by Con Markievicz and Casement. [Cont.] [ top ] Leon Ó Broin (Protestant Nationalists in Revolutionary Ireland: The Stopford Connection, 1985) - cont. [quoting from Hobsons autobiography]: On the afternoon of Good Friday I was asked to attend a meetin of the Leinster Executive of the IRB at Martin Conlons house in Phibsboro. I was reluctant to go, and did not see any purpose to be served. At the same time I yielded to the importunties to attend, and was not greatly surpirsed when, as I entered the house, a number of IRB men who were armed with revolvers told me that I was a prisoner and could not leave the house. I felt that I had done all I could to keep the volunteers on the course which I believed essential for their success [i.e., as a back-up force for demands for an all-Ireland parliament after the war], and that there was nothing further I could do. My principal feeling was one of relief. I had been working under great pressure for a long time and was very tired. Now events were out of my hands. (Ireland, Yesterday and Tomorrow, Tralee 1968, pp.76-77; Ó Bróin, pp.122.) [ top ] Patrick Henchy, The National Library of Ireland, 1941-1976: A Look Back: A Paper read to the National Library of Ireland Society (NLI 1986): re. acquisition of Library of Bulmer Hobson, Rathfarnham: ‘this time [i.e., in comparison with Joseph Holloway] I met a man who talked freely of experiences and was uninhibited in his comments and criticisms of his contemporaries. (p.9.) [ top ] Roy Foster, review of Charles Townsend, Easter 1916, in Times Literary Supplement (231 Oct. 2005), pp.3-4): [...] Hobson's Defensive Warfare was, in fact, a major contribution to revolutionary tactics, helping to shift the Irish movement from passive resistance advocated by Sinn Féin (which in turn influenced Gandhi) to something more predictive of intifada. The extremeness of this formulation suggests a people groaning on the wrack of tyranny, but many contemporaries saw the relaities of the situation very differently; and it is hard to disagree. The mentality of the 1916 rebels rejected the comfortable bourgeois Catholic or declassé Protestant backgrounds whence so many of them came; they also denied the adequacy of the Home Rule formula for a restored local Irish parliament whcih had tentatively passed into statue in 1914 [...]. [ top ] References [ top ] R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland (London: Allen Lane 1988), p. 463; b. Belfast, ed. Quaker sch., Lisburn; Gaelic League, 1901; Sec. Antrim GAA, 1901; Prot. nat. Soc and Fianna Eireann, Belfast, 1901; joined IRB, 1904; co-fnd. Dungannon Clubs, Ulster Lit. Theatre, 1905; Vice-Pres. Sinn Féin, 1907; left Sinn Féin 1910, ed. Irish Freedom, 1910; organised Howth gun-running, 1914; supported Redmonds demand for half the controlling seats on Irish Volunteer Force, and resigned ed. of Irish Freedom and IRB Supreme Council; became Free State civil servant; History of Irish Volunteers (1918); a life of Tone (1919); Ireland, Yesterday and Tomorrow (1968) [autobiog.]. [ top ] British Library holds Official Handbook of the Irish Free State [1932]; See IRELAND - Irish Free State [Misc. Public Documents and Offic. Publications; ed., The Letters of Wolfe Tone ... [1921]; The Life of Wolfe Tone ... Together with Extracts from his political writings abridged and edited by B. Hobson; A Book of Dublin, ed., by B. Hobson, with plates (Dub. Corp. 1929), 86pp.; The Gate Theatre Dublin, ed. by B. Hobson [with ills. including ports. (1934), 140pp. Also, Mary Ann Butler Bulmer Family Chronicle from before 1050 to 1936 ([Carnalea], [1937]), pls. & ports. [ top ] Booksellers: HYLAND BOOKS (Cats. 214; 220) lists ed., The Gate Theatre (Dublin: Gate 1934), 340pp. [lim. ed., 256//600] profusely ill.; A Book of Dublin [published by the Corporation of Dublin] (Dublin 1929), ill. 84pp., xcix pp. of adverts. Also Ireland, Yesterday and Tomorrow [sic] (1st edn. 1968) [Hyland Oct. 1995] Ulster Libraries: LIB. of HERBERT BELL holds Ireland Yesterday & Tomorrow (Anvil Books Ltd 1968). BELFAST CENTRAL LIBRARY holds A Book of Dublin, for Dublin Corporation (1929) [ top ] Quotations [ top ] Notes Liam Mellowes: Reading Hobsons Irish Freedom turned Mellowes into a militant nationalist and a member of Fianna Eireann (see D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland, 1982; 1991 Edn., p.379). [ top ] |