From: The Herald, Tuam. Contains some inaccuracies -the Obituary was written in 1968, since writing and following further research into Liam's life further details have become available regarding Liam and his family.
Mr.Liam
T. Langley
Late Of Tuam
Late Of Tuam
The
death of Mr. Liam t. Langley, which occurred on June 21st at his residence,
‘Glenealy', 23 Blackheath Park, Clontarf, Dublin, severs one of the last Tuam
links with the 1916 Rising. The number
of people now left in the town who remember him is comparatively small, but
here surely was a man whose name can be recalled with pride. For Liam Langley had given a lifetime of
devoted service to the national cause, and was friend and confidant of many
whose names stand high in our country’s roll of honour. “It wasn’t from the wind he took it,” for he
was born with a Fenian heritage that he carried from childhood through the
length of years.
Though he always
regarded Tuam as his home town, Liam Langley was born in Sydney, Australia, on
January 23rd, 1888, and was only four years old when he first came to the land
of his fathers. It was homecoming too
for his father, Michael Langley, a native of Caltra, Ballinasloe, who had to
flee “down under” a a hunted felon after the abortive Fenian Rising of
1848. While in Sydney, he married and
raised a large family, and owned a book ship in the city. Some years after the death of his first wife,
he married Mary Kavanagh, daughter of emigrants from Co. Wicklow, both of whom
had died and been buried at sea on the long voyage to Australia. Liam was the only child of that marriage and
in 1892 they returned to Ireland and came to live in Tuam. In a thatched cottage on the Cloonthue Road,
Liam Langley learned the Fenian tradition from his father, whose brother
Charles had been hanged outside his own house in Clastleblakeney in April,
1820, for organising the Ribbonmen in the area.
Liam Langley started
his schooling with the other small boys from the town at the Mercy Convent and
in due course went on to the Christian Brothers. A clever student with a head for figures, he
taught in the school for a while and then started as a book-keeper in Mctigue’s
at a time when national spirit was reawakening.
Gaelic games were to be the springboard for moor militant activities and
the football and hurling teams soon graduated to a brance of Fianna
Eireann. About this time, 1908-1910,
another young man with a mission came to Tuam on his rounds and an organiser
and teacher for Conradh na Gaeilge, Liam Mellows was his name and from their
first meeting he and Liam Langley became fast friends. The young apprentices in McTigue’s and many
other boys from the town joined the Fianna, and Liam Langley organised various
activities to raise funds for the purchase of uniforms, rifles and other
equipment. They learned arms drill from
British Army training manuals, and Parkmore and the plantation at Cloonthue
were their exercise grounds. RIFLES
IN COFFINSPlaying at soldiering looked harmless enough, but soon Liam Langley and the Fianna were under police notice and his home was raided several times, the uniforms being taken up as illegal possessions. Somehow the rifles and the wooden guns used for training were hidden from police eyes – a favourite place was in coffins in McTigue’s hardware store! Liam Langley was committed irrevocably to the new Ireland and in 1915 he attended a training course for Fianna officers near the Shannon, there to meet men like Cathal Brugha, Thomas Ashe, Terence MSwiney and others destined to give their lives for the cause. Shortly afterwards, Liam organised a recruiting campaign for the Volunteers in Tuam and the highlight was a meeting addressed by Cathal Brugha. With Liam Mellows who frequently stayed at the Langley home, Liam continued the work of organising the Fianna and the Volunteers, and Several times was taken in for questioning by the police. On one occasion, when the two Liams were in for interrogation, they had some incriminating documents in their possession – and disposed of them by chewing them.
The Fianna and
Volunteers were preparing for the “exercises” fixed for Easter, 1916, on the
instructions of Padraic Pearse, when Eoin McNeill’s countermanding notice
appeared in the press. The situation in
Co. Galway was confused, so Liam Langley cycled to Athenry to see his friend
Mellows, who was in command at Moyode Castle.
After the surrender order from Dublin the Galway units returned to their
homes and in Tuam Liam Langley wasd arrested and taken to Galway Jail, the same
prison that had held his uncle Charles before his execution as a felon. From there the young Tuam man was taken to
Dublin, then to Frongoch with the other Republican prisoners and finally to
Reading Jail where he was detained until the general amnesty in 1917. One memory he kept of those days was of Sean
T. O’Kelly later to become President of Ireland, washing his own clothes as a
prisoner.
On his return to Dublin
Liam got a post in the Finance department of the Sinn Fein Government under his
friend Michael Collins. All through the
struggle for independence he was in charge of that section, but when the split
came after the Treaty his final duty was to pay Collins’s staff and bid
farewell to his comrades. He had been
offered the post of Paymaster General of the National (Free State) Army, with
the rank of Colonel, but turned it down to throw in his lot with the Republican
forces under Eamon de Valera. He found
in the Hammam Hotel in Dublin, and after the evacuation of the O’Connell Street
building made his escape by the Meath Hotel in Parnell Square to Blessington,
Co. Wicklow. Later he was captured in
the city and was imprisoned in Mountjoy.
While there, his friends and comrades, Liam Mellows, with Rory O’Connor,
Joe McKelvey and Dick Barrett were executed – an event which left him with a
burden of sorrow. Some time afterwards
he was transferred to Newbridge, where with others he took part in a forty days
hunger strike in October and November 1923.After the end of the Civil War, he became an accountant in the famed Scotch House and later went to Hill’s, the furnishing company. He maintained his interest in the political scene and helped in the founding and organisation of the new Fianna Fail party. In 1927 he was chief marshal at the funeral Countess Markieviez in Dublin. He took an active part in organising the “Irish Press,” travelling through the country collecting subscriptions and shares for the new paper. In 1932 he was reinstated in the Finance Department under the Fianna Fail Government and was appointed to the Revenue Commissioners’ Office in Dublin Castle, where he worked until his retirement in 1953. During this period he was hon. Secretary of the Galwaymen’s Association in Dublin and always maintained his connection with Tuam and the county.
FIANNA
PHOTOGRAPHS
When on holidays, Liam Langley always made it a point to look up his old friends and neighbours in Tuam, there to recall with them the stirring days of his boyhood. All through life he was a keen photographer and his collection of pictures of the Fianna and other activities of the make a valuable record. He had vivid memories of Tuam and would recall that as a boy of twelve he had served Mass for the great Archbishop John MacHale. He was a member of the Pioneer T.A.A. for over sixty years and it was a great pleasure for him to receive his Jubilee medal from Mr. David Quinn, secretar4y of the Tuam Centre, who called specially to present it to him in his home in Dublin.
When on holidays, Liam Langley always made it a point to look up his old friends and neighbours in Tuam, there to recall with them the stirring days of his boyhood. All through life he was a keen photographer and his collection of pictures of the Fianna and other activities of the make a valuable record. He had vivid memories of Tuam and would recall that as a boy of twelve he had served Mass for the great Archbishop John MacHale. He was a member of the Pioneer T.A.A. for over sixty years and it was a great pleasure for him to receive his Jubilee medal from Mr. David Quinn, secretar4y of the Tuam Centre, who called specially to present it to him in his home in Dublin.
Mr Langley was a member
of St. Michael’s Conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society Halston Street,
and a founder member of the Knock Shrine Bureau.
A man whose gentle
voice and manner hid the steel of his patriotic fervour. Liam Langley was totally without rancour and
his whole life was a model of unswerving loyalty to the Fenian ideal. He transmitted the heritage to his own family,
to whom he was a devoted father. For him friendship was a lasting thing, and
those who knew him in good days and bad, in Tuam and in Dublin, will long remember his sincere
and upright man who served his country well and faithfully.
The late Mr. Langley is
survived by his wife Mollie; his sons, Jarlath and Brendan; hi daughters, Mrs.
S. Green, Nuala and sister Mary of the Rosary, Holy Faith Convent, Glasnevin;
Mr. S. Green (son-in-law), Mrs. B. Langley (daughter-in-law), and
grandchildren; Vincent and Joseph Langley and Miss Kathleen Langley, Loughrea
(cousins).
The funeral took place
to Glasnevin cemetery on Monday, June 24th, after Requiem Mass in the Church of
St. John the Baptist, Clontarf. The
celebrant was Rev, V. Foley, S.J., assisted by Rev. T. Menton, C.C.
Old Fianna Eireann members
formed a guard of honour at the funeral and at the graveside, where military
honours were rendered by a firing party from the 2nd Battalion, Cathal Burgha
Barracks, under Sergt. James Hendrick.
Rev. T. Menton, C.C.,
Rev, T. Walsh, O.P., and Rev. D. Dargan, S.J. (Director of the Pioneer T.A.A.)
officiated at the graveside and a decade of the Rosary was recited in Ir4ish.
President de Valera was
represented by his A.D.C. Colonel Sean Brennan and the attendance included
members of the Fianna G.H.Q. staff, representatives of the Revenue
Commissioners, the “Irish Press,” the Knock Shrine bureau and former comrades
in Tuam and Dublin.
