Extract from Ernie O'Malley Interview with Liam Langley

During the period 1948-1951Ernie O’Malley conducted interviews with around 400 of his former colleagues from the revolutionary period concerning their experiences during the time. The handwritten transcripts of these interviews are contained in 53 notebooks which are held in the UCD achives.  Liam Langley gave a number of interviews to O’Malley, the following is an extract from one of the interviews.  It is concerned with imprisonment post 1916.

Galway Jail Record

‘In 1916  in Richmond Barracks  I met Austin and Terry Mac.  Austin Stack was in another room.  He was terribly worried about the the volunteers, Con Keating, Daniel Sheehan and Charlie Monahan who had been drowned in the car in Kerry.  Desmond Fitzgerald was also there he  was well dressed.  He was complaining about the untidy condition of the Galway men and about their being uncouth, but Liam Mellows had already warned me of what to expect from Desmond Fitzgerald.  Joe Mac Bride I met there, and we became good friends, we went to Wakefield together. For a week we had free association, but 4 of us were picked out and were put into solitary confinement in a basement in another wing of the goal.  Conor Deere of Goulds Cross Clonoulty Tipperary, Joe MacBride, Terry Mac Sweeney and myself.

CONNECTING PAST AND PRESENT

Richmond Barracks local School Flag presented by Great Granddaughter of Liam Langley

As part of the 1916 celebrations each primary school in Ireland is being presented with a Tricolour and Proclamation at a special ceremony in the school. Richmond Barracks local school  was presented with theirs by Capt Ciara Ní Ruairc great granddaughter of Liam Langley,  she also read the Proclamation.  This is a reminder of the time Liam was imprisoned in Richmond May 12th until June 1st 1916 after which he was interned in Frongoch and Reading.

“If the saga of Easter Week is seen as a drama – the first act of which is centered on the GPO and the last act of the executions in Kilmainham Gaol, then the penultimate act was played out in Richmond Barracks.”

Influences on Liam Langley

Liam enjoyed reading and from an early age he was influenced by the many pamphlets and periodicals available in the early 1900's.  Below is one such pamphlet which is in Liam's collection of papers, Denvir's Monthly Irish Library. These publications consisted of collections of Irish poetry, history, and patriotic biography.  They were sold at 1d each and were referred to as Denvir's Penny Library.  This particular issue features an article by the Fenian Michael Davitt (1846-1906) , Fenian, member of IRB, agrarian agitator and founder of the Irish National Land League.  He was a labour leader, Home Rule politician and Member of Parliament.                                                                                          

As well as reading Liam Langley enjoyed drama and the theatre.  He introduced dramatic classes to the Tuam Sluagh of Na Fianna Éireann, 'The Eloquent Dempsey' being one piece staged by them. Liam attended many plays, mainly nationalist, one being The Membory of the Dead, with Constance de Markievicz in the lead role.  The programme from the play remains in his papers, this dates from around c.1912.

'Casimir Markievicz set up the  Independent Dramatic Company.  His first Irish plays feature  social comedy and obscure allegory however from 1908 in keeping with his wife’s increasingly radical stance, Markievicz’s plays veered into nationalist politics – most noted is the play the Memory of the Dead put on in both the Abbey and the Gaiety in 1910.  The theme dealt with by Markievicz was one of heroic patriotism.  Set in Sligo and Mayo during the 1798 Rising it deals with two rebels (one cautious, one hot-headed) in love with the same girl.  A wedding takes place to mislead the authorities about the planned Rising, the husband disappears and is suspected of betraying the rebels.  He is later revealed as a hero after his return in disguise and noble death.  His child is consecrated to set Ireland free, as the curtain falls.  The cast included Constance Markievicz, Helena Moloney and the young Fenian doctor Patrick McCartan and the charismatic Sean Connolly, who would later join the Abbey, and die on the roof of the City Hall during the 1916 Rising.’ (R.F. Foster, Vivid Faces, The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1890-1923)