Mayo People
Sir Anthony McDonnell
Sir Anthony McDonnell was born in Palmfield House in 1844. His father was Mark Garvey McDonnell (1807 – 1889), who had property in upper and lower Srah. Sir Anthony was the eldest of 13 children. He and a younger brother were educated at the Jesuit College and at Queen’s University, Galway. The younger brother graduated as an M.D. in 1876, practised as a doctor in England and later became a Nationalist M.P. for Queen’s county (Laois). Four of his sisters became Sisters of Mercy and founded convents in the U.S.A.
Sir Anthony entered the Indian Civil Service in 1865 and during his 40 years there he became one of the ablest administrators of that vast country. He retired in 1901 and returned to England. He was requested by King Edward VII, personally, to accept the office of Under-Secretary for Ireland, a position which was never previously offered to a Catholic.
Sir Anthony admitted that he was attracted by the chance of doing some good for Ireland but he did not want to be a subordinate of M. Wyndham, the Chief Secretary. He wanted to be an equal. “In Ireland”, he said, “my aim would be to solve the land question, to legalise fair rents, to control and guide boards and administrative agencies, to provide university education for Catholics and to promote material improvement and administrative conciliation”.
He accepted the position of Under-Secretary, however, and was installed in the Phoenix Park in 1902. He strongly supported the Wyndham Land Act of 1903 and also Devolution (a form of Home Rule) for Ireland, but this was not acceptable to the Nationalist Party. Sir Anthony, or ‘Anthony Pat’ as he was familiarly called in Ireland, worked hard to promote the Act that provided university education for Irish Catholics by setting up the National University and Queen’s University, Belfast (1907 – 1908)
On resigning from his position as Under-Secretary in Ireland about 1909 he became a liberal peer in the House of Lords and was created Lord McDonnell of Swinford, because Swinford was the urban centre of the area of his native place. He was a determined and fearless champion of Ireland and in his earlier life in India he showed the same determination in his fight for the rights of the people there, as much so that he was known in India as the ‘tiger of Bengal’.
In August, 1920 he attended the Irish Peace Conference in Dublin.
He died in England on the 9th June, 1925 and is buried there.
Sir Anthony may not have received the prominence in Irish history books that his efforts for Ireland deserve but Carracastle parish will always be proud of its native son.
Taken from Carracastle Then and Now, 1982
Contact Information:
Ivor Hamrock, Local History Department, Castlebar Central Library, John Moore Rd, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.Email: ihamrock@mayococo.ie Phone: +353 (0)94 9047953