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Ernest William Blythe (; 13 April 1889 – 23 February 1975) was an Irish journalist, politician and managing director of the Abbey Theatre. He served as Minister for Local Government from 1922 to 1923, Minister for Finance from 1923 to 1932 and Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and Vice-President of the Executive Council from 1927 to 1932. He was a Senator for the Labour Panel from 1934 to 1936. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Monaghan North from 1918 to 1922 and as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Monaghan constituency from 1921 to 1933.Parliamentary Debates: Official Report Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons - 1921 - Page 210 "The real name of the person whose signature appears on this particular document is Ernest Blyth, who prefers to be known as Earnan de Blaghd. He has been under notice for seditious behaviour since 1914, and has been several times ..."
Seán O'Casey invited Blythe to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which Blythe accepted. He was 18 at the time. He also joined Conradh na Gaeilge, where his first Irish language teacher was Sinéad Flanagan, the future wife of Éamon de Valera.Neill, T. (1979) Ernest Blythe: The Man from Magheragall. Electronic Lisburn Historical Society, 2 (4) He was hesitant to join at first because he was an Ulster Protestant and was afraid he would be kicked out. He "converted to Sinn Féin" after reading the 'Sinn Féin newspaper'.
To improve his knowledge of the Irish language, he went to the County Kerry Gaeltacht where he worked as an agricultural labourer to earn his keep.
He was at one point the "centre" or head of the Belfast IRB but was asked to step down by Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough so that McCullough could be promoted to a higher office.
During this time, he was the organizer for the Irish Volunteers in County Clare before 1916. His activity spread all over the south-west region to counties Kerry, County Cork, County Limerick and Clare. He became Captain of the Lipsole Company (of actors) and toured the region with a list of names of people to recruit.Bureau of Military History WS 939 (Ernest Blythe), as cited by Townshend, p. 34. Blythe was one of the few organisers sent out into the country (others were Liam Mellows and Ernie O'Malley) and with little qualification was largely self-taught. Supplies were few and far between, as well as spasmodic. IRA GHQ were loth to commit scant resources. But Blythe was expected to drill, and train his men, as well avoid conscription.Townshend, p. 75.
Blythe was regularly arrested 1913-15 under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, when he was finally ordered to be deported from Ireland in July 1915: some of the others on the writ were Liam Mellows, Herbert Pim, and Denis McCullough. Blythe's place was taken by Desmond Fitzgerald.Townshend, p. 82. He refused to transport to Britain so was sent to spend three months in Crumlin Road prison, Belfast. On 30 March 1916, a large crowd assembled outside the Mansion House in Dublin to protest against Blythe's and Mellows's deportation. Two policemen were shot at.Cd.8311, para.807., as cited by Townshend, p. 148.
Thus, the authorities sent him to a town in Berkshire. He then failed to report to police and was sent to Oxford Prison, Blythe was unable to participate in the Easter Rising due to his imprisonment there. From Oxford, he was sent to Brixton Prison then transferred to Reading Prison. He was released at Christmas 1916, and was ordered never to return to Ireland. However, he returned to Belfast where he was later detained. He was later released and went to Skibbereen to edit the Southern Star which had been purchased by Sinn Féin. He ignored a (British Army) court martial to leave Munster, which resulted in a 12 months imprisonment in Dundalk and Belfast. During his time in Dundalk, he went on hunger strike for several days.
He married Anne McHugh in 1919.
Blythe was implacably opposed to conscription. In an article entitled 'Ruthless Warfare' he described conscription as an "atrocity".
We must decide that in our resistance we shall acknowledge no limit and no scruple ... man assists directly or by connivance in this crime against us should be killed without mercy or hesitation.... The man who serves on an exemption tribunal, the doctor who examines conscripts, the man who voluntarily surrenders when called for, the man who applies exemption, the man who drives a police car or assists in the transport of army supplies, must be shot or otherwise destroyed with the least possible delay.The possibility of enforcing conscription alienated people across the island of Ireland from British policy in general. Instead a war of words emerged in which single issues, like conscription, would serve cohere to a general desire for Irish cultural identity and separation.
Awareness of religious differences was acute: for his part, Blythe noticed that there was a Catholic priest in the IRB. Being a moderate, Blythe was a strong supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.
Blythe was committed to keeping a balanced budget at all costs, which was not at all easy. The Irish Civil War had placed an enormous strain on the nascent Irish Free State, with public spending almost doubling during its course. As a result, Blythe was confronted with a projected budget of more than £8 million for the following year when the national debt already stood at £6 million. There was widespread criticism when he reduced old-age pensions from 10 shillings (50p) to 9 shillings (45p) a week in the June 1924 Old Age Pensions Act. This has long been popularly credited for the fall of the Cumann na nGaedheal government, although this would not occur for another nine years.
In 1926, as Minister for Finance, he introduced the Coinage Bill so that Ireland had "a coinage distinctively our own, bearing the devices of this country." It was not until 12 December 1928 that the new coins, designed by Percy Metcalfe, were put into circulation. The delay was due to controversy over the animal designs chosen by the government-appointed committee, chaired by W. B. Yeats, set up to advise on the design of the coins.
Blythe funded the Shannon hydroelectric scheme during the late 1920s. Despite his austerity policies in relation to the old and the poor, Blythe readily funded pet projects; in just one year, 1929, his Department of Finance allocated £6,400 – a huge sum at the time – for translation into Irish of novels including Dracula by Bram Stoker. In 1930 he wrote in the Star whether "the gods of democracy have not feet of clay ... the franchise in the hands of an ignorant and foolish populace is a menace to the country".
Cumann na nGaedheal had a very conservative economic policy at the start of the 1930s, seeing their role as running a tight financial ship, facilitating trade, and not intervening in the economy. Between 1929 and 1935, the last three years of his time as Finance Minister and the first three years of a Fianna Fáil government, Free State agricultural exports fell in value by almost 63% from 35 million pounds to 13.5 million pounds annually, and the state's total export value to Britain fell from 43.5 million to 18 million pounds, another drop of over 50%.Hill, M., & Lynch, J. (2014). Multitext - Ireland: society & economy, 1912-49. Multitext.ucc.ie. Retrieved 14 November 2014, from http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Ireland_society__economy_1912-49#3TheinterWarperiod
In January 1934, Blythe was elected to fill a vacancy in the Senate created by the death of Ellen Cuffe, Countess of Desart. He served in the Senate until the institution was abolished in 1936. He then retired from active political life. In the 1940s, Blytche supported the fascist and anti-Semitic Ailtirí na hAiséirghe. Eoin O'Duffy , Fearghal McGarry He had been a member of the Craobh na Aiséirghe branch of the Gaelic league which was the predecessor of the party. He advised Ó Cuinneagáin on the drafting of the party's constitution, gave it backing in his journal The Leader, as well as making financial contributions. Ailtirí na hAiséirghe: Ireland’s fascist New Order , History Ireland, Issue 5 (Sep/Oct 2009), Volume 17 Blythe supported the idea of a one-party state stating it could fill the gap left in Irish society created by the destruction of the tanistry system.Douglas 2009, page 152+156
During The Emergency in Ireland during World War II Blythe was of concern to the G2 whose intelligence files referred to him as a potential "Irish Vidkun Quisling". A man for all treasons – Frank McNally on a new book about Ernest Blythe: republican, fascist, and Orangeman , Irish Times, 15 November 2018
Blythe was highly criticised during his time as Managing Director.Mikhail E.H, (1988). The Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield It was said that he rejected many good plays in favour of those which were more financially rewarding and ran the theatre into the ground as a creative force.
Upon criticism of Blythe only performing comedies, he replied: "There is no reason, snobbery apart. Why, in their plays, dramatists should boycott ordinary dwellings. Most people in Ireland are the habituees of farmhouse kitchens, city tenements or middle-class sitting-rooms and their loves and hates, disappointments and triumphs, griefs and joys, are just as interesting and amusing, or as touching, as those of, shall we say alliteratively, denizens of ducal drawing-rooms, or boozers in denizened brothels".
Blythe brought to prominence several Irish dramatists. These included Brian Friel, Seamus Byrne, Micheal J. Mollow and Hugh Leonard.
It was through Blythe's efforts that the new Abbey Theatre was built. He was responsible for raising £750,000 to rebuild the theatre which had been destroyed by fire on 18 July 1951. In August 1967, Blythe resigned as Managing Director of the Abbey Theatre. He remained as a member of the theatre board until 1972. He was also an active member of the Television Authority.
Blythe wrote a book Briseadh na Teorann (The smashing of the border) which was published in 1955. It was a revised account of the partition question regarding the divide between the North and South of Ireland. Blythe opposed coercion as a method of achieving a united Ireland: "Partitionist practitioners of violence do more to keep Partition in being than the most extreme section of Orange Order". He also challenged the republican belief regarding who was to blame for partition:;"There would be twenty times for truth in describing partition as Ireland's crime against herself than in describing it according to our propagandist formula as England's crime against Ireland". This book did not earn much recognition, selling only 300-350 copies in the first four months, in part possibly because it was in Irish.O'Corrain, D. (2006), 'Ireland in His Heart North and South: The Contribution of Ernest Blythe to the Partition Question' electronic, Irish Historical Studies, 35 (137), 61–80 One author, however, considers Blythe's writings on the partition question both pioneering and influential.
Throughout his life Blythe was committed to the revival of the Irish language. He encouraged Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards to found an Irish language theatre in Galway.
He published three volumes of autobiography: Trasna na Bóinne (1957), Slán le hUltaibh (1969) and Gaeil á Múscailt (1973).
Ernest Blythe died on 23 February 1975. His funeral service was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
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