An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir October 2015 www.dfmagazine.ie 28 | by DR BRIAN HUGHES, IRISH RESEARCH COUNCIL POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW, DEPT OF HISTORY, TCD PHoToS B&W IMAGES COURTESY OF KILMAINHAM GAOL MUSEUM, DOCUMENTS COURTESY OF MILITARY ARCHIVES o n 22nd october 1928 Agnes (or Una) Mallin wrote a let- ter to the Army Pensions branch of the Department of Defence after hearing that the pensions awarded to the widows of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation had been doubled from £90 per annum to £180. She applied for the same increase on the grounds that a 'very serious illness' (tuberculosis) she was suffering from 'a direct result of 1916' and that she was 'the only widow of one of the executed leaders of Easter Week not in receipt of the increased pension'. Agnes was informed that nothing could be done, as her hus- band, Michael, executed for his part in the Rising, 'was not one of the signatories to the Proclamation, and, in the circumstances, the Minister [Desmond FitzGerald] regrets that he has no power to increase the allowance awarded to you.' Agnes's pension file tells us nothing new about Michael Mal- lin's Irish Citizen Army career or his Easter Rising, but tells the story of how his family lived in the aftermath of his death. The execution of her husband came as a profound shock: after the surrender she and Michael's brother Tom discussed what sentence he would get and Tom recalls that Agnes 'spoke in terms of years, even 20 years. She never thought of a sentence of death.' Their eldest son, James, was only 12, John almost ten, Una seven and Joseph two. A fifth child, Maura Constance, was born in August 1916. Notwithstanding the grievance against the decision not to increase her pension, the family did well from the Army Pensions Acts. Under the 1923 Act Agnes was awarded £90 per annum for the duration of her widowhood and each of the children was awarded £24 per annum until they reached the age of twenty- one. on Cosgrave's recommendation payments were backdated to 1st April 1922. In 1934 the allowance for Maura, the last of the children in receipt of a payment, was increased to £40 and continued until 1937. Tuition and other educational fees up to a value of £35 per annum were also covered for all of the children until they reached the age of eighteen. The pension allowance received by the six members of the family amounted to a total of £1,852 – something in the region of €100,000 in today's currency – over thirteen years. Based on the records contained in the file, a further £926.2.4 (around €50,000 today) was reimbursed towards education costs. This was in addition to aid and grants received from dependents' funds and the White Cross after May 1916. It is clear that Agnes was dedicated to the education of her children. Repeated requests for prompt reimbursement of tuition fees and other school expenses found throughout the pension file highlight both the importance of education and a tight budget where every penny counted. In 1926, for instance, Séamus enquired if the two shillings per week it cost to get Una to and from school were covered. The pension allowed each of the children to receive a middle-class education that their working-class father would hardly have been able to provide in his lifetime. Providing that education was, perhaps, a means for Agnes to create a positive, practical legacy from the death of her husband beyond the platitudes of sacrifice and martyrdom. Séamus was over 18 in 1924 and thus ineligible to have his educational costs reimbursed but his were paid for by an anonymous benefactor in the US, as were his brother Seán's. Séamus and Seán were sent first to St Enda's, the school founded by Patrick Pearse, and then Dublin board- ing school Knockbeg College. Séamus went on to study engineering in UCD but his studies were interrupted when he joined the anti-Treaty IRA and he was arrested and imprisoned for pos- session of a revolver in october 1922. After two-and-a-half years in prison, including a hunger strike in 1923, he re- sumed his course in UCD and went on to spend time in South America before becoming a civil servant in Dublin. Seán joined the Jesuits and spent most of his adult life working in County Galway. In his last letter to his wife, Michael had requested that his daughter Una become a nun. She complied with this wish and was educated in Loreto College, Crumlin, joining the Loreto order in 1925. i n t o t h e P a s t Michael Mallin in British Army Uniform, India c. 1899. (KMGLM 2015.0584) Michael Mallin postcard. (KMGLM 2015.0588)

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