An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 29 Michael had been an accomplished musician, trained by the British army, and his children all received a strong musical education. In 1931, for example, receipts in the pension file show Joseph, who also at- tended St Enda's, was receiving lessons in piano, harp, singing and music theory. Michael's last letter had also asked that Joseph become a priest and he eventually followed his brother into the Jesuits. Maura spent a period under the care of Patrick Pearse's sister, Margaret, in St Enda's in 1924 when her mother became ill. By April 1929, when Maura was 12, she was receiving private tuition in English, French and Irish at St Enda's at a cost of £18 every seven months. Like her sister, she was educated in the Loreto College on Crumlin Road and as a boarder in the Loreto Convent, Bray where lessons included piano, dancing, drill and elocution. Maura enrolled in First Arts in UCD in 1933 and having finished her studies spent a number of years working in Barcelona before returning to Ireland. The Mallin children led varied and successful lives, were well educated and well travelled. Without the family's pension and the subsidised education they received this would not have been possible for a family of their background in the economically depressed Ireland of the 1920s and 1930s. The pension file also offers sad glimpses into Agnes's illness and death. In 1924 she underwent an operation to remove bone from her shin and place it in her spine, and spent the next year in bed. By 1926 she had recovered but TB soon returned. Letters surviving in the pension file from Séamus and Joseph on behalf of their mother are particularly telling of the state of her health at various periods. She died on 29th April 1932. Michael Mallin's father, John, applied for a pension under the 1934 Army Pen- sions Act. Employed as a carpenter in Liv- erpool when the Easter Rising took place, he only learned of his son's death from a billboard on a newspaper stand. His claim was rejected as Michael's wife had received the statutory pension allowance. In 1960, Mallin's sister Katie Rossiter applied under the 1953 Army Pensions Act, which allowed pensions for a widowed sister or invalided brother of a person killed on military service before october 1923. When it was pointed out that her recently deceased husband's 20 years working for the ESB entitled her to a contributory widow's pension she said she would 'not accept anything from social welfare – that it savours too much of charity'. The comment implies that she felt entitled to a military pension on account of her family's sacrifice in 1916, but that the pension accrued by her husband's two decades of less glamorous service to the state smacked of 'char- ity'. She may also have felt that she was justified in accepting the pension, having unsuccessfully applied for a service pen- sion in 1934 as a member of Cumann na mBan who maintained an arms dump and carried despatches for her brother before the Rising. The January and october 2014 online releases of the first two batches of the Military Service Pension records have justifiably received significant attention from historians, the media and the public. These, and further releases, will revolutionise the study of the period from 1916 to 1923, giving historians a greater understanding of what actually happened during Ireland's struggle for independence and will allow stories to emerge from a wider variety of perspectives than ever before. As has been seen here, there are possibilities for exploration beyond the (still very important) nature and logistics of mili- tary activity. These files are part of a social history of 20th Century Ireland and can give us a sense of how life was lived after the shooting was done; about the struggles for recognition of service to the cause of Irish freedom; about the financial struggles, argu- ments, exaggeration and lies that naturally arise when money is added to the equation. They can tell us about the minutiae of existence for veterans and the families of those who gave their lives for Ireland – individuals who, at the end of the day, still had to make ends meet. Agnes Mallin nee Hickey, before her wedding, c. 1899. (KMGLM 2015.0585) Mallin Family, Christmas 1916, posed for Catholic Bulletin. (KMGLM 2015.0586) Letter from E. Fahy to Agnes (Una) Mallin, 30th October 1928 informing her that she was not entitled to the recently increased pension allowed to widows of the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916. (W1D322, p. 74) Letter from Agnes (Una) Mallin to Secretary, Ministry of Pensions, 4th December 1931 requesting reimbursement of school fees for her youngest daughter, Maura. (W1D322, p. 130) Receipt for Joseph Mallin's school fees at St. Enda's, Rathfarnham signed by Margaret Pearse, February 1931. (W1D322, p. 118)

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