30/09/2025
Today we are proud to remember Thomas Ashe who was buried in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery on the 30th of September 1917. Thomas Ashe died on the 25th of September 1917 as a result of forced feeding on the 5th day of a hunger strike for Prisoner of War status. We are proud to remember him through the words of his family and friends as well as the comrades who knew him best. BOACC remember him in particulate as the commander of the 5th Battalion of the Dublin Brigade. The forces under his command won the Battle of Ashbourne in County Meath on the 28th of April 1916 which was the largest battle of the Rising outside of Dublin.
As well as being a soldier Thomas Ashe was also a Teacher, Poet, Piper, Patriot, and Social Revolutionary. Fellow piper and revolutionary Sean O’Casey wrote of Thomas Ashe “Labour has reason to mourn the loss of Thomas Ashe: he was ever the workers' friend and would have always been their champion ... it would be well if every Sinn Feiner followed in his steps".
Thomas Ashe was born on the 12th of January 1885, in Lispole, County Kerry Thomas was the seventh of ten siblings. He qualified as a teacher in 1905 at De La Salle College, Waterford and after teaching briefly in Kinnard, County Kerry, in 1906 he became Principal of Corduff National School in Lusk, County Dublin. Thomas Ashe was a fluent Irish speaker and a member of the Keating branch of the Gaelic League. He was an accomplished sportsman and musician setting up the Roundtowers GAA Club as well as helping to establish the Lusk Pipe Band. He was also a talented singer and poet who was committed to Conradh na Gaeilge.
Politically he was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). He established circles in Dublin and Kerry and eventually became President of the Supreme Council in 1917. While he was actively and intellectually nationalist he was also inspired by contemporary socialism. Ashe rejected conservative Home Rule politicians and as part of that rejection, he espoused the Labour policies of James Larkin. Writing in a letter to his brother Gregory he said “We are all here on Larkin’s side. He’ll beat hell out of the snobbish, mean, seoinín employers yet, and more power to him’’. Ashe supported the unionisation of north Dublin farm labourers and his activities brought him into conflict with landowners such as Thomas Kettle in 1912. During the infamous lockout in 1913, he was a frequent visitor to Liberty Hall and become a friend of James Connolly. Long prior to its publication in 1916, Thomas Ashe was a practitioner of Connolly’s dictum that “the cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour’’. In 1914 Ashe traveled to the United States where he raised a substantial sum of money for both the Gaelic League and the newly formed Irish Volunteers of which he was an early member.
Ashe founded the Volunteers in Lusk and established a firm foundation of practical and theoretical military training. He provided charismatic leadership first as Adjutant and then as O/C (Officer Commanding) the 5th Battalion of the Dublin Brigade. He inspired fierce loyalty and encouraged personal initiative in his junior officers, Ashe was, therefore, able to confidently delegate command to Charlie Weston, Joseph Lawless, Edward Rooney, and others during the Rising. Most significantly, he took advantage of the arrival of Richard Mulcahy at Finglas Glen on the Tuesday of the Rising and appointed him second in command. The two men knew one another through the IRB and Gaelic League and Ashe recognized Mulcahy’s tactical abilities. As a result, Ashe allowed himself to be persuaded by Mulcahy not to withdraw following the unexpected arrival of the motorised force at the Rath crossroads. At Ashbourne on the 28th of April Ashe also demonstrated great personal courage, first exposing himself to fire while calling on the RIC in the fortified barracks to surrender and then actively leading his Volunteers against the RIC during the Battle.
After the Rising Thomas Ashe was court-martialed on the 8th of May 1916 and was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. He was incarcerated in a variety of English prisons before being released in the June 1917 general amnesty. He immediately returned to Ireland and toured the country reorganising the IRB and inciting civil opposition to British rule. Thomas Ashe’s support for the participation of Irish Volunteer candidates in three critical by-elections in 1917 laid the foundations for the Sinn Fein electoral victory in 1918. It also provided the Irish Volunteers with a valuable public platform from which to recruit and prepare for renewed conflict with Crown forces in 1919.
In August 1917, after a speech in Ballinalee, County Longford, he was arrested by the RIC and charged with “speeches calculated to cause disaffection”. He was detained in the Curragh camp and later sentenced to a year’s hard labour in Mountjoy Jail. There he became O/C of the Volunteer prisoners and demanded prisoner-of-war status. As a result, he was punished by the Governor. He went on hunger strike on 20th September 1917 and five days later died as a result of force-feeding by the prison authorities. He was just 32 years old. The jury at the inquest that followed found ‘’that the deceased Thomas Ashe, according to the medical evidence of Professor McWeeney, Sir Arthur Chance, and Sir Thomas Myles, died from heart failure and congestion of the lungs on the 25th September 1917; and that his death was caused by the punishment of taking away from the cell bed, bedding, and boots and allowing him to be on the cold floor for 50 hours, and then subjecting him to forcible feeding in his weak condition after hunger-striking for five or six days”. The death of Thomas Ashe resulted in POW status being conceded to the Volunteer prisoners two days later.
Thomas Ashe’s funeral was the first public funeral after the Rising and provided a focal point for public disaffection with British rule. His body lay in state in Dublin City Hall before being escorted by armed Volunteers to Glasnevin Cemetery. There 30,000 people attended the burial where three volleys were fired over the grave and the Last Post was sounded. Then Michael Collins in Volunteer uniform delivered the graveside oration “Nothing more remains to be said. That volley that we have just heard is the only speech which is proper to make over the grave of a dead Fenian”.
Today we in BOACC are also proud to recall Thomas Ashe in his own words through his poem “Let Me Carry Your Cross for Ireland, Lord” which he wrote while imprisoned in Lewes Jail in 1916. It has provided the inspiration for the Battle of Ashbourne memorial unveiled by Sean T. O'Kelly on Easter Sunday, 26 April 1959 and for the State Centenary Commemoration of the Battle at the Rath Cross in Ashbourne County Meath in March 2016.
Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord
The hour of her trial draws near,
And the pangs and the pains of the sacrifice
May be borne by comrades dear.
But, Lord, take me from the offering throng,
There are many far less prepared,
Through anxious and all as they are to die
That Ireland may be spared.
Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord
My cares in this world are few.
And few are the tears will for me fall
When I go on my way to You.
Spare. Oh! Spare to their loved ones dear
The brother and son and sire.
That the cause we love may never die
In the land of our Heart's desire!
Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord!
Let me suffer the pain and shame
I bow my head to their rage and hate,
And I take on myself the blame.
Let them do with my body whate'er they will,
My spirit I offer to You.
That the faithful few who heard her call
May be spared to Roisin Dubh.
Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord!
For Ireland weak with tears,
For the aged man of the clouded brow,
And the child of tender years;
For the empty homes of her golden plains;
For the hopes of her future, Too!
Let me carry your Cross for Ireland, Lord!
for the cause of Roisin Dubh.
Tóla Collier is a Historian specialising in Irish Military and Revolutionary history