18/06/2026
Terence MacSwiney photograph signed by Eithne MacSwiney
A studio portrait of the prominent Irish republican, playwright, and politician Terence MacSwiney. He famously served as the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the War of Independence before dying on a 74-day hunger strike in Brixton Prison in London in 1920. The print is signed in the bottom right corner of the mount. It reads ‘Ó Eithne nic Suibhne’ (‘From Eithne MacSwiney’). Eithne MacSwiney (also known as Annie MacSwiney) was the younger sister of Terence.
Eithne was an important figure in her own right, as a dedicated nationalist, educator, and a key figure in Cork’s revolutionary history. She was an educational pioneer who co-founded Scoil Íte (St. Ita’s School) in Cork alongside her older sister, Mary, in 1916. This all-girls academy was modelled after Pádraig Pearse’s Scoil Éanna, prioritizing Irish history, culture, and the Irish language. Eithne was also an active member of Cumann na mBan, the republican women’s paramilitary organization. She acted as a vital and supportive figure for her brother Terence and her sister Mary during their various imprisonments and hunger strikes.
Eithne maintained an uncompromisingly republican stance and dedicated her later life to education and preserving her family’s revolutionary legacy. Like her siblings Mary and Seán, she vehemently opposed the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. She sided with anti-Treaty republicans during the Civil War. She was subsequently imprisoned by the Free State authorities. Following her release, Eithne returned to Cork to continue managing and teaching at Scoil Íte. She dedicated decades of her life to running the school, which remained an influential educational institution in Cork until it finally closed its doors in 1954. Eithne MacSwiney died on 12 October 1942.
(Record Identifier: https://catholicarchives.ie/index.php/terence-macswiney-photograph-signed-by-eithne-annie-macswiney)
