The Irish Free State, as it was known during WWII, marks 100 years of its independence from Britain this year with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. This independence from Britain allowed the Irish Government of the time, led by Éamon de Valera, to declare a state of neutrality in 1939 that would last throughout the course of the whole war. The news of the declaration of neutrality by de Valera was welcomed widely at home, but what was it like for those Irish who had left the Irish shores and crossed the Irish Sea and had arrived in Aberystwyth? These Irish now lived in a nation which was at war, so what roles and what kind of relationships did they have with this very starkly different reality compared to their fellow countrymen and women back home across the Irish Sea?
This reality will be explored below with a focus on the Irish Carmelites, an order of Catholic priests, and on an Irish lady, Mary Aloysius Edwards nee O’Connolly, from Co. Cavan who arrived in Aberystwyth, via Liverpool and Welshpool in 1934 to work in The Talbot hotel. She was known locally up to her passing in 2005, as Molly or the ‘Lady in Green’. The Irish Carmelites arrived in Aberystwyth two years later in 1936 to take over the pastoral responsibilities of both the parish and St Mary’s College, a seminary for the Catholic priesthood, which is now the current home of the Welsh Books Council.
By 1940, according to Fr. Michael Berthold Kiely, a native of Kinsale, Co. Cork and an Irish priest in Aberystwyth at the time of the war, contingents of the Army and the Royal Air Force were already being stationed in Aberystwyth and its neighbourhood and a great flood of evacuees into Cardiganshire was beginning.
Those evacuees who were Catholic and part of either the Army or the R.A.F which were stationed in Aberystwyth were under the religious care and leadership of two local Irish Carmelite priests, who would both go on after the war to play important roles in the formation and leadership of the English and Welsh branch of the Carmelite order in Britain. These were Fr. William Malachy Lynch, a native of Ballymanus, Co. Wicklow, and Fr. Patrick ‘Pop’ Geary, a native of Ballinacurra near Kinsale, Co. Cork, who were respectively the religious chaplains to the local Catholic R.A.F and the Army personnel during the war. This kind of direct involvement with the war effort as chaplains to those within the Allied forces was a similar state to those soldiers who fought in the war from the Irish Free State. Actions of the Irish people during the war, much like those of Fr. Lynch and Fr. Geary in Aberystwyth, blurs the line from the firm public position that the Irish State was taking at the time and the commitment to and neutrality of the Irish in the war since in popular memory. Wherever they may have been in the world, the Irish were not all neutral!
This blurring of the line can be seen in no greater a case than that of Molly Edwards. Her memories of the time and her life were recounted in a local Catholic parish magazine, Cross-ties, in 2000. Molly, by the time of the war, was working in the Queens Hotel, which at that time was being used by the local R.A.F. troops. Here she established a close bond with the R.A.F boys stationed here for training. Molly remembered being ‘always ready to help with sewing jobs, knitting socks, etc’. This friendship went both ways, with the R.A.F boys being ‘very protective of her,’ either by handling the ‘awkward customers’ or ‘going into the cellar for supplies’ – this latter no doubt came as a relief for Molly as it was ‘a job she hated since the cellar was full of rats!’
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The
Lady in Green: Molly Edwards celebrating her 90th Birthday in 2000. Photo permission of M. Stocks |
When Molly married her husband Jack Edwards, a local man from 16 Glanrafon Terrace in Trefechan, in January 1941, at Our Lady and St Winefride’s Catholic Church, the R.A.F boys wanted to demonstrate that close relationship by giving her a guard of honour. However, Molly told them if they did she would not turn up at the church.
I think it is therefore safe to say if Fr Lynch, Fr Geary and Molly Edwards are anything to go by, the Irish in Aberystwyth during the course of the war were offering a hand of friendship and help, from the socks of the soldiers to their souls – some might say!
Conor Brockbank
SOURCES
Catholic Standard
Cross-ties: The Roman Catholic Churches of "Our Lady of the Angels and St. Winefride", "The Welsh Martyrs", "Our Lady, Star of the Sea", "Holy Cross" Issue Number 34, Easter 2000, National Library of Wales.
Kiely, M.B. Annals of the Parish of our Lady of the Angels and St Winefride. Aberystwyth, 1973.
McGreal, W. A Stumbling Pilgrim Guided by Indirections. A biography of Carmelite friar Fr. Malachy Lynch 1899-1972. Kent, 2016.
Welsh Gazette and West Wales Advertiser
Wood, I.S. Britain, Ireland and the Second World War. Edinburgh, 2010.
https://www.carmelite.org/past-present/heritage-archive/obituaries/patrick-geary
