Domhnall Ua Buachalla

Domhnall Ua Buachalla
Domhnall Ua Buachalla in 1926
3rd Governor-General of the Irish Free State
In office 27 November 1932 – 11 December 1936
Preceded by	James McNeill
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Personal details
Born	5 February 1866(1866-02-05) County Kildare, Ireland
Died	30 October 1963(1963-10-30) (aged 97) County Dublin, Ireland
Profession	Politician
Religion	Roman Catholic

Domhnall Ua Buachalla (English: Daniel Richard (Donal) Buckley; 5 February 1866 – 30 October 1963) was an Irish politician, shopkeeper and member of the First Dáil who served as third and final Governor-General of the Irish Free State and later served as a member of the Council of State.^[1]

Early life

Ua Buachalla was from Maynooth in County Kildare and ran a combined grocery, bicycle shop and pub in the town. He was an Irish language activist and member of Conradh na Gaeilge. In 1907, he was arrested and had his groceries seized when he refused to pay a fine for having his grocery wagon painted with Domhnall Ua Buachalla (his name in the Irish language), as the law required grocery wagons to be registered only in the English language.^[2]

1916–1932

He was a member of the Irish Volunteers and took part in the 1916 Easter Rising. He was imprisoned afterwards and released in 1917. Like many Rising survivors, he joined Sinn Féin, a small separatist party that was wrongly blamed by the government for the Easter Rising. In the aftermath of the Rising, survivors led by Éamon de Valera took over the party and used it as a vehicle to struggle for the establishment of an Irish republic. Ua Buachalla was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for Kildare North at the 1918 general election. He served in the First Dáil (1918–1921), and was re-elected to the Second Dáil in 1921 as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Kildare–Wicklow. He sided with de Valera and opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He fought in the Four Courts in the Civil War. He was captured and imprisoned in Dundalk jail, he was released by the Anti-Treaty troops in August 1922.^[3] He lost his seat at the 1922 general election, and was an unsuccessful candidate at the 1923 general election.

Irish governor-general

He joined Fianna Fáil on its foundation in 1926 and was elected as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Kildare constituency at the June 1927 general election, only to lose that seat in the 1932 general election, which Fianna Fáil won.^[4] He was chosen by Éamon de Valera to become Governor-General of the Irish Free State following James McNeill's resignation in November 1932.

Ordered to keep a low profile

De Valera explicitly instructed Ua Buachalla as governor-general to keep a low public profile, and not to fulfil any public engagements. This was part of de Valera's policy to make the governor-generalship an irrelevance by reducing it to invisibility. While he continued to give the Royal Assent to legislation, summon and dissolve Dáil Éireann and fulfil the other formal duties of the governor-generalship, he declined all public invitations and kept himself invisible, as advised by "his" Government. In fact in his period in office he performed only one public function: the receipt of the credentials of the French Ambassador in the Council Chamber, Government Buildings, 1933, on behalf of the King, George V. However, de Valera subsequently had that duty moved from the Governor-General to his own post of President of the Executive Council. (One of the few other occasions Ua Buachalla was mentioned at all in public was when, in the aftermath of the death of King George V in January 1936, he had to reply to messages of condolence sent to the Irish people by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United States Secretary of State.)

On de Valera's instruction, Ua Buachalla did not reside in the official residence of the Governor-General, the Viceregal Lodge (now called Áras an Uachtaráin, the residence of the President of Ireland). Instead a house was rented for his use. The official English title "Governor-General" was largely replaced by the official Irish title "Seanascal" or its direct translation Seneschal; however, "Governor-General" remained the legal form used in official English-language documents and proclamations.

Falling out with de Valera

Ua Buachalla fell out with de Valera over the manner of his exit from office, in December 1936. De Valera sought to use the abdication crisis surrounding King Edward VIII to amend the Irish Free State's Constitution to abolish both the Crown and the office of governor-general. Having done so, he faced a threat of a court case from Ua Buachalla, who had been left personally liable for the remaining one year's expensive private lease on his residence, following the sudden abolition of his office. In practice, between 1933 and December 1936, the Irish government had paid Ua Buachalla expenses from which he paid the rent on his expensive residence, one which they even picked for him.

However from December 1936, the government insisted that it had no responsibility for paying for the residence. Ua Buachalla had in 1932, on de Valera's explicit advice, leased the residence for a full five years which was his expected term of office. There then remained one year's outstanding lease, for a residence he could not now afford and for which he had no need now, as he was no longer governor-general. Eventually de Valera was forced to grant Ua Buachalla a large pension and pay his outstanding rent and expenses to stop a potentially embarrassing court case going ahead. Ua Buachalla attended the inauguration of the first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde, in Dublin Castle in June 1938.

Appointment to Council of State and later life

Ua Buachalla and de Valera subsequently patched up their differences, and in a symbolic act of apology, de Valera, when elected President of Ireland in 1959 appointed Ua Buachalla to his advisory Council of State. He however returned to Maynooth to continue running his family hardware store, which had been founded in 1853.

Domhnall Ua Buachalla died, aged 97, in a nursing home in Dublin. He was given a state funeral and buried in Laraghybryan Cemetery in Maynooth, with the graveside oration delivered by President Éamon de Valera.^[5]

The Ua Buachalla hardware store closed in October 2005. The road beside this store is named after him (although translated to English as "Buckley's Lane"). The building has been demolished, but the frontage - featuring notable 60 degree sloping windows - has been preserved.

References

1. ^ "Mr. Donal Buckley". Oireachtas Members Database. http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=5&MemberID=120&ConstID=115. Retrieved 20 August 2010. 
2. ^ "Irish Free State: King George's Domhnall". Time. 5 December 1932. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882430,00.html. Retrieved 20 August 2010. 
3. ^ "Biography of Ua Buachalla". archontology.org. http://www.archontology.org/nations/eire/eire_gg/buckley.php. Retrieved 20 August 2010. 
4. ^ "Donal Buckley". ElectionsIreland.org. http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=1317. Retrieved 20 August 2010. 
5. ^ "Funeral of Domhnall Ua Buachalla". Co. Kildare Online Electronic History Journal. http://www.kildare.ie/library/ehistory/2009/02/funeral_of_domhnall_ua_buachal_1.asp. Retrieved 20 August 2010. 

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by John O'Connor (Irish Parliamentary Party)	Sinn Féin Member of Parliament for Kildare North 1918–1922	Constituency abolished
Oireachtas
New constituency	Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Kildare North 1918–1921	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Kildare–Wicklow 1921–1922	Succeeded by Richard Wilson (Farmers' Party)
New constituency	Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Kildare 1927–1932	Succeeded by William Norton (Labour Party)
Political offices
Preceded by James McNeill	Governor-General of the Irish Free State 1932–1936	Succeeded by Office abolished

Persondata
Name	Ua Buachalla, Domhnall
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	5 February 1866
Place of birth	County Kildare, Ireland
Date of death	30 October 1963
Place of death	County Dublin, Ireland