Dr Josephine (Josie) Stallard Clarke was the first dispensary doctor appointed to Arranmore Island. She was doctor there from 1929 to 1935. Dr Josephine Stallard Clarke had no car when working as a doctor in Arranmore and travelled around to see her patients on a horse belonging to a local shopkeeper Barney Mc Gill. The Clarkes lived in Ballintra in a house owned by Barney Mc Gill that is now a public house owned by Neil Gallagher. All doctors on the island after Dr Clarke had a car or access to a car. Liam Clarke when in Arranmore had great need of Morphine as a pain killer. It was apparent to some of the islanders that he came in contact with that he was probably addicted to the drug. He died in 1941.
Captain Liam Clarke, a Dublin man, was in the General Post Office Dublin as the head of E Company, 4th Battalion, Dublin Brigade, Irish Volunteers on Easter Monday 1916. This was the company that was made up of the pupils and former pupils of Patrick Pearse’s Secondary College St Enda’s at The Hermitage, Rathfarnham, County Dublin (Pearse’s Own). Liam Clarke had taken part in the Howth in and Kilcoole gun landings in 1914. The yacht Asgard, skippered by Erskine Childers, landed guns into Howth, County Dubliin and the yacht Kelpie skippered by Conor O’Brien brought the guns that were landed at Kilcoole, County Wicklow to the Irish Sea for transhipping to land at Kilcoole. Conor O’Brien was an architect and designed the Cope Hall in Dungloe that was demolished a few years ago to make way for the new road into the Public Car Park. He late sailed his yacht Saoirse around the world. The photograph of men with guns below is one of the few photographs taken inside the GPO. On the afternoon of Easter Monday 1916 Liam Clarke received a serious head injury when a ‘homemade’ canister bomb exploded. According to Joe Sweeney, who was also in the GPO, the hand grenade or canister bomb had been left too near to a radiator and because of the heat from the radiator it destabilised and exploded. However, Joe Sweeney did not see the incident although he saw Liam Clarke being taken away injured. Another account of the same incident said that the canister bomb exploded in Liam Clarke’s hands and makes no mention of it being affected by a radiator. Liam Clarke was treated by Cumann na mBan nurses in the GPO and then was taken to a hall that was used as a first aid station and later to hospital but lost the sight in one eye. He was not arrested after the 1916 Rising but had to go on the run when the British authorities came looking for him at the hospital he was in. He helped reorganise the Irish volunteers after the rising while posing as an organiser for the Prisoners Dependents Fund. He became addicted to morphine arising from his treatment for his injury using that drug as a pain killer.
The above photograph shows the 59 foot yacht, Asgard at Burtonport in May 1970. The Asgard visited Burtonport the same week-end that the Donegal Historical Society unveiled a plaque in memory of James Napper Tandy who came to the Rosses on the French Frigate Anacreon a gun runner in the 1798 Rebellion. The photograph is part of the Denis Tynan Collection in the National Library. Tynan was a professional photographer from Glenties. The late Neil Boyle of Leabgarrow, Arranmore is playing the bagpipes in the aft of the boat.
In late 1916 while in Kilkenny City re-organising the Irish Volunteers Liam Clarke met a medical student Josephine Stallard who lived there where her parents had a shop. He encouraged her to join Cumann na mBan the female wing of the Irish Volunteers and she did that in Dublin. She said he was lame when she first met him and he was also blind in one eye. She had during the Troubles to meet with him on a regular basis to carry messages from Cathal Brugha (who was Liam Clarke’s immediate superior) to others through-out Dublin and Ireland and once to Liverpool. She sometimes dealt directly with Cathal Brugha. She was a secret member of Cumann na mBan. It was felt that she could more effectively work for Cumann na mBan if it was not known generally that she was a member so although she was a member she never attended any public meetings of Cumann na mBan.
The above photograph was taken by Jack Herdman from Sion Mills, County Tyrone from the top of Nelson Pillar, O’Connell Street and looking down inside the ruined Post Office sometime after 1922 when the Metropole Hotel to the left in the photograph was rebuilt and before 1929 when the GPO was rebuilt. The photograph is part of the Herdman Collection in the National Library.
Joe Sweeney who was from Burtonport was a member of E Company as well and knew Liam Clarke well. Liam Clarke later remained a close friend of Joe Sweeney although they had taken different sides in the Civil War, he the Anti-Treaty or republican side and Joe the Pro-Treaty or Free State side. They had, as I have said, both been at St Enda’s and probably knew each other too well to fall out although many who had been friends did fall out over the ‘21 Treaty. Joe Sweeney may have played a part in Dr. Josephine Stallard being appointed a doctor in Arranmore . In general Anti-Treaty activists were not employed by the State although this ban may not have been applied by Donegal County Council (her new employer) in 1929.
Liam Clarke was arrested by the British in May of 1921. He was imprisoned first in Arbour Hill where he was kept in a padded cell in case he would injure himself as he could not cope without the morphine. He was later imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail and got on better health wise in Kilmainham. When the British arrested Liam Clarke they later the same day arrested Josephine Stallard in the Red Bank Café on D’Oliers Street, Dublin where they met every day. She was taken to Dublin Castle in an armoured car and strip searched but was generally treated well. She was asked if she was Liam Clarke’s secretary. She thought her interrogator was probably English as he pronounced Liam as Lyam. She told her questioner that she was Liam’s fiancée but this was untrue. She was released the same day. The Truce between Britain and Dail Eireann came on the 11th of July 1921 but Liam Clarke was not released from prison until December ‘21. He married Josephine Clarke when he was on ten-day parole for medical treatment from Kilmainham Jail in September 1921. It seems he proposed marriage to her the day before they married. She said that the reason why he was married in the uniform of the Irish Volunteers had to do with the fact that he had no other suit of clothes at the time. Liam Clarke took an active part in the Civil War was imprisoned for twelve months from September 1922 to September 1923.
Dr Josephine Clarke filed this photograph with the Bureau of Military History in 1952, that is on-line, as the wedding of Dr Josephine Clarke and Commandant Liam Clarke, IRA.
Doctor Stallard Clarke said the following in relation to her husband in the document that she filed with the Bureau of Military History in 1952 now on line;
“He had several operations for the wound in his head and in 1918 Mr Mc Connell for the first time operated on him and this was actually the first time Mr Mc Connell performed an operation for gasserian ganglion on anybody. He gave him morphia to kill the pain and this led to the morphia habit which he never could give up. It was when England stopped the supply of vital drugs to Ireland in 1941 that Liam had to be admitted to the Richmond Hospital again under a friend of mine Jerry O’Brien. The hospital even could not allow enough morphia as their supply, which was limited, had to be divided amongst all of their patients and it was spinal anesthesia that Dr O’Brien gave him until he died. He died from lack of morphia which his system could not do without. He never complained though he must have suffered always. I used to give him the first couple of doses of morphia in the morning. After that he administered himself.”
The above photograph that was taken inside the GPO is part of a collection to do with the Easter Rising held by the National Library. It shows I believe Liam Clarke wearing a peaked cap and standing at the rear second from the left although that is disputed. The person sitting on the right is I believe the 16 years old Eunan Mc Ginley. Eunan Mc Ginley was the son of Cu Uladh (Peadar Toner Mc Ginley from Glenswilly originally but then living in Dublin with his family). He had attended St Endas Rathfarnham and was in E company as well. The man standing to the left of him may be his brother Eunan but that is disputed as well.
Written & Researched by Seán Boner 2016
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