Daniel
Buckley was born 3 February, 1866, in Maynooth, County Kildare, to Cornelius
Buckley and Sarah Buckley (née Jacob). Daniel saw education at Maynooth
National School, then at Belvedere College and the Catholic University School,
both in Dublin. He joined his father’s business in Maynooth, later inherited it
and became a successful grocer and hardware merchant in Maynooth.
In
Ua Buachalla’s formal schooling, he ‘never learned anything about Irish
history’. However, he joined the Gaelic League ‘on its inception’ in 1893, and
attended Irish classes in Maynooth. ‘It was then I learned the history of my
country,’ he later recalled, ‘by reading’. He became a fluent
Irish-speaker—using the Irish version of his name, Domhnall Ua Buachalla, from
1901—and a supporter of Irish goods at his father’s shop.
In
1905, Ua Buachalla was prosecuted for using the Irish version of his name on
the side of his delivery cart, with Padraig Pearse unsuccessfully defended him
in court. When Domhnall refused to pay the fine given, goods of that value were
seized from his shop and sold at public auction. The purchaser, however,
returned the goods to the Ua Buachalla shop. A friendship developed with Pearse
over the incident and Domhnall sent his son, Joe, to Pearse’s school, St.
Enda’s, when it opened in 1908.
At
the foundation of the Irish Volunteers, Domhnall joined the Maynooth Company.
An enrolment form, dated 22 November, 1914 is extant in Maynooth University. He
recalled that the company was ‘about 40 or 50 strong’ but had no arms. Only
about fourteen of the company were left, including Ua Buachalla, following the
split in the Irish Volunteers. They continued to drill and perform route
marches. Ua Buachalla acquired a Lee Enfield rifle and some shotguns in Dublin,
as well as ammunition for these firearms.
Lieutenant
Eamon O’Kelly arrived at Maynooth on Holy Thursday, 1916. On Easter Sunday he
had Ua Buachalla assemble his men in Maynooth and march to Bodenstown. Prior to
this Ua Buachalla had received no orders or knowledge about the planned
rebellion. The confusion of counter-orders and then a dispatch from Dublin
cancelling mobilisation ended the activity on Easter Sunday.
On
Easter Monday, Ua Buachalla heard of the action in Dublin:
On Easter Monday afternoon I learned from a bread van
driver that fighting was taking place in Dublin between the Volunteers and the
British military. I got on my cycle and proceeded to Dublin to get instructions
and find out what we were to do.
Travelling
to Dublin, seeing the barricades and hostilities for himself, but not finding
anyone for orders, he returned to Maynooth. There he found the Maynooth
volunteers mobilised in the yard of his house. There were about fourteen men
and they left the town at about 7:15pm, after receiving the reluctant blessing
of the Very Reverend J. Hogan, D. D., President of the college in Maynooth.
They
marched until they reached Glasnevin Cemetery at about 2a.m. Resting there
until 6a.m., they marched, following Captain Tom Byrne, to the GPO. Commandant
Patrick Colgan recalled their arrival:
We must have appeared as a motley crew of warriors to
him [James Connolly], yet the welcoming smile which he gave us made us feel
very full of ourselves.
Ua
Buachalla recalled the more practical side of their arrival:
We got a cup of tea and some buns in the canteen from
Desmond Fitzgerald. We were then sent to the Exchange Hotel in Parliament St.
The
Maynooth men were sent to reinforce the Irish Citizen Army in the Dublin Castle
area. Soon after they occupied the Exchange Hotel, a party of British Army
soldiers came to smash the door with a sledge. Ua Buachalla later recalled:
I asked Byrne if we would fire. I do not know what he
said. I put up my rifle and took aim at this soldier and fired. He dropped the
sledge and fell forward and the man next to him fell also, the second man was behind
the big soldier and, apparently, both of them were hit. Immediately the rest of
our boys opened up with the sporting guns on them and in a few seconds at least
a dozen soldiers were lying on the street.
Ua
Buachalla was the only one with a rifle in the hotel and they were under heavy
fire from Dublin Castle and from a position in a drapery at the corner of Dame
Street and Parliament Street. With inadequate firearms, grenades being lobbed
in from the drapery, they were soon ordered to return to the GPO on the Tuesday
evening.
Ua
Buachalla spent some time in Arnott’s on Henry Street and at the Dublin Bread
Company on O’Connell Street working to keep snipers at bay from the direction
of Westmoreland Street and Trinity College. After returning again to the GPO,
he remained at a post at one of the building’s windows.
During
the evacuation of the GPO, seeing his comrades-in-arms fall from rifle fire
from a barricade across Henry Street, Ua Buachalla found temporary refuge in a
shop whose windows were devoid of glass. He recounted:
I succeeded in getting out at the back and made my way
along a lane towards Parnell St. After wandering around and eluding the British
troops and barricades I eventually arrive at the Broadstone Station.
It
was then Saturday morning, At the station, a guard of British Army soldiers
seized Ua Buachalla and placed him under arrest. On Sunday morning he, along
with other prisoners, was brought to Richmond Barracks where many prisoners
were being held. The next day, most of those present, Ua Buachalla included,
were shipped to Liverpool, sent on to Knutsford Jail by rail and then
eventually transferred to Frongoch camp.
On
his return to Dublin after his release a few days before Christmas, 1916, Ua
Buachalla recounted:
We arrived back in Dublin in the morning. There was a
noticeable change in the people now, and I received a royal reception on
reaching Maynooth. When we were being escorted to the boat for internment, the
people of Dublin were inclined to be hostile towards inclined to us,
particularly in the Richmond Barracks area. They were mostly
the Richmond British Soldiers’ wives.
Domhnall
Ua Buachalla was elected MP in North Kildare for Sinn Féin in 1918 and was
active in planning and executing attacks during the War of Independence. He
vehemently opposed the Treaty and was arrested for ‘his involvement in IRA
activity’ during the Civil War. He was a founding member of Fianna Fáil and sat
in Dáil Éireann from 1927 to 1932. Ua Buachalla served as the last
Governor-General of the Irish Free State from 1932 until the office’s abolition
in 1936. He died in 1963.
