Michael MacSweeney appears to have alternated between
two Jesuits school, Clongowes Wood College and Belvedere College, for his early
education. Firstly, he attended Clongowes and then entered Belvedere for the
years 1899-1905. Whilst at Belvedere, he lived at 18 Claremont Street,
Sandymount. Having left Belvedere during 1905, it seems that Michael returned
to Clongowes and left that college before the end of the year.
Michael was granted a commission in the Special
Reserve of Officers in February, 1914. At the beginning of the Great War,
Michael re-joined his battalion, the 4th RDF, at Aghada Camp in
Cork.
The battalion travelled to Sittingbourne,
south-eastern England in October, 1914, and then on 10 November he was called
for service. He was with the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment and was
frequently in the trenches. Michael’s positions in the trenches was very
dangerous because of the use of gases. The
Belvederian of 1915 reported that he
was able to resist this at first by the aid of a
respirator, but later we heard that he was ill as the result of it.
After six months in the front line trenches, Michael
was in a severe gas attack and suffered a long illness as a result. He was
invalided home to recover and it was not until September, 1915, that he was
well enough to return to the 4th RDF, then stationed at
Sittingbourne. In early 1916, he was moved to Templemore, County Tipperary,
with his regiment.
The
Belvederian of 1916 gave a
brief description of the action seen by Lieutenant Michael MacSweeney during
the Easter rising:
It fell to the Fusiliers' lot to guard, among other
places, the Broadstone railway station, where Lieutenant MacSweeney was
stationed. Though there were some casualties in his battalion, we are glad to
say that he came through quite safely.
On Tuesday, 25 April, the 4th RDF advanced into Dublin city along the
Cabra Road. As they progressed into Phisborough, they encountered the most
northern outposts of the 1st Battalion Irish Volunteers along the
North Circular Road. The 4th RDF were assisted by an
eighteen-pounder artillery gun that was positioned at Grangegorman, having only
recently arrived form Athlone. The Irish Volunteers held their positions at
barricades and sniping positions until their barricades and cover were blown
apart by the big gun.
The 4th RDF was then able to proceed along the North Circular
Road, turn onto the Phisborough Road and continue on to the Broadstone railway
station. Ned Daly, Commandant of the 1st Battalion Irish Volunteers,
ordered Captain Nicholas Laffan, officer of G Company to occupy the station.
However, as Laffan told the BMH,
On reaching the gate of the North Dublin Union [a
complex of workhouse and hospital buildings to the north of North Brunswick
Street] Comdt. Daly told me to halt there and take up positions as he had not
enough men to go as far as the Broadstone Station.
Instead, it was decided to
establish a line of fortified houses and barricades on North Brunswick Street
along which snipers were positioned. The 4th
RDF occupied the Broadstone station with reasonable ease, with the commanding
officer, Lieutenant-Colonel James Meldon, making it his headquarters.
The intention of the 4th RDF was then to press south towards
the Four Court and the River Liffey against the Irish Volunteers. Throughout
the week’s hostilities, Captain Laffan later recognised the work done by the
Capuchins of nearby Church Street. He remembered Fr Albert hearing confessions
and, along with Fr Augustine, going back and forth between the area of firing
and the Richmond Hospital at the North Brunswick Street side of the North
Dublin Union complex. He reported in his witness statement that the Capuchin
priests ‘were untiring in the work they did for our men and for the wounded
civilians.’
There were strong links between the Capuchin Order and
the nationalist movement, although as Patricia Curtin-Kelly suggests ‘this was probably
due to an individual rather than on Order-wide approach’. Capuchins of Church
Street, such as Dr Albert Bibby, Fr Augustine Hayden and Fr Aloysius Travers,
administered to the rebel leaders following the surrender and were present at
the executions of Sean Heuston, Éamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin and Con Colbert
amongst others.
It seems that the 4th RDF were prevented
from advancing any further south than the Broadstone station. The Irish
Volunteers outposts at Clarke’s Dairy and Moore’s Factory were, Captain Laffan
recalled,
used
for sniping positions and a constant fire was directed on the Broadstone
Station which prevented the enemy from coming down the side streets to
Constitution Hill.
The only fatality of the 4th RDF during
Easter week was Lieutenant George Gray. On the Thursday he led an attack,
described by Eugene Sheehy, (an Old Belvederian also profiled below), as ‘a
very foolhardy venture,’ on a rebel position in Kelly’s Lane. Sheehy, then
Second-Lieutenant, observed the attack:
Through his [Gray] own field-glasses—which he gave me
to mind for him—I witnessed the attack from the roof of the railway station
and, within a few minutes, saw him shot dead in the laneway. He received a
bullet through the head and was killed instantaneously.
Having come through the Irish rebellion quite safely,
MacSweeney was promoted to Captain in July, 1916. The Belvederian of 1917 reported that Michael was still suffering
severely from the gas poisoning that he received the previous year. He remained
stationed in Ireland into the summer of 1917.
Michael’s brother,
John, is also mentioned in The
Belvederian of 1917. John passed his final exams in medicine in 1917 and
was read to enter the RAMC.
