Joe Deighan
Address by the President of Conradh na Gaeilge[1], Proinsias Mac Aonghusa, during Requiem Mass before the cremation of Joe Deighan, late Editor of FEASTA and late Irish Editor of the Irish Press, on Monday. 21 February 1994.
Dear brethren, relations of Joe Deighan, and all Irish friends who had and who have regard and respect for Joe:
This is an occasion of celebration of the life and work of Joe Deighan as a champion for the advancement of the Irish language, and as a fighter for Republic, as a good writer and as an excellent editor.
But it is a sad occasion also for his wife Una Walsh from Liverpool, who spent most of her life with him and who worked energetically beside Joe in England where he was an officer on active service for the volunteers. It is a sad occasion for his family Brian, Brid, Niamh and Neil and for their families. The person most dear to them is gone after many years of illness. It is a huge sorrow and it is little that we, even out of our respect for Joe, can do to lessen their loss. On behalf of the Irish Movement we offer to them publicly our sincerest sympathy.
Joe’s and Una’s story is like that of the difficult story of the Republic and Republicanism for many long years. They stood loyally for their country. They suffered for Ireland. But the dream stayed alive in their hearts in spite of the hardship.
In 1914, seven years before Ireland was divided in two, Joe was born in South Ulster. He hated the Border from the time he was a young boy and he abhorred the way his people were walked on. He wanted an Irish Republic free from control by Britain for the workers. He believed strongly in this Right. He well understood the hardship of the poor person: he himself and his family had to go without many a time. He believed in what James Connolly and James Larkin said. In his most interesting book “Ag Scaoileadh Scoil” about part of his life, he wrote: “It is most important not to forget the lower classes when trying to improve the world. The IRA had no interest in this work, in fact the opposite was true, they didn’t want it. I did, but then I was ‘red’.
Joe had a hard life, especially when he came out of the Curragh Internment Camp, where he spent nearly four years. It was very difficult to get work. It was in the Camp that he got to know Mairtin O Cadhain; their friendship lasted until Mairtin’s death in 1970. It was there also that he became fluent in the Irish language and in fact taught Irish himself in the Internment Camp: it is there that he heard the song ‘Donall Og’ for the first time, a song about which he wrote a book later.
Before that, in his twentieth year, he was imprisoned in Belfast Jail for his loyalty to his country and his people. Joe Deighan was an achiever, a person who was deeply in earnest about everything he did and who put his heart and his soul into his work, the Republic, Bord na Leaghar Gaeilge (Board of Irish Books), the Clochomhar book publisher , in which he was very involved and which he helped to found, as Irish Editor of the Irish Press, a position, unfortunately, that no longer exists, his research, and above anything else FEASTA. FEASTA is a monthly magazine of Conradh na Gaeilge. Seosamh O Duibhginn was the Editor for fifteen years from 1949 to 1963. It was during his time, and because of him, that FEASTA was the biggest selling magazine in the country.
It was alive and relevant, and writers of calibre wanted to give their time and work to it. It is in it that the best reviews were to be found. In it also where the sharpest literary quarrels of the time and some people who felt that they had got a raw deal even resorted to the law. Joe Deighan had great courage as an Editor.
‘The Dictator’ was what my father, Criostoir Mac Aonghusa, a friend of his and a writer for FEASTA and Mairtin O Cadhain, who also wrote a lot for FEASTA, used to call Joe. It was only half-joking. He was a bit of a dictator as an editor, as good active Editors often are. He was firm and strong as Editor and he would only accept the highest standard of correctness in the Irish language. He had very high regard for FEASTA and its writers. He couldn’t see why an Irish magazine would not be the most progressive magazine in the country.
And FEASTA was much spoken about when he was Editor, praise from some, criticism from some and jealousy from others.
Joe did great work when he was Irish Editor of the Irish Press between 1963 and 1979 when he retired.
But he didn’t have the same opportunity there to promote writers and ideas as he had when he worked for Conradh na Gaeilge. He was more restricted. But nevertheless he did as much as he could for Irish while he worked on Burgh Quay; there is generally no Irish launguage now in the Irish Press, and that is something that upset Joe.
He was always loyal to the Conradh and to the aims of the Conartha. It was in Sheain Ui Dhonnabhain Branch in Liverpool that he was at first and he dearly loved the people of Liverpool, so many of them were of Irish stock. The day he managed to leave England safely, 27th July 1939, the day that the ‘Prevention of Violence Act’ came into force, the thing that troubled him most was that he wouldn’t be amongst the people of Liverpool again.
Joe Deighan belonged to the Ireland of the Irish. It is a patriot that we are commemorating today. A special man, decent, kind, honest, straight and true, a man who understood the importance of principles. We won’t forget him. And we will remember his wife Una, his courageous wife from Liverpool, and his children Brian, Brid, Niamh, Neil and his entire family. May he have peace amongst the Irish Republican heroes. Proinsias Mac Aonghusa
Conradh na Gaeilge The democratic forum for the Irish-speaking community
Joe Deighan wrote under the name of Seosamh O Duibhginn
References[edit]
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