page_title: Michael O'Flanagan
section_title: Chaplain to the First Dáil
hierarchical_section_title: Michael O'Flanagan / General Election 1918 / Chaplain to the First Dáil
caption_attribution_description: English: Draft letter from Fr. O'Flanagan to Bishop Coyne, 29th April 1919
context_page_description: Michael O'Flanagan was a Roman Catholic priest, Irish language scholar, inventor and historian. He was a popular, socialist Irish republican; "a vice-president of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, he was a proponent of land redistribution." He was Gaelic League envoy to the United States from 1910 to 1912, and he supported the striking dockers in Sligo in 1913.
  O'Flanagan was friends with many of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and was vocal in his admiration for the sacrifice made by the men of Easter Week. He was active in reorganising the Sinn Féin party after the Rising. He was the main driving force behind the Election of the Snows in North Roscommon in February 1917, when Count Plunkett won a by-election as an independent candidate.
  At the Sinn Féin Convention in October 1917, Éamon de Valera was elected President. Along with Arthur Griffith, O'Flanagan was elected joint Vice-President, a position he held from 1917 to 1923 and again from 1930 to 1931. He campaigned for the imprisoned Griffith in the East Cavan by-election in 1918, and was instrumental in securing the seat.
context_section_description: The successful Sinn Féin candidates abstained from Westminster and instead proclaimed an Irish Republic with Dáil Éireann as its parliament.
  The First Dáil's inauguration took place in the Mansion House in Dublin on 21 January 1919. "The majority of the 103 members returned in the 1918 election were not present – some by choice, others through force of circumstance, their absences recorded in the recurring phrase of that day ‘faoi ghlas ag Gallaibh.'" Harry Boland and Michael Collins were absent, having travelled to England to engineer de Valera's escape from Lincoln prison.
  O'Flanagan was appointed chaplain to the First Dáil.  He was introduced by the chairman Cathal Brugha as "the Staunchest Priest who ever lived in Ireland," and invited to open the proceedings with a prayer. He duly read a prayer in both Irish and English calling for guidance from the holy spirit. The opening of the First Dáil coincided with the outbreak of the War of Independence when two policemen were shot dead in Tipperary that afternoon.
  O'Flanagan attended a meeting of the Dáil in early April, attended by a larger number of TDs including escapee  de Valera, Collins and Boland. The event was photographed for publicity and was printed as a poster and postcard.
  In early May the Irish American delegation visited Dublin on their return from a fruitless mission to the Paris Peace Conference. The delegates, Michael F. Ryan, Edward Dunne and Frank P. Walsh posed for a photograph with senior members of Sinn Féin. O'Flanagan is standing with Count Plunkett and Arthur Griffith, accompanied by Éamon de Valera, Lawrence O'Neill the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and possibly W. T. Cosgrave, on the steps of the Mansion House.
  On 19 May 1919, after a protracted period of negotiations involving the intercession of Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam, O'Flanagan was restored to his full status as a priest. He was sent to Roscommon Town to resume his clerical duties. As a member of the Dáil's Land Executive he was responsible for propaganda and agriculture in County Roscommon. An illustration in the National Library of Ireland shows him attending a meeting the Dáil, chaired by Count Plunkett, on 21 June 1919.
caption: Draft copy of a letter from Fr. O'Flanagan to Bishop Coyne, 29 April 1919.
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