Remembering 'The General'

MEATHMAN'S DIARY: Old IRA man Sean Boylan's 50th anniversary to be marked on Sunday

To people of a certain vintage, the name Sean Boylan conjures up those glory days of Meath football of the 1980s and 1990s, when the county was at the pinnacle of All-Ireland success. To a more recent generation, it is the name of a young Dunboyne baritone, currently wooing audiences and about to perform in a major operatic show in Germany.

But to the generation long before those two Seans, there was another Sean, father and grandfather to the two Dunboyne men, described by the late historian Oliver Coogan as ‘the most influential and significant figure in the republican movement in Meath’ a century ago, when Ireland gained its independence.

Described as Meath’s ‘Big Fella’, he was a close confidant to Michael Collins, and his right-hand man in the county.

He was born in 1882, and worked at the family’s market garden and herb business at Edenmore in Dunboyne, but was involved in political activities from an early age. He was present at the unveiling of the Parnell Monument in O’Connell Street in the early part of the century, and led a group of Dunboyne hurlers in the cortege at the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa in 1915, where Padraig Pearse made that famous graveside oration.

He was to become a close associate of Pearse, and deeply involved in the organisation of the 1916 Rising in the locality, although had to travel to Tara (where his family had originated from) on that Easter Sunday to announce that it was being aborted that day. On the Easter Monday, he directed the destruction of Clonsilla Railway Bridge and was based in Powerstown House in Mulhuddart on the orders of Pearse.

After the Rising, he spent periods in Wandsworth Jail and Frongoch Camps in Britain, as well as in Kilmainham. It was at Frongoch that he is believed to have first came into contact with Michael Collins. His uniform is now on display beside Collins' in Cathal Brugha Barracks.

When the Meath Brigade of the Old IRA was formed, Sean Boylan became its Commanding Officer. As a soldier, he was absolutely without fear. And Meath’s ‘Big Fella’ was every bit as iron-willed, determined and ruthless, militarily speaking, as Collins himself, according to his obituary in the Meath Chronicle in May 1971.

In September 1920, he was in charge of a group of men who took Trim Barracks and set it on fire, and he also ordered the burning of Summerhill House, which was about to be occupied by the Auxiliaries in 1921.

In 1926, Sean Boylan married Leitrim woman Teresa Doherty, but was to be widowed in a few short years. Some years later, on a trip to Leitrim, he met Gertie Quinn, 25 years his junior, and she was to become his second wife, and mother of his six children.

Boylan was also a Meath county councillor and chairman of the GAA county board.

He died 50 years ago, and at 2pm on Sunday 24th October, the Fingal Old IRA Commemorative Committee will gather at his grave in Loughsallagh Cemetery, Clonee, for a ceremony to remember him. Anybody interested in attending is welcome, having regard to Covid-19 guidelines.