‘Our father gave all that he had for his country... even his life’

The small black and photograph clipped to the top right-hand corner of Intelligence on Ireland File number 5482 – held in the British National Archives –is slightly out of focus. It has faded somewhat with the passing of more than a century. A dark-haired man stands in front of a high stone wall, dressed neatly in a shirt, tie, and heavy overcoat. He peers stoically through a pair of round wire spectacles, which frame his rather youthful face.

The photograph before me is one of only a small number of images I have ever seen of a man whose surname is instantly recognisable to anyone who has grown up in Ballina. Although a well-known residential terrace in our town bears his name, many have overlooked the remarkable life and sacrifice of a humble Derry native who made Mayo his home and played a pivotal role in our county’s tumultuous struggle for independence.

His name was Dr Francis P. Ferran.

Francis, or Frank as he was better known, was born in the small market town of Magherafelt in south County Derry in 1877. The eldest of four children, he was the only son of Felix and Mary Ferran. The family lived on Market Street, where they operated a popular drapery store on the town’s main thoroughfare. Felix was also a farmer and in keeping with the steadfast Derry tradition, a shirt manufacturer.

A well-respected and prominent local figure, Felix Ferran served as a Justice of the Peace, and member of the local Board of Guardians, which had responsibility for the Magherafelt Workhouse. A committed nationalist, he supported the Home Rule movement and donated to local collections for John Dillon MP. In 1896, he was a member of a delegation that represented Co Derry at the all-island Irish Race Convention in Dublin in September.

Frank’s mother Mary (neé Carleton) was equally politically motivated. She played an active role in the Ladies' Land League, founded by the Parnell sisters in 1881. Mary composed many of the campaign songs that captured the drive for land reform in rousing verse. When she died in 1940, aged 91, her large funeral was attended by the then Tánaiste and future President, Seán T. O’Kelly, and other government ministers.

The Irish language was to the fore in the Ferran home, the 1901 Census recording each member of the household as bilingual. The family had connections with Conradh na Gaeilge, regularly attending meetings and competing in feiseanna. As young Frank’s fluency developed, so too did his life-long commitment to the language, which he spoke in the distinctive dialect of the border regions of his home county.

Frank was a bright scholar and secured a place at the former Royal University of Ireland, Belfast, to study medicine. Following his graduation in 1910, he practiced first as a public health physician and surgeon in Omagh, Co Tyrone. In July 1911, he married his sweetheart Elanor ‘Ellie’ Harbison, the daughter of a local solicitor in Magherafelt.

Within eight months, the newlyweds had relocated to Mayo when Frank was appointed Dispensary Doctor for Foxford and the surrounding area. Under the Factories and Workshops Act, he also had responsibility for the workers in Foxford’s thriving Woollen Mills. 

Dr Ferran was at once brought into the fold of the tight-knit community of Foxford, earning a reputation as a quiet and hardworking physician who served his community to the best of his abilities. The couple had two daughters, Ann (born in late 1911) and Máire (born in 1914).

Nationalist awakening

Dr Ferran’s arrival in Foxford coincided with the beginning of an unprecedented decade in Irish history. Few could have foreseen the dramatic struggle for independence which soon engulfed the nation, transforming the lives and fortunes of countless people. For Dr Frank Ferran, the twists on the path of life that lay ahead of him would scarcely have been believed.

From 1913 onwards he was involved in drilling and training with the local branch of Na Fianna, and in 1917 was instrumental in the organisation of the Foxford battalion of the Irish Volunteers, holding the rank of captain. In August 1917, he led the company at the much anticipated ‘great review’ parade of Volunteers at the Showgrounds at Ballina, where the men were received by General Inspector Colonel Maurice Moore.

In late March 1918, Foxford played host to a large anti-Conscription meeting, in protest at the British government’s plan to impose a compulsory military draft to Ireland. Arthur Griffith was the guest speaker and was greeted with a large torch-lit procession when he alighted the train the previous night. Units of Volunteers from across the county made their way to the town for the occasion. Dr Ferran presided at the rally.

“I can assure England,” he told the enthusiastic crowd. “That if the men of Ireland had to fight, they would fight for Ireland, and their blood will never soil the Somme, or their bones the mud of Belgium.” 

Ferran, along with two other speakers, William O’Leary Curtis and Patrick Donnellan, were duly arrested on charges of seditious speech-making at an unlawful assembly. All three were sentenced to four months imprisonment in Sligo Gaol. Coincidentally, a young Michael Collins was serving a three-week stint in solitary confinement in the same prison, where he endured sleepless nights on a mattress he likened to 'a sack half filled with sods of turf'.

At the time of his arrest, Dr Ferran held the post of Justice of the Peace, prompting the local RIC district personnel to compile a detailed dossier on the 'disloyal' Derry man, calling for his immediate dismissal from the post. The report, submitted to the Office of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, referred to Dr Ferran’s situation as 'a complete scandal'. In November 1920, he was dismissed from his role as dispensary doctor in Foxford by the Local Government Board (LGB), for refusing to recognise their authority. Noted in the local press as being the first such action of its kind in the whole county, the saga was further complicated when the Swinford Board of Guardians pushed back. They simply ignored the LGB and ordered Ferran to carry on regardless.

And carry on he did, in no way deterred from his republican activities. He remained active with the Foxford battalion of the East Mayo IRA Brigade (later amalgamated with North Mayo), who would soon be called upon to play their part in the ferocious ‘Tan War’ of 1919-'21.

He was Senior Brigade Medical Officer, summoned on countless occasions to administer treatment, often in the most challenging of circumstances. He travelled the length and breadth of the county and beyond, generally under the cover of darkness and via back roads to avoid detection. He was brought to a litany of safe houses and hiding places, ambush sites and roadsides, ditches and boreens to tend to all who needed him. He carried with him his trusty leather medical bag and, above all, an unwavering sense of duty and compassion.

One such noteworthy occasion occurred in April 1920 when the Bohola Company of the East Mayo Brigade burned the local RIC Barracks to the ground. The planned operation took a disastrous turn when the petrol-soaked hay caught fire prematurely while Volunteer P.J. Carney was still inside the building. Surrounded by flames, he was unable to reach the door or exit through the barred windows.

His comrades managed to fetch a cart axel from 20 yards away and somehow prised the poker-hot bars of the barracks window open. So badly burned was Carney, that he was unrecognisable. He was brought to his home and visited by a Swinford doctor, who expressed the opinion that the young rebel would almost certainly die.

Dr Ferran was sent for. As a result of his treatment, Carney miraculously survived - even when he had to be hastily carried out of his home on a mattress and hidden when a Black and Tan raiding party swooped on his house, two nights later. Interestingly, Carney went on to be one of a party of Volunteers who travelled to England in October 1920 with the intention of assassinating the notorious hangman John Ellis, bound for Dublin to carry out the execution of 18-year-old Kevin Barry in Mountjoy Jail.

Ferran was simultaneously associated with the ‘Dáil Courts’ in Mayo. These arbitration courts were given power by Dáil Éireann to deal with civil and criminal offences and administer the law in place of British courts – a peaceful yet powerful challenge to British authority. Dr Ferran attended proceedings in Foxford, Straide and Swinford, and even allowed court sittings to take place in his own home.

By mid-July 1921, the highly-active Foxford battalion was made up of 456 members, incorporating Volunteers from Foxford, Straide, Callow, Sraheen, Attymachugh and beyond. All fell under the remit of Dr Ferran in his capacity as Medical Officer. 

All the while, his regular work in the community continued. As a dispensary doctor, he was the sole source of healthcare available to ordinary families with little or no means. The pay was modest, and the schedule was punishing. The phrase ‘trojan work’ seems hardly adequate to describe his daily efforts, not least because he was under the constant watchful glare of the Crown Forces.

Imprisonment

On May 24, 1921, Dr Francis P. Ferran was returned as one of five Sinn Féin candidates for the old Sligo-Mayo East constituency in the general election. However, by the time the electorate cast their vote, Dr Ferran was already a prisoner in Rath Internment Camp, The Curragh, Co Kildare. 

Arrested during a mass round-up in late April, he and many others were the victims of appalling brutality at the hands of their captors. The wholesale internment of Volunteers had become a strong feature of the British government’s response to IRA activities, zealously enforced under the Defence Against the Realm Act, 1920.

Rath Camp, which took its name from the nearby ancient site of ‘Gibbert’ Rath, had a capacity for 1,200 internees: 40 wooden huts, 30 men per hut. The outer and inner perimeters were secured with barbed wire fencing, and at each corner stood a blockhouse from which large searchlights were shone after dark. A high watchtower in the centre of the camp loomed menacingly over the huts and their inhabitants below.

Conditions were primitive. The huts were cold and damp. In wet weather, the campgrounds became thick with mud. Food rations were meagre, and while packages from relatives were permitted, they were often not distributed in a timely fashion, if at all. Tea, Bovril, and cocoa powder were regarded as prized luxury items.

Numerous accounts of intimidation, harassment, and brutality at the hands of the prison guards have survived from the period. Many of the prominent republican leaders of the day, such as Rory O’Connor, Desmond Fitzgerald and Christopher ‘Todd’ Andrews, served time in the camp, the latter recounting his time there in his 1979 autobiography, Dublin Made Me.

To keep order and morale intact, the IRA leadership enforced routine and discipline. A variety of activities from cooking and washing clothes to concerts and football matches were a welcome distraction from the monotony of daily prison life.

Upon his arrival, Dr Ferran quickly took up the role of medical officer in the camp’s makeshift infirmary. The health, care and comfort of his fellow comrades were his primary concern. There were outbreaks of Tuberculosis among the men. Various bouts of other fevers and infectious diseases were commonplace, and inevitable, given the sub-standard living situation. A constant stream of new internees flowed through the gates, many of whom had endured severe ill-treatment during their arrest and transport to their new home behind the wire. When the huts spilled over with surplus inmates, tents were erected around the camp, which was filled with Volunteers from every corner of Ireland.

Access to good quality, nutritious food was a constant battle. No fresh vegetables were supplied. The low-quality margarine was often rancid. Cuts of meat made available were inferior and there were incidents of rotting fish and offal being supplied to the camp kitchen. Fresh milk was often in short supply. Dr Ferran liaised with prison authorities in the hopes of securing improved supplies and an increase in daily rations. Unsurprisingly, his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Dr Ferran TD was released from Rath Camp on August 8, 1921, just in time to attend the convening of the second Dáil Éireann at the Mansion House on the 16th of that month. Four weeks previously, a Truce between Ireland and Great Britain brought 131 weeks of terrible warfare to an end. Collins and Griffith were the chief negotiators in an envoy of five Irishmen sent to London in October of that year, tasked with reaching an agreement with Great Britain.

The Treaty, signed in the early hours of the morning of December 6, brought into being a 26-county Irish Free State. Ireland was granted dominion status within the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Members of the new Irish parliament would swear an Oath of Allegiance to the new Free State and to the King. A Boundary Commission would be established to draw up a border with Northern Ireland. The resolution of one conflict had sown the seeds of another, more bitter and divisive, yet to come.

For Dr Francis Ferran, the proposed ‘Articles of Agreement’ were wholly unacceptable, and he took the Republican side in the bitter ‘parting of the ways’ that followed. His contributions to the highly charged Dáil debates on the Treaty of late December 1921 and early January 1922 made his position crystal clear. He believed the Irish delegation had fallen foul of British political trickery, duped into a hasty agreement by cynical threats of war by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, aptly nicknamed ‘The Welsh Wizard’.

“The Treaty or immediate war has been used to stampede the Irish people… I hold it as a dishonest threat…from Downing Street,” he told the house.

Frustration soon gave way to disillusionment. In one of his final speeches in Dáil Éireann. he remarked: “I have listened to men whom I thought would rank among the most legendary of Ireland; I wish to think so still…. their thinking is not consistent with the honour of the past. No state born in dishonour can live in honour.” 

In the general election of June 1922, he was returned as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate but refused to take his seat. He returned to Foxford and resumed his activities with the local brigade. The nature of the enemy may have changed, but the risk was as great as ever.

Tragic death

In August 1922, Dr Ferran was arrested by Free State forces under the command of General Tony Lawlor in Foxford, but through interventions from the sympathetic parish priest, Canon Henry, he was released. A report issued by Western Command Headquarters called for his immediate re-arrest: 

“This man is very active in Irregular Columns and …is a danger and should not have been released” was the advice given to the National Army Director of Intelligence. Dr Ferran was ‘picked up’ soon afterwards. He would never again be seen in his adopted home county of Mayo nor lay eyes on his beloved wife Ellie and their two little girls.

He was transported to Athlone Prison, before being transferred to the ‘Tintown No 1’ Internment Camp, The Curragh, which was put into use by the newly-formed Prisoners' Department of the Provisional Government in Spring 1923.

The vista was all too familiar. Rows of windowless huts with serrated concrete floors, encircled by high barbed-wire fencing. There was, of course, one glaring exception – his new jailors were once his comrades-in-arms.

Once again, he was established as a camp medic and focused his energies on the well-being of his fellow internees, which soon numbered above 600. His own health was neglected as a result, and he suffered from bronchitis and lingering chest pains. 

A great many of the prisoners hailed from Mayo, Kerry, Limerick, and Dublin. Among them was Peadar O’Donnell, the prominent Donegal republican who had taken part in the occupation of the Four Courts in April 1923. He was appointed O/C of Tintown No 1 and had no sooner set foot in the wretched enclosure than he was planning his escape from it. He quickly identified one of the three huts given over to the ‘hospital wing’ as the ideal location to begin digging a tunnel to freedom.

O’Donnell approached Dr Ferran with his scheme, which would involve some of the men pretending to be sick to facilitate transfer into the hospital hut. After listening thoughtfully for some time, Dr Ferran replied simply: “That can’t be. I can’t have any part of the hospital used for that.” 

O’Donnell pressed his case but was to discover that the Derryman’s principles would not be so easily compromised.

“It was no good,” O’Donnell wrote in his 1932 memoir ‘The Gates Flow Open’. “Dr Ferran would not have any part of his hospital improperly used. He had accepted the huts from the enemy as a hospital, and as a hospital he would use them.

“I had never met Dr Ferran before we came together in Tintown”, recalled O’Donnell, “…but there was no mistaking the mettle of the man."

Ultimately, O’Donnell simply walked out of Tintown in March 1924, dressed in a Free State uniform.

In a tragically ironic twist, Dr Ferran fell dangerously ill in the summer of 1923 – no doubt the enormous physical and mental burden of the previous years had finally taken their toll. His condition deteriorated rapidly. On June 10, in the hospital hut of Tintown No 1, at the age of just 46, Dr Francis P. Ferran went to his eternal rest. The cause of his death was recorded as septic pneumonia. No family or friends were permitted to keep vigil at his bedside in those last days. No loved one heard his final words. Outside, armed Free State sentries patrolled the camp, calling out ‘All’s Well Here!”, on the hour, every hour.

Dr Frank Ferran’s funeral took place on June 12, 1923. There were large crowds in attendance at the Requiem Mass in the Carmelite Church on Whitefriar Street, Dublin. A party of uniformed Cumann na mBan marched on either side of the hearse, en route to Glasnevin Cemetery, where he was laid to rest in the Republican Plot. The chief mourners – his wife, young daughters, mother, and siblings – were joined by a multitude of sympathisers from Dublin, Mayo, and his native Derry. Among the notable figures of the day in attendance were Mrs Pearse (mother of the 1916 martyrs P.H. and Willie), Seán T. O’ Kelly, Conor Maguire, P.T. McGinley (President of Conradh na Gaeilge) and Irish language writer Miss Alice Furlong.

Loss and legacy

The loss of Dr Ferran was a huge blow to the anti-Treaty IRA, both in Mayo and nationally. For his adoring family, his lonesome death in pitiful circumstances cast a dark shadow over their lives forever more.

The events surrounding the death of Dr Ferran TD were raised in Dáil Éireann on July 10, 1923 – exactly one month after his untimely passing. Patrick McCartan, Tyrone-born TD for Laois-Offaly, asked General Richard Mulcahy, Minister for Defence, if he was aware that Mrs Ferran had not been informed of her husband’s rapidly deteriorating condition and that '…a physician desired by Dr Ferran’s family was not permitted to see him'.

General Mulcahy told the house that 'absolutely nothing had been left undone to save Dr Ferran’s life', and that he had been attended by a senior physician named Dr Carroll. He claimed a message had been sent to Mrs Ferran via her husband’s brother-in-law Dr O’Kelly.

The following day, a lengthy and scathing letter to the editor of The Irish Times, penned by Ferran’s brother-in-law Dr James O’Kelly went to print. The sole purpose of the correspondence was to outline, in painstaking detail, the many inaccuracies in Mulcahy’s statement in Dáil Éireann.

Dr O’Kelly insisted that no contact whatsoever had been made with Mrs Ferran and that it was only a result of repeated pleas for information that news of Dr Ferran’s ill-health was finally conveyed to his family, on June 6, 1923. Sustained requests for permission to visit Dr Ferran, or send a doctor of their choosing, were left unanswered. Dr O’Kelly even delivered a letter by hand to the relevant authorities in a desperate attempt to hasten a reply. Finally, at 8pm on Friday, June 9, General Mulcahy conceded and the family was given permission to attend the deathbed. It was an agonising case of ‘too little, too late’. Ferran had already slipped into a coma at 3pm and never regained consciousness.

In his letter, Dr O’Kelly called on the Minister for Defence to amend his comments and offer a full explanation to the Dáil. The Minister took no such course of action.

In 1945, Dr Ferran’s widow Ellie (now remarried to Mr Mc Swinney of Youghal, Co Cork), began the process of applying for a Military Service Pension in respect of her late husband. These files have recently been made available by the Bureau of Military History. Dr Ferran’s file makes for extraordinarily grim reading. It contains 92 pages and spans the years 1945 to 1975. Over the course of three decades, Dr Ferran’s wife and daughters were engaged in an exhaustive correspondence with the Pensions Board. When Ellie passed away in 1963, her daughters Ann and Máire took up the mantle and continued to plead their case. The family had been left virtually penniless after Dr Ferran’s death and had already suffered great hardships owing to his long periods of active service and imprisonment.

Numerous letters of support were submitted - comrades such as William Doherty, Foxford, and PJ Ruttledge TD were more than willing to attest to the exemplary service of Ferran and verify the reduced circumstances of his dependants. At one point, Ann Ferran was compelled to remind the Board that her late father had been honoured on Republican memorials in both Balla and Ballina and that the latter town’s council had even named ‘Ferran Terrace’ in his memory.

Incredibly, not one shilling in respect of Dr Ferran, described by his comrade and fellow Tintown internee Martin J. McGrath of Ballina as 'a courageous soldier, statesman and patriot', was ever paid out.

June 10, 2023, will mark the centenary of the passing of Dr Francis Patrick Ferran, TD.

In the words of his daughter Ann, “Our father gave all that he had for his country…even his life”.

He may not have been born in Mayo, but he was certainly one of our own.

Let us not forget him.