Mon 04 Jan 10: The 15th of January is the anniversary of Sean McBride founder of Amnesty International
Seán MacBride was born in Paris on the 26th January 1904. His father Major John MacBride fought against the British at Jacob’s factory during the Easter Rising of 1916 and was executed on the 5th May 1916. His mother Maud Gonne MacBride was a leading Irish nationalist, women’s rights campaigner and the long time muse of the poet WB Yeats.
Brought up by his mother in France until he was in his early teens, his first language was French and he spoke English with a foreign accent. His parent’s marriage had ended shortly after his birth and MacBride and his mother returned to Ireland following his father’s execution. He was sent to school at Mount St Benedict’s in Gorey, County Wexford.
Following in his father’s footsteps, he soon took up arms in the rebel cause. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1919 when he was 15 years old and saw active duty during the Irish War of Independence. He was imprisoned in 1920 and his mother called on her old friend Charlotte Despard, whose brother was Lord French, the Viceroy of Ireland to intervene on behalf of her 16 year old son.
In July 1921 a truce was called between the British and the Irish Republicans and an Irish delegation was sent to London to negotiate a treaty. MacBride accompanied the group. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on the 6 December 1921. It established an Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth. But it also included an oath of allegiance to the King and agreed to the partition of 6 counties in Ulster, which would remain under British rule.
When the Treaty was presented to the Dáil it split the government and country into those that supported it and those that did not. MacBride was against the agreement and took the Republican side in the subsequent Civil War. He was imprisoned several times by the Free State forces.
On his release in 1924 he studied law at University College Dublin and resumed his republican activities. He moved to London and found employment as a journalist on The Morning Post. In 1925 he married Catalina “Kid” Bulfin. The wedding took place in great secrecy in the University Church, on St Stephens’ Green, Dublin as both of them were on the Free State Government’s “wanted” list.
Back in Ireland in 1926, MacBride opposed Eamon de Valera’s policy of constitutional politics and remained active in the Irish Republican Army when De Valera split with Sinn Féin and established Fianna Fáil. He was appointed Director of Intelligence for the IRA and would eventually become Chief of Staff.
MacBride was regarded as a ruthless extremist and in 1927 when Kevin O’Higgins was assassinated as he walked to mass in Booterstown, County Dublin, MacBride and several other IRA members were rounded up and charged with the murder. The charge was later dropped as he had a perfect alibi. He had been on a boat on his way back from England at the time of the murder.
In 1931 MacBride launched Saor Éire (Free Ireland), an organisation of workers and working farmers. Although a non-military organisation it was declared unlawful and MacBride became public enemy number one of the State security services.
MacBride was called to the Irish Bar in 1937 and he resigned from the IRA in the same year. During the Second World War when the republicans supported the Germans in their fight against Britain, he achieved eminence as a defender of the IRA prisoners.
Following the end of the war MacBride founded the political party Clann na Poblachta hoping it would replace Fianna Fáil as Ireland’s political majority. In the October 1947 by-election he won a seat in Dáil Éireann (Irish parliament) for the Dublin County constituency and in the 1948 general election the new party won 10 seats and joined Fine Gael and the Irish Labour party in a coalition government with Fianna Fáil in opposition. MacBride was appointed Minister for External Affairs (foreign minister)
As Foreign Minister he made an important contribution to the European movement, especially in the Council of Europe. He served as President of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from 1949 and 1950 and was a key force in securing the acceptance of the European Convention on Human Rights. MacBride announced the Ireland would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as long as the 6 counties in Ulster remained partitioned. He also played an instrumental role in the repeal of the External Relations Act and the Declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1949. On Easter Monday, 18 April 1949, 33 years after Pearse had proclaimed the Irish Republic from the steps of the General Post Office in Dublin, the Irish Free State left the Commonwealth of Nations and became the Republic of Ireland.
In 1951 there was a split within Clann na Poblachta. A bill for a free, State maternity service, known as the “mother and child” scheme was introduced by Minister for Health Noel Browne. It was attached by the Catholic hierarchy and medical establishment. MacBride called for the minister’s resignation, which Browne did, along with several of his followers and the government fell. MacBride kept his seat in the 1954 general election but failed to be re-elected in subsequent elections and resigned from politics concentrating on his work as a barrister and campaigner for human rights. He practised full time at the bar until 1963.
MacBride was a founding member of the human rights organisation Amnesty International and served as its chairman from 1961 to 1975. In 1963 he moved to Geneva to take up the position of Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists a post he held until 1971 and from 1974 to 1985 he was President of the International Peace Bureau. He was appointed UN High Commissioner for Namibia to oversee the ending of South African rule there, and drafted the constitution of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the first constitution of Ghana after it had achieved independence from Great Britain. In 1980 he was appointed Chairman of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). In 1984 MacBride proposed a plan to eliminate discrimination against Catholics by employers in Northern Ireland. Known as the “MacBride Principles” the plan was met with predictably mixed reactions.
Seán MacBride was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974 as a man who “mobilised the conscience of the world in the fight against injustice”. He also received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1977 and the UNESCO Silver Medal for service in 1980.
Towards the end of his life he occupied a more neutral position when it came to relations between the East and West, becoming more disillusioned with the idea of European integration and being disenchanted with America. In 1986 he surprised many by opposing a referendum which sought to delete the prohibition of divorce from the Irish constitution. People had forgotten that he was a devout catholic.
On the 15th January 1988 Seán MacBride died at his home in Roebuck House, Clonskeagh, County Dublin, where his mother had once lived. He was just days short of his 84th birthday. His obituary in The Irish Times noted “he worked tirelessly without thought for any tangible reward and never hesitated to commit his own money to causes which he supported”
He is buried in the Republican plot in Glasnevin cemetery alongside his mother, wife and son.