Robert Brennan (journalist)

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Robert Brennan (22 July 1881 – 13 November 1964) was an

1916 Easter Rising and later became the Irish Free State's first minister to the United States. He was the father of Irish-American author and New Yorker columnist Maeve Brennan
.

Brennan (left)

Life

Brennan was born at John's Gate Street,

1916 Easter Rising
.

He commanded the insurgents in Wexford during the

Sinn Féín
National Director of Elections in December 1918. The election turned out to be a resounding success for the party.

He was Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Dáil Éireann, from February 1921 to January 1922.[2] He organised the Irish Race Convention in Paris in 1922.

He was director of publicity for the

anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army during the Irish Civil War. He was a founder and a director, in 1934, of The Irish Press newspaper.[2]

His imprisonments and activities greatly fragmented his daughter Maeve's childhood. In her story The Day We Got Our Own Back she recounts her memory of how, when she was five, her home was raided by Free State forces looking for her father, who was on the run. Robert Brennan describes the same incident in his memoir Allegiance.

Robert Brennan was appointed the

Washington, D.C. in 1934. He was Minister Plenipotentiary to the US from 1938 to 1947. Robert, his wife, and one of his sons returned to Ireland (his three daughters remained in the United States) when he was appointed Director of Radio Éireann (1947–1948).[2]

He wrote mystery stories as a hobby. He died in Dublin in 1964.[5]

In 2016, Brennan was honored with a monument in Wexford.[6]

Works

Books

  • The False Fingertip (1921) under the pseudonym Selskar Kearney
  • The Toledo Dagger (1927), a detective novel
  • The Man Who Walked like a Dancer
  • Allegiance (1950) (autobiography)
  • Ireland Standing Firm: My Wartime Mission in Washington and Eamon De Valera - A Memoir. Dublin: University College Dublin Press. 2002.
    ISBN 1-900621-68-1
    .

Plays

  • Good Night, Mr. O’Donnell (1951)

References

  1. ^ "General Registrar's Office". IrishGenealogy.ie. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  2. ^ a b c d Maeve Brennan (2008). "Robert Brennan and Maeve Brennan papers, 1935–1967". University of Delaware Library. Archived from the original on 19 June 2010. Retrieved 1 November 2008.
  3. ^ "Dáil Éireann Department of Publicity: History and Progress". Documents in Irish Foreign Policy. Royal Irish Academy. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
  4. ISBN 0-7171-0485-0
    .
  5. ISBN 0-7171-2945-4
    .
  6. ^ "New Robert Brennan monument unveiled".

External links

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