Ernest Blythe

Blythe was born to a Church of Ireland and unionist family in the townland of Magheraliskmisk, Maghaberry, County Antrim, in 1889. He was the son of James Blythe, a farmer, and Agnes Thompson.[3][4] He was educated locally, at Maghaberry Cross Roads primary school. At the age of fifteen he started working as a clerk in the Department of Agriculture in Dublin.[5]

Seán O'Casey invited Blythe to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which Blythe accepted. He was 18 at the time.[6][7] He also joined Conradh na Gaeilge, where his first Irish teacher was Sinéad Flanagan, the future wife of Éamon de Valera.[7] He was hesitant to join at first because he was an Ulster Protestant and was afraid he would be kicked out.[6] He "converted to Sinn Féin" after reading the 'Sinn Féin newspaper'.[6]

In 1909, Blythe became a junior news reporter with the North Down Herald and stayed with the paper till 1913. During this period of his life he had dual membership of the Orange Order and the IRB. On 26 September 1910 Blythe joined the Newtownards Orange Order and remained in the Order until 14 February 1912.[8]

To improve his knowledge of the Irish language, he went to the County Kerry Gaeltacht where he worked as an agricultural labourer to earn his keep.[5]

He was at one point the "centre" or head of the Belfast IRB but was asked to step down by Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough so that McCullough could be promoted to a higher office.[6]

During this time, he was the organizer for the Irish Volunteers in County Clare before 1916. His activity spread all over the south-west region to counties Kerry, Cork, Limerick and Clare. He became Captain of the Lipsole Company (of actors) and toured the region with a list of names of people to recruit.[9] Blythe was one of the few organisers sent out into the country (others were Liam Mellows and Ernie O'Malley) and with little qualification was largely self-taught. Supplies were few and far between, as well as spasmodic. IRA GHQ were loth to commit scant resources. But Blythe was expected to drill, and train his men, as well avoid conscription.[10]

Blythe was regularly arrested 1913-15 under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, when he was finally ordered to be deported from Ireland in July 1915: some of the others on the writ were Liam Mellows, Herbert Pim, and Denis McCullough. Blythe's place was taken by Desmond Fitzgerald.[11] He refused to transport to Britain so was sent to spend three months in Crumlin Road prison, Belfast. On 30 March 1916, a large crowd assembled outside the Mansion House in Dublin to protest against Blythe's and Mellows's deportation. Two policemen were shot at.[12]

Thus, the authorities sent him to a town in Berkshire. He then failed to report to police and was sent to Oxford Prison, Blythe was unable to participate in the Easter Rising due to his imprisonment there.[7] From Oxford, he was sent to Brixton Prison then transferred to Reading Prison. He was released at Christmas 1916, and was ordered never to return to Ireland. However, he returned to Belfast where he was later detained. He was later released and went to Skibbereen to edit the Southern Star which had been purchased by Sinn Féin. He ignored a (British Army) court martial to leave Munster, which resulted in a 12 months imprisonment in Dundalk and Belfast. During his time in Dundalk, he went on hunger strike for several days.

He married Anne McHugh in 1919.

While Minister of Finance, Ernest Blythe granted a small annual subsidy to the Abbey Theatre. This made the Abbey Theatre the first state subsidised theatre in the English-speaking world. In 1935, from an invitation from W.B. Yeats, he became a director of the Abbey Theatre. Between 1941 and 1967 he served as managing director of the Abbey Theatre. He remained a director until 1972.

Blythe was highly criticised during his time as Managing Director.[27] It was said that he rejected many good plays in favour of those which were more financially rewarding and ran the theatre into the ground as a creative force.[28]

Upon criticism of Blythe only performing comedies, he replied: "There is no reason, snobbery apart. Why, in their plays, dramatists should boycott ordinary dwellings. Most people in Ireland are the habituees of farmhouse kitchens, city tenements or middle-class sitting-rooms and their loves and hates, disappointments and triumphs, grief’s and joys, are just as interesting and amusing, or as touching, as those of, shall we say alliteratively, denizens of ducal drawing-rooms, or boozers in denizened brothels".

Blythe brought to prominence several Irish dramatists. These included Brian Friel, Seamus Byrne, Micheal J. Mollow, Hugh Leonard and many more.

It was through Blythe's efforts that the new Abbey Theatre was built. He was responsible for raising £750,000 to rebuild the theatre which had been destroyed by fire on 18 July 1951. In August 1967, Blythe resigned as Managing Director of the Abbey Theatre. He remained as a member of the theatre board until 1972. He was also an active member of the Television Authority.

In January 1922, during the Treaty Debates he said that nationalists had the right to coerce the six counties of Ulster to be a part of a united Ireland but that "as we pledged ourselves not to coerce them, it is as well that they should not have a threat of coercion above them all the time" while also believing there is "no prospect of bringing about the unification of Ireland within any reasonable period of time by attacking the North East".[29]

Blythe wrote a book Briseadh na Teorann (The smashing of the border) which was published in 1955. It was a revised account of the partition question regarding the divide of the North and South of Ireland. Blythe opposed coercion as a method of achieving a united Ireland and wrote "partitionist practitioners of violence do more to keep Partition in being than the most extreme section of orangemen". He also challenged republican dogma regarding who was to blame for partition writing "There would be twenty times for truth in describing partition as Ireland's crime against herself than in describing it according to our propagandist formula as England's crime against Ireland."

The book sold between 300 and 350 copies in the first four months.[30] Although his book did not get the recognition it deserved as it was written in Irish, Blythe's contribution to the partition question is regarded as both pioneering and influential.[30]

Throughout his life he was committed to the revival of the Irish language. He encouraged Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards to found an Irish language theatre in Galway.

He published three volumes of autobiography: Trasna na Bóinne (1957), Slán le hUltaibh (1969) and Gaeil á Múscailt (1973).

Ernest Blythe died on 23 February 1975. His funeral service was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Blythe saw his role in politics, as previously stated in this article, as having to keep the economy balanced at all times, this is why his name has 'established a public notoriety far beyond' political circles.[14] During his tenure, 'taxation remained low as did spending'.[31] Blythe's subsidy to The Abbey Theatre influenced the performing arts in Irish society.