Michael Mallin and the 1916 Rising

How much do you know about Michael Mallin, one of the executed leaders of the 1916 rising? A ‘drummer boy’ who served in the British army in India, Mallin was a keen supporter of the Gaelic League and it was this involvement which drew him into the circle of many of those he would go into battle alongside in 1916.

Here the Irish Press of 1961 reports on Mallin’s story:

Michael Mallin is sometimes overshadowed by the other leaders, and overlooked by those who remember. This should not be, for Mallin was as great as any of those who fought for Ireland that glorious Eastertide when they breathed a new soul into a nation that was nearly dead.

Michael Mallin was a Dublin man, born about 1886. As a youth he enlisted as a drummer boy in the British Army, and spent many of his early years in India. It was in India that he first came to hate British Imperialism and all that it stood for. He held a high opinion of the Indians and was disgusted at their treatment by the army of which he was a member. He often told the story of how on one occasion an Indian quite close to him made an attempt on the life of a British officer. The Indian' escaped but another man was tried for the offence and was convicted and executed on the false testimony of 13 British soldiers. Michael Mallin was also a witness at the trial, and he was the only member of the regiment who gave evidence as to the innocence of the prisoner. Incidentally, he was also the only one of the 14 witnesses who escaped the vengeance of the Indians. The other 13 were shot, stabbed to death, or killed in some other way before the regiment was sent home to England.

Musical talent

As an army bandsman Mallin showed considerable musical talent. He was proficient on several instruments and, in due course, became conductor of the regimental band. It was whilst he was in India that Michael Mallin first became interested in the Irish language.. He always kept in touch with the home country through the Irish newspapers, which were sent to him regularly. In these papers he read of the formation and progress of the Gaelic League and this enthusiasm led him to send home to Ireland for Gaelic textbooks, which he studied in India during his leisure hours. When his 7-year period of service was up, Michael Mallin did not re-enlist, as most soldiers then did. Instead he came home to Ireland and resumed his apprenticeship to the silk weaving trade, taking up shop at 122 Emmet Road, Inchicore, Dublin where he had left off before he joined the army. In due course he became a qualified silk weaver, and before long was appointed secretary to the Silk Weavers' trade union. It was this appointment which brought him into contact with James Connolly and the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, and, through them, he joined and became an officer of the Irish Citizen Army. . . Before he joined the Citizen Army, however, Michael Mallin had an interest in the national movement.. He had a small shop in Little Green Street which his wife looked after while he worked as a silk weaver in Atkinson's poplin factory. At night time he gathered around, him 14 or 15 young lads' from the district and gave them lessons in "scouting and signalling’’. He also brought the boys out to the Dublin mountains on Sunday. This, was the year before Fianna Eireann was; started, so that it could be said with truth that Mallih's troop of boys was the forerunner of the national boy scout movement…

When Fianna Eireann was started Mallin handed over his troop of boys to them and he helped to organise and instruct the first band which the Fianna ran. It was in 1913 that Michael Mallin first came into conflict with the British authorities. At this time he had a small newsagents' shop in Green Street. After Tom Clarke's shop in Parnell Street, Mallin's in Green Street had the biggest sale for "Irish Freedom," the monthly organ of the Irish Republican Brotherhood! When the Dublin newsboys joined the great 1913 strike, the D.M.P. attacked them and batoned them as they had previously batoned the dockers. A few days later the newsboys retaliated by wrecking two newspaper vans in Liffey Street….

For more information on the life and times of Mallin search the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com )