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Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Sean McEntee (1899-1984)
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Email: info@searcs-web.com Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Sean McEntee (1899-1984) |
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Sean McEntee, a descendant of
Charles Gavin Duffy, was born in Belfast
where he was
educated by the Christian Brothers' and at St Malachy's College. McEntee worked on the
Great Northern Railway, for Belfast Corporation, and as an assistant engineer for Dundalk Urban
District Council. In 1915 McEntee joined the Irish Volunteers. He partook in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin and was one of the last insurgents to leave the G.P.O. For his part McEntee was sentenced to death but this was commuted and he was interned in Stafford Barracks, England until the General Amnesty of 1918. On his release McEntee published Poems from which the sonnet below is taken. In the same year McEntee, a Sinn Féin candidate, was elected to the First Dáil Éireann for County Monaghan. In the late 1920's McEntee joined the Fianna Fáil Party and remained in politics until his retirement from public life in the 1960's.© Since thou has proffered, Queen, for my guerdon The felon's festering gyres and prison bed, I take them, for thy gracious godly-head Hath made them meeker than a kingly crown; And though my life herewith should be cast down, And all the hopes life fostered should lie dead, And in obscurity my days be sped, I hold oblivion greater than renown. For I have built for the eternal years, Secret, unseen, like mite in tropic sea, That rears a wondrous isle from out its bone And in the work absorbed yet perseveres So they that honour thee shall honour me When thou art throned, Queen, upon thy throne. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2007 |
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