Tom Kettle | |
|---|---|
 Thomas Kettle BL. in 1905 | |
| Member of Parliament for East Tyrone | |
| In office 5 July 1906 – 28 November 1910 | |
| Preceded by | Patrick Doogan |
| Succeeded by | William Redmond |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Thomas Michael Kettle 9 February 1880 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 9 September 1916 (aged 36) near Ginchy, France |
| Political party | Irish Parliamentary Party |
| Spouse |
Mary Sheehy (m. 1909) |
| Alma mater | University College Dublin |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | British Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1916 |
| Rank | Lieutenant |
| Unit | Royal Dublin Fusiliers |
| Battles/wars | First World War |
Thomas Michael Kettle (9 February 1880 – 9 September 1916) was an Irish economist, journalist, barrister, writer, war poet, soldier and Home Rule politician. As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Tyrone from 1906 to 1910 at Westminster. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, then on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 enlisted for service in the British Army, with which he was killed in action on the Western Front in the Autumn of 1916. He was a much admired old comrade of James Joyce,[1] who considered him to be his best friend in Ireland,[2] as well as the likes of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, Oliver St. John Gogarty and Robert Wilson Lynd.
He was one of the leading figures of the generation who at the turn of the twentieth century gave new intellectual life to Irish party politics, and to the constitutional movement towards All-Ireland Home Rule. A gifted speaker with an incisive mind and devastating wit, his death was regarded as a great loss to Ireland's political and intellectual life.[3]
As G. K. Chesterton surmised, "Thomas Michael Kettle was perhaps the greatest example of that greatness of spirit which was so ill rewarded on both sides of the channel [...] He was a wit, a scholar, an orator, a man ambitious in all the arts of peace; and he fell fighting the barbarians because he was too good a European to use the barbarians against England, as England a hundred years before has used the barbarians against Ireland".[4]
- ^ Joyce and Company By David Pierce (London:2006) p152
- ^ Conor, Volume I: A Biography of Conor Cruise O'Brien: Volume I ..., Volume 2 By Donald Harman Akenson (Canada:1994) p49
- ^ A Dictionary of Irish History since 1800, D. J. Hickey & J. E. Doherty, Gill & MacMillan (1980)
- ^ Walking Like A Queen – Irish Impressions By G. K. Chesterton (2008 Tradibooks edition, France) p90.