But it is not the Governor General alone (or is it Governor's General?) that Clondrohid can boast of. There is a little plough land up that way which produced three Deputies. Dan Corkery of Macroom is a popular member of the Government Party, T.J. Murphy of West Cork, is one of Labour's most active deputies; and Tim Quill, who, I think, was a member of the Dail some years ago, is going forward again at the coming General Election in the interests of Labour. But then Clondrohid always had bright boys.
Early Dáil member, cooperative organiser, agriculturalist (1901–1960)
Timothy Quill (9 May 1901 – 10 June 1960) was an Irish Labour Party politician, farmer and a figure in the history of the cooperative movement in Ireland. A regional trade union secretary, he was a founder of the City of Cork Co-operative Society (also serving as the society's secretary), manager and secretary of the Cork Co-operative Bakery and was the editor of The Cork Co-Operator publication. Quill was an early Labour Dáil member to espouse Christian Socialism. He was also secretary of the Irish Friesian Society.
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Whenever the Labour Party is mentioned in a historical context as far as North Cork is concerned, the name of Tim Quill surfaces. Quill was an eloquent public speaker and an unusually intelligent man. He was Labour Deputy for the old North Cork constituency in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Later, he became manager of the Co-op retail shops in Cork City and then purchased a farm at Blarney where he made an internationally respected name as a breeder of Pedigree Friesian livestock.
The Labour Party stands for really Christian principles, and to decide how the country should be worked to afford a decent opportunity to everyone to lead their own lives. We have seen the result of Fascism in Italy, where marriage was encouraged, not with the Christian idea of benefitting the State, but so that the children could be reared and trained to be good soldiers and be able to fight their neighbour across the border. This is anti-Christian and it will be a bad job for Ireland if it is introduced.
We will not discuss the question as to whether the measure of freedom we have obtained is sufficient or otherwise. That is a question on which many people differ. Our complaint in the Labour Movement is that the liberty obtained is not being utilised for the development of the country as it should be, for even at tonight, to a considerable extent, 50,000 to 60,000 people in the Free State are unemployed and many hungry. The one democratic bank we had, the National Land Bank, has been handed over to the Bank of Ireland. We stand for decent wages and conditions. If the workers of the country have decent wages, business in the country will improve, as the shopkeepers and the farmers who want a market for their products will benefit. They will not eliminate unemployment by exporting the best workers of the country to America and by compelling those who have to remain at home to live on out-door relief. We seek a decent, contented and independent working class in the country - not a state of affairs that made despised and degraded paupers of the people.
I regret very much the reverse that has been sustained, where we have lost men like Mr. (Tom) Johnson, who, because of his industry and ability, would receive a place of honour in any Parliament in the world, and young men of the ability and honesty of Mr. Quill, who had been defeated in North Cork by a mere handful of votes, after making a marvellous fight against a combination of influences.
I came back to four years of internment. Following my release from the Curragh Camp and my return to Cork in 1943, I was among those who founded the Liam Mellows Branch of the Labour Party in the hope that it might become the political voice of Irish anti-fascism in this city. I was named secretary of that branch but unfortunately the chairman we were given by the Party leadership was a Cork City Councillor who would debase the name of Labour in 1944 by a vitriolic attack on what he called "the Jew boys" of Cork. It was in opposition to such anti-Semitism that I insisted on giving a public lecture under the auspices of the Liam Mellows Branch on the subject of the Jewish question. A number of prominent members of Cork's Jewish community attended that public meeting and the future Lord Mayor of Cork, Gerald Goldberg, said from the floor: "I came here to defend my people, but when I heard the lecturer I saw there was no need". But the anti-Semitic Labour Councillor did not give up. When Gerald Goldberg subsequently made a donation to branch funds I was accused of attempting to 'subvert the Party with Jewish money'. An investigating committee was established, presided over by a Labour TD. The complaint against me was sustained and I was expelled from a Party that was not prepared to support my continuing anti-fascist stand in 1944.
I noticed that Mr. Quill, T.D, stated the people who advocated the abolition of the bonus were the people who were getting 200 p.c. more for their produce than they were before the war. I presume he was referring to the farmers' produce. I wonder why the Farmers' Deputies let such a misleading statement pass unchallenged. I do not know Mr. Quill, but I gather from his statement that he must be a person who knows nothing about farmers' markets or fairs, or that he wants to create a wrong impression in the minds of the public who are not interested in farming or know nothing, or very little about their present impoverished means... I wonder has Mr. Quill read the report from last week's Dublin beef and mutton market, published in the 'Irish Independent' of Friday; if not, I would advise him to buy that back number, for I consider it would be a penny well spent. It would teach him the truth of how fast the prices of our produce are coming back to pre-war level.