Stritch, James

by C. J. Woods

Stritch, James, (1855/6?–1933), Fenian and founder of the National Graves Association, was born in Co. Roscommon, possibly to Thomas and Elizabeth Stritch. Towards the end of his life, during which he was the trusted treasurer of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Committee and a participant in the Easter 1916 rising, he was credited with a minor but important role in the well-organised rescue of Thomas J. Kelly (qv) and another Fenian from a prison van in Manchester in 1867. This event resulted in the death of a policeman and the consequent hanging of three principals, the 'Manchester martyrs', commemorated ever afterwards in nationalist ballads and annually by a march to Glasnevin cemetery. It was believed that Stritch, a mere youth, pulled up the horses drawing the van. Circumstantial evidence makes this is at least plausible.

Stritch was a close friend of James Boland (qv), a member of the IRB from the mid 1870s. Boland was born and grew up in Manchester, his father was also from Roscommon, and his mother was a first cousin of Kelly; he moved to Dublin, where in 1880 he became an overseer in the city corporation's paving department. Stritch was living at Ashton-under-Lyne (near Manchester) in April 1881 working as a paver; in 1882 he too obtained employment in Dublin as an overseer in the corporation's paving department. He was one of the IRB delegation led by Frederick Allan (qv) that welcomed Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa (qv) on his return to Ireland in 1894. It seems likely, from this and his association with Boland, that he was by then a member of the IRB. Stritch was an habitué of the National Club (effectively an IRB club), whose premises, 41 Rutland Square (later renamed Parnell Square), were purchased in 1899 by the Irish National Foresters, a benevolent society of which Stritch was an active member for most of his life, being a founder in 1887 of the John Dillon (no. 94) branch. After Boland's early death in 1895, Stritch concerned himself with Boland's sons Harry (qv) and Gerald (qv), eventually, in 1904, introducing them to the Joseph Holt '98 Club, which met sometimes at the Foresters' premises, sometimes at Stritch's home, 51 Mountjoy Street, by which route they joined the IRB.

The annual pilgrimage to the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone (qv) at Bodenstown, Co. Kildare, was Stritch's great passion. He participated in 1896 as one of the Foresters' contingent. In 1898, the centenary of the United Irish rising, he was a member of the Wolfe Tone and United Irish Memorial Committee, of which he became treasurer in or before 1905. He collaborated successfully with Thomas Clarke (qv), who joined the committee soon after returning from America in November 1907. The committee's finances having been put in order, it became a 'front' for the IRB; satellite clubs were formed, in reality circles of the IRB, and in 1911 the pilgrimages were resumed after a five-year cessation. Remaining close to Clarke, in 1913 Stritch got the Foresters to build a large hall at the rear of their premises; Seán T. O'Kelly (qv) recollected its use for drilling by the IRB and for branch meetings, making it 'the local IRB headquarters for Dublin' (BMH, 213).

Stritch was with Clarke in the GPO in 1916, a somewhat elderly member of C company in the 1st battalion of the 4th Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, for which he was arrested and held in Wakefield jail. His part in the war for Irish independence and the ensuing civil war has not been ascertained. He was anti-treaty and, like Gerald Boland, joined Fianna Fáil after its foundation in 1926. When the Wolfe Tone Memorial Committee fell into abeyance after 1922, he safeguarded its funds until his death, when they passed to Clarke's widow, Kathleen (qv), eventually to be used for the erection in 1967 of the Tone statue in St Stephen's Green. The final stage of Stritch's political career began at his old haunt in Parnell Square on 21 August 1926 when he was elected, jointly with Mrs Clarke, treasurer of the newly formed National Graves Association, whose purpose was to mark, renovate and preserve graves of 'known patriots of any period'. His final visit to Tone's grave was in 1932 when he joined a smallish and quiet Sinn Féin pilgrimage.

Promoted in 1891 to be one of Dublin Corporation's two general inspectors of works and materials – he was described in the 1901 and 1911 census returns as an 'inspector of streets' – he retired in or after 1924 and by 1931 was in receipt of a pension of £256. His wife, Hanoria, whom he seems to have married in their native Co. Roscommon early in 1885, was a sponsor at Harry Boland's baptism in 1887; she died, aged 47, in 1905. There were no children and Stritch seems to have remained a widower until his death on 24 February 1933, by which time he had moved out to the more salubrious Lindsay Road, and become the owner of eight dwelling houses elsewhere in the Drumcondra–Glasnevin area. In his will he left £100 to the Wolfe Tone Memorial Fund – he had contributed £1 in 1898 – and £200 to a parish priest in Roscommon for masses for the repose of his wife's soul. O'Kelly remembered Stritch as a 'very hard-working, strict, honest and God-fearing man' (BMH, 213). The esteem in which he was held by nationalists, no doubt heightened by the legend of his association with the Manchester martyrs, is indicated by his being buried in the hitherto neglected old Fenian plot at Glasnevin, the large number of dignitaries at his funeral in very cold weather, and the lengthy tributes to him in the Irish Press.