JOHN Devoy has had many connections with the town of Naas and in 2009 a committee was formed to begin a campaign to erect a fitting memorial to the great Fenian outside the Town Hall.
A booklet A Forgotten Hero – John Devoy was compiled by local historians, James Durney, Mario Corrigan and Seamus Curran, to help raise funds for this worthy endeavour.
This booklet is based on the 1964 commemorative booklet The Greatest of the Fenians – John Devoy, by the John Devoy Memorial Committee, which was instrumental in the erection of the present monument near the birthplace of Devoy at Greenhills, Kill.
The new booklet has the full contents of the original, plus an introduction by Committee Chairman, Seamus Curran, and extracts from the Leinster Leader, Kildare Observer and the Irish Times, covering the life, death and funeral of John Devoy. (It is available from Profile Hairstudios, Chapel Lane, Naas, priced €5.) Below is one of the many extracts from the Kildare Observer, of Saturday, 9 August, 1924:
Mr John Devoy visits Naas Meets his former sweetheart whom he mourned as dead
Mr John Devoy, the veteran Fenian, visited Naas on Sunday last, accompanied by his niece, Miss Devoy, and his three nephews, Messrs Devoy, of Dublin; Mr Henry Conyngham, of New York, and Mr Garrett Lombard, of Gorey (who is married to a relative of Mr Devoy’s). He first visited Greenhills, Kill, his native place, and was able to point out to his friends the exact spot where his home stood. It is quite close to Mr Matthew Timmins’ house at Greenhills, but no vestige of it now remains.
The first of his old friends whom Mr Devoy visited in Naas was Mrs Kilmurry, of South Main St, to whom in his early days he was engaged to be married, when she was Miss Elizabeth Kenny, of Tipper. John Devoy was at that time a clerk in the ‘Cork Office’, Naas, in the employment of Watkins’ brewery, in whose employment were also his father and brothers.
His association with the Fenian brotherhood necessitated his departure from Naas and from Ireland, and put an end to the romance of his early days. He, however, remained true to his first love, and never married.
Mrs Kilmurry warmly welcomed her friend of girlhood days, and entertained him and his friends to lunch. Although very deaf and suffering from defective sight, Mr Devoy displayed remarkable recollection of persons and places in the vicinity of Naas. He informed Miss Curley (Mrs Kilmurry’s niece) that he had a vivid recollection of his frequent visits to her father’s house at Halverstown, when her father, Mr Michael Curley, played the fiddle and her uncle, Mr Bernard Curley, the pipes during their youthful festivities.
“It is 58 years since John left Naas,” remarked Mrs Kilmurry. “He was for six months under cover, sometimes visiting our house, but seldom staying more than one day at any one house. He was during that time engaged swearing in soldiers in the Fenian organisation, when they arrested and imprisoned him.”
Mrs Kilmurry added that in some way or other, information reached John Devoy in America that she had died, and on Sunday he told her he had mourned her as dead for more than 20 years. “It was like a voice from the grave,” he told her, “when he learned that she still lived.”
Having chatted over old times and early recollections, Mr. Devoy took his departure, promising to return and spend a whole day with his former sweetheart before returning to America.
In the 1911 Census Mrs Eliza Kilmurry (nee Kenny, Tipper, Naas) was a sixty-five year old widow, running a greengrocers shop at No 24 South Main Street (now Halifax Bank). Living with her were her niece, Mary Curley (32), and her nephew, Lawrence Curley (30). Both Eliza and Mary gave their occupations as provision merchants, while Lawrence was a post office sorting clerk. In 1924 Eliza was seventy-eight and local legend has it that John Devoy proposed to her and that a priest even volunteered to perform the ceremony, but she declined. John Devoy died in America two years later on September 21, aged 86. His body was brought back from America and buried with full honours in Glasnevin Cemetery on 26 June 1929.
The memory of ‘the greatest of the Fenians’ has lived on in Co Kildare and when the Army Apprentice School opened in October 1956 in the old British Army barracks, in Naas, it was renamed Devoy Barracks.
A portrait of John Devoy was unveiled there on 14 May 1958 by Colonel AT Lawlor, OC, Curragh Training Camp.
The painting, which is the work of Mr Thomas O’Connor, was presented by the Officers’ Mess which includes FCA. Those present at the ceremony included Lt Col JG MacDonald, OC, Devoy Barracks; Lt Col TJ O’Hanlon, Executive Officer, Curragh Training Camp; Comndt J Nolan, Area Commander, FCA; Very Rev PJ Doyle, PP, Naas; Rev L Newman, CC, Naas; Rev S Swayne, CC Naas.
When Devoy Barracks closed in September 1998 this portrait was presented to Naas Urban District Council. Paddy Behan, Chairman of Naas UDC, said the portrait would hang in the council chamber and would serve as a reminder to the people of Naas of the existence of the Army Apprentice School, and, of course, John Devoy.