Clare Museum | Músaem an Chláir

Kathleen Griffin was an 19 year old woman during the East Clare By-Election and was a member of Cuman na mBán. While campaigning for de Valera in the by-election, she kept an autograph book and collected the signatures of all those who came to Clare for the political campaign, reading like a ‘Who’s who’ of the Irish revolution.During the War of Independence she saved a teenager who was about to be shot by drunk members of the Crown Forces, by pretending to be his brother, calling him and taking him home before he could be shot. She regularly broke curfew during martial law and she married a British soldier who would often catch her in the streets of Ennis when she should have been in her home. They settled in Ennis and raised a family, before moving to the UK in the 1940s. She took the autograph book with her. Eamon de Valera’s signature was torn out by a priest in the UK who kept it as a souvenir. The Album was left to her granddaughter Marian, who eventually donated it to Clare Museum. This photograph was part of the donation.