Terence MacSwiney (1879-1920) achieved worldwide fame through his 74-day hunger strike in Brixton prison, after his arrest for sedition. Earlier in his life, he had published some journalism and poetry - including The Music of Freedom under the pen-name 'Cuireadóir', as well as producing several plays with the Cork Dramatic Society (1908-1913). Most of his contributions to the Irish Republican Brotherhood's paper Irish Freedom were collected in The Music of Freedom.
In 1914, he published Fianna Fáil, subtitled 'A Journal for Militant Ireland', as a weekly voice for the Irish Volunteers. Most of the content was provided by MacSwiney himself. The paper was suppressed by the British authorities in December 1914.
UCC Library holds the complete run of Fianna Fail (U.283), comprising eleven issues as follows (highlighted issues are available in PDF format):
Volume 1: No 1 (19 September 1914); No 2 (26 September 1914); No 3 (10 October 1914); No 4 (17 October 1914); No 5 (24 October 1914); No 6 (31 October 1914); No 7 (7 November 1914); No 8 (14 November 1914); No 9 (21 November 1914); No 10 (28 November 1914); No 11 (5 December 1914).
Costello, Francis. Enduring the most: the life and death of Terence MacSwiney. Dingle: Brandon, 1996.
Doherty, Gabriel et al. The art and ideology of Terence MacSwiney: caught in the living flame. Cork: Cork University Press, 2002.
MacSwiney's papers are principally held in University College Dublin (UCD) Archives, with material also in the National Library of Ireland (NLI, Mss 35,029-35,035), Cork Public Museum (which also holds copies of Fianna Fáil) and Cork Archives Institute. A museum dedicated to MacSwiney is located in Kilmurry.
UCC Library also holds an Irish-language manuscript of MacSwiney's, Ls 189.
