Francis Charles MacDermot (25 November 1886 – 24 June 1975) was an Irish barrister, soldier, politician and historian who served as Senator from 1937 to 1943, after being nominated by the Taoiseach. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Roscommon constituency from 1932 to 1937. He was also a founding member of Fine Gael.
In 1933, anticipating another election that year, he founded the National Centre Party alongside James Dillon, and became the party's leader. The party was short-lived; MacDermot led the National Centre Party to merge with Cumann na nGaedheal and the Blueshirts to form Fine Gael that same year, and became a vice-president of the new party. It was reputedly MacDermot who devised the name of the party.[2]
MacDermot had led the National Centre Party into Fine Gael on the pretense that members of the Irish Republican Army were breaking up meetings of Cumann na nGaedheal and other right-wing parties in support of the Republican Fianna Fáil, and that in order to survive the National Centre Party would have to band together with both Cumann na nGaedheal and Eoin O'Duffy's Blueshirts. However, with the accession of Fianna Fáil to power and tough anti-IRA measure put in place by de Valera, the marriage of convivence rapidly became undone. O'Duffy had become the initial leader of the party but by the summer of 1934 he had become an embarrassment to the other leaders and members of the party when he openly questioned the value of democracy after Fine Gael came second to Fianna Fáil in the 1934 local elections. MacDermot and other constitutionalists in the party rebuked O'Duffy's comments.[5] By September 1934, O'Duffy had resigned as leader and left the party.[2]
O'Duffy's departure did not increase MacDermot's comfort with the big tent of Fine Gael; he resigned from the party in 1935 when members of Fine Gael criticised de Valera for condemning the invasion of Ethiopia by fascist Italy at a meeting of the League of Nations.
Late political career
In 1937, de Valera moved to introduce a new constitution of Ireland, and MacDermot was especially active in the debates over its contents. He objected to the recognition of Irish as the first official language of the state and to the suggestion that the Roman Catholic Church should be given a ‘special position’ in the constitution. He supported direct elections to the Seanad and argued that citizens of Northern Ireland should be allowed to participate in the referendum on the constitution. He also argued that each Dáil constituency should be at least five seats.[2]
He did not seek re-election in 1938. De Valera, surprisingly, appointed him to the re-established Seanad, where he would remain until 1943. He had had personal differences with his Fine Gael colleagues on issues such as the degree of emphasis to be given to Ireland's membership of the Commonwealth. During World War II he was a critic of Irish neutrality throughout his tenure as a Senator, arguing that Ireland should be fighting with the Allies. He subsequently became the U.S. and Paris correspondent for The Irish Times newspaper.[2]
In 1939 MacDermot's biography Theobald Wolfe Tone and His Times was published, which was widely praised[citation needed] was the definitive biography of Tone until Marianne Elliots biography in 1989.[according to whom?]
Personal life
While working in America, MacDermot met the American Elaine Orr Thayer, then the wife of the poet E. E. Cummings, her second marriage. Her first husband had been Scofield Thayer, whom she left for Cummings. Orr Thayer left Cummings for MacDermot, and at one point, Cummings considered killing MacDermot in revenge. Cummings and Elaine divorced, and subsequently, Frank and Elaine married before engaging Cummings in a protracted custody battle over Elaine's young daughter Nancy.[6] Together Elaine and Frank had one son, Brian MacDermot. Orr Thayer died in 1974. MacDermot died in 1975 while on a visit to London.[2]
References
^ ab"Mr Frank MacDermot T.D.". Ballina Herald. 14 October 1933.
