Sir,—Charles Lysaght’s article (HI 31.6, Nov./Dec. 2023) on the occupation of the Kildare Street Club in May 1922 by anti-Treaty forces reminded me of the experiences of my great-aunt, Jean Montgomery, in Trinity College shortly afterwards, though her problems came from the other side.
Miss Montgomery, from County Antrim and an ardent unionist, was appointed Lady Superintendent of the Kitchen (head of catering) in Trinity in 1919, a post she held until her death in 1949. She had worked in catering for the British Army during the First World War. An unpublished memoir of her first ten years as Lady Superintendent is held in the Trinity Library.
She recorded that on 30 June 1922, two days after the National Army attack on the Four Courts, the Provost [John Henry Bernard] ‘asked me would I favour him by catering for the Free State soldiers. He said he knew I was an Ulster woman, but I told him I did not care, so long as they are guests of Trinity.’
Shortly afterwards, however, ‘a Free State sergeant came in to order food. I told him I had only the food belonging to the students in the house, and that no one could get this. He got vexed all at once and started to play about with his revolver; he told me that the soldiers’ food was the most important and that they would have it regardless of who’s it was and tried to threaten me with his revolver, and I told him that if he did not put it in its case he would get nothing. I sent for his captain, rather a nice boy, and told him to take his sergeant out and not let him come near the place again. He sent a little boy instead, who had run away from his home in Kerry to join the army; he always addressed me as the mistress. Many a good meal the mistress gave that little lad while he remained in College.’
Not long afterwards, she was caught in a gun battle in Moore Street as she went to buy fish. She managed to wend her way home once her legs were steady again, but without the fish.
Jean Montgomery was liked and respected by generations of Trinity staff and students. She was awarded an honorary MA shortly before her death, and there is a wooden plaque in her memory in the Dining Hall (the only such memorial). She lived in a small house at the back of College, behind the rugby pitch, and so was the first woman to reside within the walls.—Yours etc.,
RORY MONTGOMERY
PS: I am grateful to Lucinda Thomson for her transcription of Jean Montgomery’s memoir.