Thomas Michael "Tom" Kettle (9 February 1880 - 9 September 1916) was an Irish journalist, barrister, writer, poet and economist. As nationalist, Home Rule politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, he represented East Tyrone as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1906-1910. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, then on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 enlisted for service in an Irish regiment where in 1916 he met his death on the Western Front.


Irish Volunteers

During the 1913 Dublin strike and lockout, unlike other contemporary middle-class commentators, he supported the striking workers and published a series of articles which revealed the terrible living and working conditions of Dublin’s poor, and was involved in the formation of a peace committee which endeavoured to negotiate a settlement between workers and employers.

At the same time he became deeply involved with the nationalist Irish Volunteers which he joined in 1913 spurned by Unionist resistance to Home Rule and their formation of the militant Ulster Volunteers. Kettle was sent by the Volunteers in 1914 on an arms raising mission to continental Europe where he witnessed at first hand the outbreak of World War I. He changed his assignment to being a war correspondent for the Daily News (London). Travelling through France and Belgium in August and September, he was horrified by the German atrocities against the local civilian population [4], warning against the dire threat to Europe of Prussian militarism.
“ The outbreak of war caught me in Belgium, where I was running arms for the National Volunteers, and on the 6 of August 1914, I wrote from Brussels in the Daily News that it was a war of "civilisation against barbarians". I assisted for many weeks in the agony of the valiant Belgian nation [5] ”

[edit] War service

Returning to Dublin he sided with Redmond’s National Volunteers, volunteering for active service with one of the Irish regiments, but was at first refused a commission on the grounds of fragile health. He received the rank of lieutenant restricted to voluntary recruiting throughout Ireland and England. He presented himself as an IPP candidate for a by-election in east-Galway, though not selected his support for the party did not abate, continuing to advocate both home rule and voluntary recruitment, maintaining that Irishmen had a moral duty to join the allied stand against Germany.
“ Having broken like an armed burglar into Belgium, Germany was there guilty of a systematic campaign of murder, pillage, outrage, and destruction, planned and ordered by her military and intellectual leaders [6]. ”

By 1916 he had published more than ten books and pamphlets, contributed numerous articles to journals and newspapers on Irish politics, literary reviews, poetry and essays, philosophical treatises and translations from German and French. Although disillusioned with the way the war dragged on, he continued to apply to be sent to the Western Front on active service, when, with his health somewhat improved a commanding officer of the 16th (Irish) Division commissioned him into the 9th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

Appalling conditions in the trenches broke his health again. On sick leave in Dublin he refused offers of a permanent staff position and insisted on returning to his battalion. Before he finally left Ireland on 14 July 1916 he astutely prophesied that the Easter rebels of 1916 would be remembered as heroes while Irishmen serving in the European war would be deemed traitors. Easter week had been for him a harrowing and terrible experience:
“ With the rebellion he had no sympathy -– indeed it made him furious. He used to say bitterly that they had spoiled it all – spoiled his dream of a free united Ireland in a free Europe. But what really seared his heart was the fearful retribution that fell on the leaders of the rebellion[7]. ”

It was as an Irish soldier in the army of Europe and civilisation that he entered the war. He was deeply steeped in European culture. Kettle’s ideal was an Ireland identified with the life in Europe ... he wrote "My only programme for Ireland consists in equal parts of Home Rule and the Ten Commandments. My only counsel to Ireland is, that to become deeply Irish, she must become European"[8]. He also stated:
“ Used with the wisdom that is sown in tears and blood, this tragedy of Europe may be and must be the prologue to the two reconciliations of which all statesmen have dreamed, the reconciliation of Protestant Ulster with Ireland, and the reconciliation of Ireland with Great Britain [9]. ”
Thomas Kettle Memorial
Thomas Kettle Memorial

In a farewell letter to his close friend Joseph Devlin he showed he had envisaged death and was ready:
“ . . . . I hope to come back. If not, I believe that to sleep here in the France that I have loved is no harsh fate, and that so passing out into silence, I shall help towards the Irish settlement. Give my love to my colleagues – the Irish people have no need of it [10]. ”

He was killed leading a company of his men for whom he was "our Captain Tom", on 9 September 1916 at the hottest corner of the Ginchy fighting during the Battle of the Somme in France, having previously made the statement that he preferred to die out there for Ireland with his "Dubliners". He has no known grave.