George Lennon (left) and Belfast Commandant Roger McCorley on O'Connell Bridge, 1939.
A new Irish language documentary by Cormac Morel, “Ó Chogadh go Síochán: Saol George Lennon” (From War to Peace: The Life of George Lennon) will premier in the fall on Ireland’s Irish language station TG4.
The film chronicles the fascinating but little-known story of George Lennon (1900-1991) who, in his youth, played a vital role in Ireland’s armed struggle for independence, yet devoted his life to peace in later years.
Ivan Lennon, George’s son, was born in Dublin but grew up in the US, knowing his father only as a pacifist and protestor against the Vietnam War. George had emigrated to New York in 1927 but returned to Ireland in 1936, before settling in the US for the final time in 1946. In later life he devoted himself to Zen Buddhism and by 1967 he was one of the driving forces behind the Rochester Zen Center in New York.
By the time he passed away in 1991, George had never told Ivan about his experiences as a member of the IRA in the Irish War of Independence, or about his time spent fighting on the anti-treaty side of the Irish Civil War.
Appointed Vice Commanding Officer of the IRA’s West Waterford Brigade in 1918 at just 18 years of age, by the age of 20 George was the youngest commanding officer of a flying column during the War of Independence.
In all, he was involved in 17 War of Independence combat engagements, with his column’s successes resulting in the deployment of one thousand British troops to Waterford.
In the Civil War which followed the truce, he fought at the Battle of Waterford in 1922, with the first and last shots being fired from his command at Ballybricken Gaol.
When Ivan discovered that Terence O’Reilly’s was working on his book Rebel Heart: George Lennon Flying Column Commander, he began to understand the integral part his father had played in the fight for Ireland’s freedom.
Speaking to The Irish Emigrant from Rochester, Ivan described how this new film about his father’s life came to be made.
“I wrote a book and Terry O’Reilly wrote a book. He wrote the real history, I really just wrote mine for myself. Then this kid Cormac Morel, just 26 years of age, submitted a proposal to a company in the Waterford Gaeltacht to do a documentary on my father.”
Ivan went on to touch on the importance of his generation’s involvement in the preservation of Irish history, given the amount of blanks still remaining to be filled.
“We’re kind of the last living link to 1916 and to the Civil War, you know, and our fathers never spoke about the things they did, so it’s vital that we ask questions. Letting others know what went on is extremely important.”
As well as the upcoming film, Ivan is very excited about other people who are telling his father’s story.
“There is also a play based on these events being put on in Waterford quite soon,” he says. “It’s called Days of Our Youth. It’s by Muiris O'Keeffe; it’ll be great.”
“It’s wonderful that my father’s story and the story of the other men of West Waterford is being told,” he concludes. “So many of them came to America and never talked about what had happened beforehand. These will all preserve the memory of what they did before they left home.”
