Letter from Julius Pokorny to Eoin MacNeill, 6 November 1935
Eoin MacNeill was born John MacNeill in Glenarm, County Antrim in 1967. He was educated at St Malachy’s College, Belfast and the Royal University of Ireland. His interest in early Irish history began while he was working as a law clerk in the Four Courts. A founder member of the Gaelic League in 1893 of which he was vice-president and editor of its official paper, he founded the Feis Cheoil the following year. He was appointed the first Professor of Early including Medieval Irish History in University College Dublin in 1908, a position he held until 1941.
Commander in Chief of the Irish Volunteers after the split with Redmond, he was unaware of the planning for the Easter Rising and on the Sunday Morning he issued an order countermanding the mobilisation. Arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment, he was released in the general amnesty of 1917.
Elected Sinn Féin M.P. for Derry City and the NUI in the 1918 general election, he served successively as Minister for Finance and Minister for Industries in the First Dáil. He supported the Treaty, was Ceann Comhairle during the Treaty debates, Minister without Portfolio in the Provisional Government, and Minister for Education in the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, 1922–25. He was appointed Free State representative on the Boundary Commission on its foundation in 1924. Despite his resignation and refusal to accept the Commission’s report, he came under intense pressure for the report’s failure to recommend changes in the border. He resigned his ministerial position and lost his seat in the general election of 1927. He was the first chairman of the Irish Manuscripts Commission founded the same year and devoted the remainder of his life to scholarship, publishing prolifically.
Throughout his career MacNeill kept up regular correspondence with other academics engaged in the study of Irish language and Celtic studies. One of these was Julius Pokorny. Pokorny (1887–1970), Indo-European philologist and Celtic scholar, was born in Prague, but was brought up in Austria. He attended Vienna University and graduated with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1912. He was appointed Lektor in Irish at the same university that year and became Dozent in Celtic philology in 1914. He was given the chair of Celtic at the University of Berlin in 1920. After the rise of the National Socialist government in Germany, he was suspended from his post and later dismissed (1935) because of his Jewish background. He sought asylum in Zürich, where he remained for the rest of his life.
The MacNeill Papers include Correspondence relating to the suspension of Pokorny from his chair in Berlin University (due to the passing of the Nuremburg laws of 1935 by which Jews lost their citizenship). Included is a letter to MacNeill in which Pokorny asks for his help stating ‘I am a true Catholic, have always been one and also my parents before me. My grandparents, no less! are the unfortunate culprits’.
UCDA LA1/K/70 Letter from Julius Pokorny to Eoin MacNeill, 6 November 1935
6/11
Berlin-Halensee
Johan Georg Str. 21/22
Dear Mac Neill,
You so very kindly have helped me two years ago, that I am taking the liberty to approach you again in the matter. According to a new law only pure Aryans (with 6 Aryan ancestors!) can be citizens, so I have got my suspension with many others. Exceptions are of course possible, that is why I am approaching you again. A similar letter goes to Best, Bergin, MacAlisters and Delargey.
By the way, please don’t let it be known that I had written to you myself, but that you have heard this from some Irishman travelling in Germany, e.g. Mr Gógan. And in case of writing to me, please be exceedingly careful. Letters are opened.
Ever yours,
J. Pokorny
P.S. I need not remind you that I am a Catholic, have always been one and also my parents before me. My grandparents, no less! are the unfortunate culprits.