Austin Stack

Austin Stack
Minister for Home Affairs
In office 22 August 1921 – 9 January 1922
President	Éamon de Valera
Preceded by	Arthur Griffith
Succeeded by	Eamonn Duggan
Teachta Dála
In office August 1923 – June 1927
Constituency	Kerry
In office May 1921 – August 1923
Constituency	Kerry–Limerick West
In office December 1918 – May 1921
Constituency	Kerry West
Personal details
Born	Augustine Mary Moore Stack (1879-12-07)7 December 1879 Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland
Died	27 April 1929(1929-04-27) (aged 49) Dublin, Ireland
Political party	Sinn Féin
Spouse(s)	Winifred Cassidy (m. 1925)
Military service
Allegiance	Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish Volunteers Irish Republican Army Anti-Treaty IRA
Years of service	1916–1922
Battles/wars	Easter Rising Irish War of Independence Irish Civil War
Personal information Sport Gaelic football Club(s) Years Club Tralee Inter-county(ies) Years County 1896–1905 Kerry Inter-county titles All-Irelands 1

Augustine Mary Moore Stack (7 December 1879 – 27 April 1929) was an Irish republican and politician who served as Minister for Home Affairs from 1921 to 1922. He was a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1927.^[1]

Stack was born in Ballymullen, Tralee, County Kerry, to William Stack, an attorney's clerk, and Nanette O'Neill.^[2][3] He was educated at the Christian Brothers School in Tralee.^[4] At the age of fourteen, he left school and became a clerk in a solicitor's office. A gifted Gaelic footballer, he captained the Kerry team to All-Ireland victory in 1904. He also served as President of the Kerry Gaelic Athletic Association County Board.

He became politically active in 1908 when he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood. In 1916, as commandant of the Kerry Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, he made preparations for the landing of arms by Roger Casement. He was made aware that Casement was arrested on Easter Saturday and was being held in Tralee. He made no attempt to rescue him from Ballymullen Barracks.

Stack was arrested and sentenced to death for his involvement in the Rising; however, this was later commuted to penal servitude for life. Imprisoned at HM Prison Dartmoor Stack was in the company of senior leaders of the rebellion: Éamon de Valera, Harry Boland and Thomas Ashe. Stack was a leader of Irish Republican prisoners and led several hunger strikes as resistance to being treated as criminals^[5] He was released under general amnesty in June 1917 and was elected as an abstentionist Sinn Féin MP for Kerry West at the 1918 Westminster election, becoming a member of the 1st Dáil. He was elected unopposed as an abstentionist member of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and a member of the 2nd Dáil as a Sinn Féin TD for Kerry–Limerick West at the 1921 elections.^[6]

Stack, as part of his role as Minister for Home Affairs, was responsible for the creation and administration of the Dáil Courts.^[7] These were courts run by IRA in parallel and opposition to the judicial system being run by the British government. The IRA and Sinn Féin was highly successful in both getting the civilian population of Ireland to use the courts and accept their rulings. The success of this initiative gave Sinn Féin a large boost in legitimacy and supported their goals in creating a "counter-state" within Ireland as part of their overarching goals in the War of Independence.^[8][9] Frank O'Connor, later a republican colleague in the civil war, considered him a failure as home affairs minister for an unrealistic attitude to overseeing a ministry in constrained circumstances – a complaint many of his cabinet colleagues made.^[10]

He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and took part in the subsequent Civil War, acting as deputy chief of staff for anti treaty leader Frank Aiken.^[11] He was captured on 14 April 1923 and went on hunger strike for forty-one days before being released along with approximately 15,000 Sinn Fein and IRA prisoners in July 1924.^[12] (see: 1923 Irish hunger strikes).

He was elected to the Third Dáil at the 1922 general election and subsequent elections as an Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD for the Kerry constituency. When Éamon de Valera founded Fianna Fáil in 1926, Stack remained with Sinn Féin being re-elected to the Dáil at the June 1927 general election. He did not contest the September 1927 general election.

In 1925, he married Winifred (Una) Gordon, née Cassidy (died 1950),^[13] the widow of a Royal Irish Constabulary district inspector, Patrick Gordon (1870–1912).^[14]

Stack's health never recovered after his hunger strike and he died in a Dublin hospital on 27 April 1929, aged 49.

At the time of his death a pamphlet was issued to commemorate his dedication to the cause of Irish freedom: "...Austin Stack, a man who bore and dared and suffered, remaining through it all and at the worst, the captain of his own soul...The force of England, of the English Slave State, might try coercion, as they did in many times. It made no difference. He went his way, suffered their will, and stood his ground doggedly, smiling now and again. His determination out-stood theirs because it had a deeper foundation and a higher aim. Compromise, submission, the slave marks, did not and could not exist for him as touching himself, or the Cause for which he worked and fought, lived and died."^[15]

Austin Stack Park in his home town of Tralee, one of the Gaelic Athletic Association's stadiums, is named in his honour, as is the Austin Stacks GAA Hurling and Gaelic football club.

• "Stack, Augustine" . Thom's Irish Who's Who . Dublin: Alexander Thom and Son Ltd. 1923. p. 237  – via Wikisource.