Denis O'Donnell


Denis O'Donnell was a well-known entrepreneur in County Kerry, Ireland, in the early 1900s. He was the prime organiser, co-founder, and first manager of the Lee Strand Cooperative Creamery, established based on his wide experience and influenced by the cooperative movement of Sir Horace Plunkett and the emerging spirit of national self-sufficiency.

Background

He was born in Tubrid, Ardfert, County Kerry, to Patrick O'Donnell of Tubridmore, and Bridget of Lerrig. He was a grandson of John O'Donnell of Ardfert, who lived at Tubridmore, and descended from O'Donnells of Tyrconnell, following on the implantation of O'Donnells in Ardfert by Prince Hugh Roe O'Donnell en route to the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, as recorded in the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland. He wrote poetry as a hobby. He initially farmed a family farm at Tubrid until he left to Ballyhaise, an agricultural college.
He married Hannah Leane, from Ballintobeenig, and they had one child, Patrick Denis O'Donnell. He died of an accident when his son Patrick was only 11 years old, and his widow, Hannah, subsequently emigrated to the United States of America at the outbreak of World War II, when their son, Patrick, joined the Irish Defence Forces.

Education

Denis O'Donnell was schooled in Tubrid, in Spa, and later in Chapeltown national schools, and then farmed some years before proceeding to study and become one of the first graduates of Ballyhaise College, County Cavan, Ireland, with a Diploma in Dairy Science, having studied there from 1908 to 1910. This was the only such qualification available in the country at the time.

Business career

In his early career he was manager in some small creameries, one in County Tipperary, and others in Black Abbey, Adare, County Limerick; in Dicksgrove, Farranfore, and BallymcElligott, and Ballydwyer in County Kerry. He was influenced by the cooperative movement being driven by Sir Horace Plunkett, well described in the account of country life of the times by Elizabeth, Countess of Fingall, Seventy Years Young. Sir Horace Plunkett, MP, and later Senator of the Irish Free State, third son of Lord Dunsany, was father of the Irish agricultural co-operative movement, and founded the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, which included several hundred creameries. Accordingly, Denis O'Donnell actively organised farmers in the early cooperative movement in County Kerry, and founded the Lee Strand Co-operative Creamery on April 30, 1920 in Church Street, Tralee, still a going concern marking its centenary in 2020 although it relocated to Ballymullen in 1992 to the site of the former barracks of the Royal Munster Fusiliers. He owned a pub at #2 Edward Street, Tralee, run by his sister Bride, until her emigration to Kimberly, South Africa. The pub was sold in 1938. He also owned shops in Rock Street and Castle Street in Tralee. He was the first to introduce the pasteurisation of milk, much against the prejudice of dairy farmers at the time, and also was the first to market ice-cream in Tralee.
Within a few years of its establishment, the Lee Strand Creamery already won both a first and second prize for creamery butter at the Listowel Show in 1924, followed by a signal success at the Cork Show, winning first, second, and third prizes in various classes, out of competition with 22 others, for which the Kerryman newspaper congratulated Denis O’Donnell, as manager, and his team.

The 1925 Fire

A very unfortunate fire occurred on the evening of Friday 9 October 1925, at the Lee Strand Creamery, which “caused serious damage to the machinery and plant”. It was quickly managed “owing to prompt action of the Urban Council firemen” and civic guards, with local civilians, confining it to its source area, and “the main building which contained some very valuable fittings and stock was thereby saved”. The fire had been discovered by local children playing at the rear of the Creamery, when they saw “sparks issuing from the engine shed”. Once help arrived and hose-pipes were deployed it became obvious the engine shed was doomed, and the principal effort went into protecting the main building, which succeeded after a two-hour struggle. Once alerted, the manager, Denis O’Donnell came immediately to the scene and thanked the firemen and voluntary helpers for their timely services. The engine room's suction gas plant, refrigerator, boiler and steam engine were all heavily damaged and rendered useless. As a result, the Creamery could not function for a period, and no milk could be received from suppliers. The equipment alone cost £4,000 to replace, in addition to the other repair costs. Luckily the damage was covered by insurance. The fire was believed to have been accidental and caused by a spark that set fire to the roof of the engine shed.

Socio-Economic aspects

He engaged in extensive correspondence in the 1920s about the management of creameries, including the ability of some to keep butter supplies in cold storage pending better market prices. However, some without such cold storage ran the risk of over-holding supplies until it went rancid and unfit for sale. Others considered such practices to be tantamount to market manipulation, and at odds with the interests of producers and consumers. He pleaded for improved quality, and the new Dairy Produce Act was a step in the right direction, aimed as it was to standardize and improve the quality of Irish butter. Already in those times, the competition between Danish butter and Irish butter in various British markets was marked in price and quality, and he tried to assure farmers that “Englishmen and Scotchmen prize our butter highly and pay good prices for it”.
His entrepreneurial streak and outreach to farming communities provided a socio-economic complement to the political mobilisation undertaken by his kinsman, Thomas O'Donnell, M.P. for West Kerry, who campaigned for agrarian reforms. Maurice Moynihan, father of Maurice Gerard Moynihan, was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Gaelic Athletic Association, was Thomas O'Donnell's campaign manager and was a cousin of Denis O'Donnell.
Denis O’Donnell was an ardent supporter of the Gaelic Athletic Association. In Croke Park on 22 September 1929, the Kerry senior GAA football team beat Kildare and became All-Ireland Champions. Denis O’Donnell supported plans for a victory banquet and was quoted “I hope the banquet will be worthy and fitting for those splendid men who triumphed on the football field. It is not on those fields alone our Kerry people win”

Political Views

It appears from those times that he was a frequent correspondent of the Kerryman, much as his son Patrick would later scribe not a few letters to other national papers on a variety of topics. When the prospect came in 1925 of a visit to Tralee by the controversial Cork-born Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne, who had opposed the Easter Rising of 1916, but also opposed conscription, Denis O’Donnell wrote initially on 10 October to query his intentions, as Mannix's preceding visits to other parts of Ireland were “preaching politics everywhere, naming some Irishmen Imperialists, and blowing his own trumpet as to his steadfastness in our cause”. By pointing out the inconsistencies if not contradictions in Dr. Mannix's public postures, O’Donnell was taking on a “sacred cow” – he was ahead of his time in not submitting blindly to the dominance of clergy acting as political agents provocateurs, and in emphasizing the onus on that particular cleric to speak instead towards national unity rather than foster radicalism in the name of Irish republicanism. It wasn't the first time that one of his lineage took a more inclusive realpolitik rather than an ideological approach to national independence and the struggle for effective sovereignty. But this flew against the grain of the popular media and public sentiment of the time, and so he had to offer his “second thoughts” letter of 12 October.
In that nuanced regard, Denis O’Donnell welcomed Mannix's planned encounters in Ireland as “a real peace demonstration” if people “of all shades of opinion” took part in it. He added that if Mannix were “to foster or sanction disunion, such would be most objectionable”, but “his influence for good and for uniting all Irishmen will be, if anything, more powerful, and Dr. Mannix will have endeavoured to do what I hoped was his object when I first learned he would visit our country”. This should have placated another anonymous begrudging correspondent self-described as “a lane dweller”, who writing two days beforehand libeled O’Donnell as “the Dictator of Basin View” where he lived, for simply querying the expectations of the Kerry County Council in inviting Dr. Mannix. It is clear that Denis O’Donnell had a more nuanced understanding of the background of Dr. Mannix, who in earlier times had demonstrated loyalty to Kings Edward VII in 1905 and George V in 1911, and not been that supportive of Home rule, but who years later became more ardently nationalist especially after he had been intercepted and arrested by British troops who boarded his vessel in 1920 while sailing from New York destined for Ireland, but then transferred to England to prevent his influence in Ireland. Mannix later became a life-long fried of Éamon de Valera.

Court Appearances

His sense of humour was also commented on, as when he elicited much laughter during a court case where a creamery claimed damages from a defendant, describing the process of negotiation for a settlement of the dispute, by saying that during the negotiations between the defendant and the Creamery managers “there was so much peace during all the deliberations that the words ‘good graces’ must have slipped in!”
He was himself taken to court on one occasion for alleged arrears in payment of income tax of £4-16s, however the case was dismissed as the arrears pertained to the previous occupant of his house in Basin View, Tralee, and not to himself.

Footnotes

Related references