Hi my name is Clodagh and I am here today to talk to you about Harry

Boland.
Harry James Boland was born on the 27th April 1887 in Philsborough. He
has 2 older siblings, Gerald and Nellie and 2 younger siblings, Kathleen
and Edmund. He began his education in Synge Street CBS but then
refused to attend school after having a personality clash with his
brother Gerald. instead he went to De la Salle Co. Laois as a novice.
Here, he excelled in sports with hurling being his dominant activity. At a
young age his sister died from TB.
He later joined the Irish Volunteers along with his brothers Gerry and
Ned. He took active part in the Easter Rising which caused
imprisonment for the role he took part in. When he was in prison he
got to know Eamonn DeValera and admired him greatly. In the 1918
general election Harry was elected representative of South Roscommon
so his sentence for 10 years ended.
On the 21st January 1919 the first Dil ireann was assembling but Harry
and Michael Collins were on a boat to England performing a special
undercover job to break DeValera out of prison. They were officially
marked present as they got people to take their place in the role. When
DeValera was freed from jail he decided to go to America to put
pressure on the president to push for Irelands claim at the upcoming
peace conference. Collins was against this idea as he thought DeValera
should stay in Ireland, so the conflict between Collins and DeValera
began.
Harry took the place of Sean McGarry on the Supreme Council of the
IRB and shortly after he became president. The Minister of Defence,
Cathal Brugha though the IRB was no longer needed but Collins and
Boland believed it still had important work to do.
Boland worked closely with both Collins and DeValera in organising and
planning strategy prior to and during the war of independence. Harry
disagreed with the Anglo Irish treaty which was signed on the 6 th
December 1921 and sided with anti-treaty forces. He parted company
with Collins who was a member of the delegation that negotiated and
signed the treaty.
In 1922 he was reelected to the Dil.
On the 31st July 1922 Boland was shot by an officer of the Irish free
state army in skerries grand hotel Dublin shortly after the onset of the
civil war.
He refused to name the killer to his sister Kathleen and just said they
were friends when they were in prison. He died several days later in St
Vincents hospital.