Robert Emmet Briscoe (25 September 1894 – 29 May 1969) was an Orthodox Jewish veteran of the IRA during the Irish War of Independence and a Fianna Fáil politician of Lithuanian descent. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) in the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) from 1927 to 1965. Briscoe also served as Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1956 to 1957, and again from 1961 to 1962.
Early life Robert Emmet Briscoe was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in the Ranelagh neighbourhood of South Dublin. He was named after the Irish Revolutionary, Robert Emmet. His brother Wolfe Tone Briscoe was named after Theobald Wolfe Tone, one of the leaders of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Briscoe's father, Abraham William Briscoe,Current Biography Yearbook, Maxine Block, Anna Herthe Rothe, H.W. Wilson Company, Marjorie Dent Candee, Charles Moritz, Published by H. W. Wilson Co., 1997 Jews in Twentieth-century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-semitism and the Holocaust, Dermot Keogh, Published by Cork University Press, 1998, , p. 73. was the Lithuanian Jewish proprietor of Lawlor Briscoe, a furniture factory on Ormond Quay which made, refurbished, imported, exported and sold furniture all over Ireland and abroad, including to Imperial Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and to the United States. Abraham Briscoe – known universally as Pappa – had arrived in Ireland as a 14-year old immigrant from the shtetl of Zagar, Kovno Governorate,Jewish Zhager, Jewishgenealogy.org. and made a living first as a brush salesman and then as a merchant of imported tea. The original family name in Lithuania is believed to have been Cherrick or Chasen.
After meeting her while travelling on business, Abraham Briscoe had married Ida Yoedicke,Jews in Twentieth-century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-semitism and the Holocaust, Dermot Keogh, Published by Cork University Press, 1998, , the fourth daughter of a successful Lithuanian Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main. The Yoeddicke family had similarly emigrated from the Russian Empire to escape from the pogroms, religious persecution, and anti-Semitic religious discrimination drastically limiting Jews from access to education and to life outside the Pale of Settlement, to live in the far more socially accepting climate of Imperial Germany.For the Life of Me by Robert Briscoe
In direct contradiction to "standard anti-Semitic stereotypes of the Jews as avaricious, cheap, clannish, unethical and unpatriotic",Rodney Stark (2016), Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History, Templeton Press. p. 9. Abraham Briscoe felt a very deep sense of gratitude for the better life and freedom from religious persecution that emigrating from Tsarist Lithuania to Ireland had granted him and his family. His son later wrote, "To Father the soft green hills of Dublin Harbour were the sheltering arms of justice and Ireland seemed the very land of liberty - though he soon learned to think differently."
Abraham Briscoe accordingly raised his children upon stories from Irish mythology, "about the mysterious druids, and the prehistoric Fir Bolgs, and of the great days of the Irish Kings... of St Patrick, and the time that followed when Ireland was the only center of learning and culture in these northern lands and the spear point of the Christian faith." Abraham Briscoe also raised his children to be, like himself, enthusiastic Parnellite Irish nationalists and supporters of the Home Rule agenda of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Abraham also believed that the adultery scandal that destroyed Charles Stewart Parnell's political career, "was a Tory British plot", that Parnell had faked his own death, and that he would one day return to lead the Irish people nonviolently to freedom.
Meanwhile, according to Kevin Kearns' oral history of life in the tenements of Dublin, all money-lenders, regardless of religion or ethnicity, were referred to by Dubliners as "Jewmen".Kevin C. Kearns (1994), Dublin Tenement Life, Penguin Books. Pages 31-32. Jewish moneylenders, however, actually had a very good reputation among their customers, in direct contrast to their many Catholic competitors. According to Paddy Mooney, "See, you could come to an agreement with a Jew. Oh yes, our own money-lenders were worse in regards to exploiting the people."Kevin C. Kearns (1994), Dublin Tenement Life, Penguin Books. Page 100. Some Jewish moneylenders were very well liked figures in the Dublin slums, known not only for their business integrity, but also for their regular and willing donations to local Catholic parishes and other charitable causes.Kevin C. Kearns (1994), Dublin Tenement Life, Penguin Books. Pages 146-149.
Even so, Abraham and Ida Briscoe intensely disliked fellow Irish Jews who lent out money. Pappa Briscoe often encouraged the children of their South Dublin synagogue to play pranks on known moneylenders during services for the Sabbath and the High Holy Days. Furthermore, when his son Robert began courting a, "certain very beautiful Jewish girl", Abraham Briscoe told him, "I hear you are keeping company with Esther. You know her father is a moneylender, and I am sure you know how much I love you. Now I solemnly tell you this, rather than see you married to a moneylender's daughter, I would prefer to see your right arm cut off at your shoulder."
Personal life Robert and his wife Lily had seven children; only two of their sons, Ben and Joe, remained in Dublin. One of Robert Briscoe's daughters Miriam converted to the Catholic faith and became a Carmelite nun. Ben followed his father into politics, while Joe joined the Irish Army aged 15 (claiming to be 18) in 1945; he retired in 1993 with the rank of commandant.
Eamon Martin, former Chief of Staff of Fianna Éireann, was best man at Robert Briscoe's Jewish wedding. They had been close friends during the Irish War of Independence.
War of Independence During the outbreak of World War I, Robert Briscoe was living in Berlin, but fled, using an American passport issued by U.S. Ambassador James W. Gerard, to join his parents at Karlsbad, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After being briefly interned as an enemy alien at Eger, Briscoe was released due to intervention of the Papal Nuncio in Vienna. He was also allowed to return to Dublin after swearing an oath that he would not take up arms against the Central Powers. Briscoe, who had already been leaning towards Irish republicanism, later recalled, "This I gladly did, since I had no desire to take part in England's wars."
In what caused years of sharp political arguments with his father, Robert Briscoe rejected his Home Rule nationalist upbringing and instead embraced Irish republicanism. He was active with the Purchases Department, General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Sinn Féin during the Irish War of Independence. He once upset his father by leaving the family's pre-fast meal when the IRA summoned him to an emergency meeting on the eve of Yom Kippur.
During the winter of 1919–1920, Briscoe was promoted to the personal staff of Michael Collins.Dermot Keogh (1998), Jews in Twentieth-century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-semitism and the Holocaust Cork University Press, , p. 73. Collins affectionately referred to Briscoe as, "my Jewman", and once posed as an Orthodox Jew with Briscoe's help, while in hiding from the police in Dublin's Little Jerusalem.
Briscoe also accompanied Éamon de Valera to the United States of America. He regularly spoke for the Sinn Féin cause at public meetings there and was adamant that being a "Hebrew" did not alter his Irishness or lessen his patriotism. At the same time, Briscoe later recalled in his memoirs that he sometimes felt afraid of having possibly broken the Second Commandment by loving Ireland more than the God of Israel.
Due to Briscoe's fluency in the German language from his family's pre-World War I business connections, Collins ultimately issued orders through Irish Jewish barrister Michael Noyk to send him to the Weimar Republic to be the chief agent for procuring arms for the IRA. While in Germany Briscoe purchased arms and had them shipped to Ireland in small parcels. Although the British authorities were constantly searching ships, smaller consignments of weapons were rarely discovered.
In December 1920, Charles McGuinness was made captain of a ship named Anita and sent to the Weimar Republic, where Briscoe had already purchased a large number of firearms. However, on the day the crew were due to depart for Ireland, McGuinness was observed by the port authorities paying the crew in large notes, which aroused their suspicions. The German police arrested McGuinness and the rest of the crew. McGuinness was brought to trial, but Briscoe paid for a good lawyer on McGuinness' behalf. Before a sympathetic German court, McGuinness' gun-running against the British Empire was deemed to be a minor offence and he was charged a token fine of 2,000 Deutschmarks. After passing sentence, the German judge wished McGuinness, "better luck next time". The incident caused an uproar back in the United Kingdom.
In 1921 Briscoe purchased a small tug boat named Frieda to be used in smuggling guns and ammunition to Ireland. On 28 October 1921 the Frieda slipped out to sea with Charles McGuinness at the helm and a German crew with a cargo of 300 guns, as well as 20,000 rounds of ammunition.The Irish Revolution, 1912-1923, p.94, Pat McCarthy, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2015, ISBN 978-1-84682-410-4 Other sources cite this shipment as "the largest military shipment ever to reach the I.R.A." consisting of 1500 Gewehr 98 rifles, 2000 Mauser C96 pistols, and 1.7 million rounds of ammunition.O'Reilly, Terence, Rebel Heart: George Lennon Flying Column Commander, p164, Mercier 2009, ISBN 1-85635-649-3 On 2 November 1921 the Frieda successfully landed its cargo near Waterford harbor.
Also, during his assignment in Berlin, Briscoe first came into conflict with and complained to his superior John Smith Chartres about fellow Sinn Féin envoy Charles Bewley. Bewley's tendency towards regularly spouting, "extremely derogatory remarks about Jews in general", even in public places, caused very serious problems for the legation, particularly after one such outburst in a Berlin cafe caused Bewley to be ejected by the outraged German Jewish proprietor. At the insistence of Briscoe and multiple gentile members of the Irish Legation, Chartres wrote to the Irish Foreign Office and requested that Bewley to be recalled to Dublin, which he described as, "in the interest of decorum, national dignity, and commercial prudence". Chartres further explained, "Moreover, an anti-Semitic outburst by an Irish official in a country where Jews are very numerous and very influential was an extraordinary indiscretion from the point of view of the Irish material interest." Bewley, however, had friends in high places and was not recalled until much later.Jews in Twentieth-century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-semitism and the Holocaust, Dermot Keogh, Published by Cork University Press, 1998, , pp. 73-75.
Irish Civil War Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty and during the lead-up to the Irish Civil War, Briscoe found himself being courted by both sides, but felt greater sympathies for the anti-Treaty IRA. He later recalled, however, that his recently widowed mother tried to advise him against getting involved. Frieda Briscoe said that she was trying to give her son the advice his father would have given and pointed out the difference between fighting in a war of independence from colonialism and fighting one's former comrades in a civil war over what kind of a government to build after decolonisation. Despite his mother's advice, when his anti-Treaty IRA friends effectively served him with an ultimatum, Briscoe joined them in armed struggle against the new Irish Free State.