St. Michael’s Cemetery Athy was the
scene of an unusual gathering last week when a group of Latvians accompanied by
the Latvian Ambassador to Ireland visited the grave of Latvian born Konrad
Peterson.
Some years ago I had written of Peterson’s
connection with Athy. Subsequently I
received a phone call from an Irish Embassy official seeking further
information on the man whom unfortunately I never had the privilege of meeting. Late last year I received an email from a
Latvian journalist who was engaged in writing Konrad Peterson’s biography. We exchanged information and later in the
year I received an invitation to participate in a presentation scheduled for
the Stephen’s Green embassy of the Latvian government. Unfortunately I was already committed and
could not attend but last week my journalist contact gave me advance notice of a
group visit planned for Peterson’s last resting place in St. Michael’s
Cemetery. It was there I met the Latvian
Ambassador Peteris Elferts, the Latvian journalist Sandra Bondarevska and the
other Latvians who had come to pay their respects to a hero of the Latvia
nation.
I first came across references to
Konrad Peterson in the writings of Todd Andrews whose autobiographies ‘Dublin Made Me’ and ‘Man of No Property’ gave an interesting
insight into the troubled times which followed the 1916 Easter Rebellion. Konrad Peterson who had to flee Latvia in
1907 during the Latvian Revolution of that year came to Dublin to join his
uncle Charles Peterson of the pipe firm Kapp Peterson. He enrolled as a student in University
College Dublin and I am told was a participant in the events surrounding the 1913
Dublin lockout.
Konrad was a friend of the Gifford
sisters, two of whom were to marry men whose names figure high in the story of
the 1916 Rebellion. Muriel Gifford
married Thomas McDonagh and her sister Grace married Joseph Plunkett the night
before he was executed in Kilmainham Jail.
Another Gifford sister Mrs. Sidney Czire who wrote under the nom de
plume ‘John Brennan’ gave a detailed
statement to the Bureau of Military History in which she referred to the help
given by Konrad Peterson to Irish republicans protesting against the visit of
the British King and Queen to Dublin in 1911.
‘John Brennan’ also penned the
book ‘The Years Flew By’ dealing with
her involvement with Irish Republican activists during the War of
Independence.
Konrad Peterson married an Irish
girl, Helen Yates, sometime after he received his naturalisation papers in May
1915. The couple returned to Riga, the
city of Konrad’s birth, soon after Latvia got independence in November
1918. In Latvia Konrad Peterson is
remembered as one of the many young men involved in the 1907 Revolution and as
a friend of one of Latvia’s greatest poets, the socialist Janis Rainis.
Peterson subsequently return to
Ireland following a meeting with Tod Andrews at a conference in Sweden. Andrews, appointed by the Fianna Fail
government to head up Bord na Mona, became aware of Peterson’s previous links
with Irish republicanism and invited him to take up a management position with
Bord na Mona. Konrad Peterson was to
manage Kilberry peat works for many years during which time he lived in Church
Road in the house now occupied by the Casey family. Indeed the late Paddy Casey succeeded Konrad
as manager of the Kilberry Works following the latter’s retirement.
Last week a small group of Latvian
people, headed by the Latvian Ambassador to Ireland, paid tribute to Konrad
Peterson who died in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Athy aged 93 years on 16th
January, 1981. For some time previously
he had resided with his daughter and her husband Dr. Dermot Murphy in
Whitecastle Lawns, having returned from Canada where all three lived for a time
following Konrad’s retirement from Bord na Mona.
Konrad Peterson’s involvement in the
Latvian Revolution and the later rebellion in Dublin gives him a unique place
in the respective histories of both countries.
No comments:
Post a Comment