The bumper volume of essays (list below) in Offaly and the Great War (Offaly History, 2018) can now be accessed free online at www.offalyhistory.com thanks to the Decade of Centenaries. The book of 28 essays is also available in hardcopy from Offaly History for just €20. In all over 50 articles free to download. Go to the Decade of Centenaries on the offalyhistory.com website.
When the great historian and first ‘telly don’ A.J.P. Taylor published his short history of the First World War just in time for the remembrance days of over fifty years ago he wrote that the war reshaped the political order in Europe. That its memorials stood in every town and village and that the real hero of the war was the Unknown Soldier.
At the opening of the nineteenth century Edenderry was said by one observer to soon ‘be a heap of ruins.’[i] The new Grand Canal was expected to bring relief to Edenderry and the surrounding hinterland. In the aftermath of the 1760s economic downturn in the woollen industry Edenderry suffered greatly having once employed 1,000 workers in the trade.[ii] The Downshire estate in the town and surrounding hinterland consisted of 14,000 statute acres of land.[iii]
The linking of Edenderry to the canal was of economic necessity in the last decade of the eighteenth century. As Ciarán Reilly explains:
‘Without the Grand Canal, Edenderry in the nineteenth century would have not as prospered as it did, the canal providing a much needed communication network and transportation for goods such as peat, corn and flour to Dublin.’[iv]
Charles Vallancey believed ‘the peasantry are starving and nothing will contribute so much to their relief as the Inland Navigation.’ John Hatch, as Edenderry agent for the Blundell estate was aware of the potential for economic progress of the Grand Canal for the town. (5 W. A. Maguire, ‘Missing persons: Edenderry under the Blundells and the Downshires, 1707-1922’ in William Nolan and Timothy P. O’Neill (eds), Offaly: History & Society (Dublin, 1998), pp 515-542 at p. 524.)
In June 1787 Hatch alerted the Blundells that it was confirmed the canal would pass near Edenderry:
‘… by this resolution of the company everything will rise again and higher than ever and I have not now the smallest doubt of our going on with the canal to or near Edenderry.’[vi]
Richard Biggs was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, England into a Presbyterian family of educated and educators. Religious faith was prevalent in the paternal side of his family. Richards’s great grandfather James Biggs became a Presbyterian Minister, his grandfather Richard Biggs became a Senior Deacon and alongside Richard’s father Richard W. Biggs ran a highly acclaimed private boarding school for boys in Devizes Wiltshire between 1822 and 1865.
Richard Biggs’ (b.1847) maternal side were the Purser family of Rathmines Castle. His mother Sarah Purser was the youngest daughter of John Purser’s first marriage to Sarah Smith. The Pursers were also educated, and educators. Richards’s uncles and cousins were Civil Engineers, Chief Engineers, Barristers, Millers and Grain Merchants, Physicians, Artist, Secretaries, Teachers, including Professors of Mathematics, some of the Purser family worked and owned shares in the firm of Guinness Brewers Dublin. It is said that John Purser who died in Cork in 1781 was the first to brew porter In Ireland[i]
Richard Biggs’ (1847) early education began in the Biggs boarding school in Devizes alongside his cousin John Purser (b.1835). Some members of the Geoghegan family also attended the school (www.devizesheritage online). John Purser received numerous prizes and awards for his mathematical skills. He became tutor to the four sons of William Parsons earl of Rosse Birr, in 1857, including Charles Algernon Rosse who is known for inventing the steam turbine. Another first cousin, Sarah Henrietta Purser (b.1848) a well-known artist and stain glass worker who launched An Tur Gloine (The Tower of Glass), was the first female member of the Royal Hibernian Academy 1923. Sarah painted amongst others, William Butler Yeats, Maude Gonne and Countess Markievicz, some of her stained glass work is in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. A further first cousin, Alfred Purser (1847), a School Inspector, married Ellen Hilderbrand. Their daughter Olive Constance Purser born in Parsonstown (1886) was one of the first women to be admitted to Trinity College Dublin in 1904. Both Richard Biggs (b.1847) and son Henry Biggs (1882) are named in The Atlas of Irish Mathematics Fermanagh 2022 (online).
Birr 1869–1874, the death of Mary Ward and the new school founded
Mary Ward, died Birr, 1869.
On the 28 July 1869 Richard Biggs, BA, Scholar of Trinity College Dublin, under the immediate patronage of the Earl of Rosse advertised in the Kings County Chronicle that he intended opening a school for young gentlemen in Parsonstown (Birr). The following advertisement reads under the headline Education: ‘Mr Richard Biggs BA, Scholar of Trinity College Dublin, and Honourman in the University of London announces that he intends early in September to open a SCHOOL FOR DAY PUPILS in his premises recently occupied for that purpose at 15, Oxmantown Mall, Parsonstown, and that he is also making arrangements for the reception of boarders [This house was later that of Mrs Burbage ]. In seeking to establish a first-rate school in this neighbourhood, Mr Biggs is honoured and encouraged by the immediate patronage of the Right Hon. the Earl of Rosse. Full particulars of the terms, the course of study etc. will be given on application. Birr Castle, Parsonstown’ (KCC 04 August 1869).
Oxmantown Mall c. 1900. The first school at no 15 was on the lower left. The Ward accident took place on the right corner below the trees.
On the 31st of August 1869 Richard was driving a steam engine when an unfortunate accident occurred, Mary Ward a scientist, astronomer, microscopist, and author was thrown from the vehicle. Mary’s death is known as the world’s first recorded motor vehicle accident. The following day, Richard Biggs gave evidence at the inquest as follows: ‘I was guiding the engine, at the corner of Cumberland Street and Oxmantown Mall on yesterday, at about half past 8 o’clock, we had just turned into Cumberland Street when I felt a slight jolt and saw Mrs Ward fall, I jumped off immediately, I cannot give any reason for the jolt’. The jury returned a verdict that ‘Mary Ward’s death was caused by an accidental fall from a steam engine on which she had been riding in the town of Parsonstown the previous day. The jury expressed their sympathy towards the Hon. Capt. Ward, they also stated there was no blame attaching to any person in connection with the occurrence.’ [ii]
The Rosse boys were educated at home. Charles Parsons did exceptionally well.
A year after the fatal death of Mary Ward Richard Biggs married Sarah Francis Geoghegan (c.1848) daughter of Thomas Geoghegan MD and Anne Purser, eldest daughter of John Purser’s first marriage to Sarah Smith in Dublin on the 12 January 1870. Sarah Geoghegan’s brothers Thomas Grace Purser (c1841) and William Purser (1843) were in 1870 leading brewers in the Guinness brewery, another brother Samuel (1848) followed as a leading brewer later becoming chief engineer to the firm. [iii] A daughter was born to Richard and Sarah at the Parsonstown School in August 1872.
Various articles in the King’s County Chronicle between 1872 and 1874 report:
Mr Biggs threw open the Chesterfield school grounds for the Sunday school of Birr Church to hold their annual fete (July 1872). Mr Biggs also threw the school grounds open to the respectable public so they could witness ‘this species of development of muscular Christianity’ at the Chesterfield Sports Day. (December 1873). Chesterfield school pupil Mr L’Estrange broke his left arm whilst enjoying a game of football in the recreation grounds, Mrs Biggs immediately placed him under the care of Dr Myles (February 1874). The Leinster Reporter mentions Dr Biggs Chesterfield Grammar School is now one of the best regulated and patronised private colleges in the country has consulted with builder Mr M. Moran in relation to building a new wing to accommodate the increasing number of boarders (LR 15 October 1874) An advertisement requesting ladies and gentlemen to join the choir of which Richard Biggs. L.L.D. was the Hon Sec. of Parsonstown’s Choral Society. (December 1874).
Chesterfield, Parsonstown [Birr] School
The following article of 1874 describes Birr’s/Parsonstown’s Chesterfield School run by Richard Biggs under the headline:
Probably Parsonstown stands first among provincial towns, as far as the facilities for obtaining a first-class education are concerned. To be sure in Armagh, Dungannon, Enniskillen and some other towns, there were endowed grammar schools; but thanks to Richard Biggs, Esq., M.A. Parsonstown, unendowed as it is, has all the advantages and privileges of the Royal School districts. Besides laying out a considerable sum in putting the fabric of Chesterfield School and the surrounding ground into a condition such as Eton might be proud of, and besides devoting his own time in the class room with a constancy which is downright amazing, considering Mr Biggs is a gentleman of independent private means, this philanthropic scholar has given other proofs without number of his resolution to make Chesterfield School second to none in the country. And it is gratifying to know that his exertions are receiving extending encouragement, as the number of the pupils attest to the value of his endeavours. Within the past ten weeks four additional masters, teachers of the various classic and modern continental languages, have been appointed by Biggs. The various details belonging to a first-class school, are not wanting and in the local appointments, Mr Biggs is to be congratulated. The Department Instructor, in the person of Mr Arundel being as efficient a drill-sergeant as could be chosen, and the other arrangements are in nice harmony. The natural salubrity of the elevation on which the school stands, could not be surpassed, while the sanitary arrangements – so far as art can go– are perfect to which happy combination is due the almost total immunity from sickness among the scholars, rendering the office of medical adviser and attendant, which Dr Stoney is so well qualified to discharge virtually a sinecure. The townspeople owe no little gratitude to Mr Biggs for the benefits which he has conferred, and is conferring in so many ways; and we are sure if the opportunity ever presents itself for their giving expression to the sentiment of good will that prevails for him among every class in the community, they will accord an ovation as warm as it will be genuine’ [sic] (KCC 26 February 1874).
Chesterfield school possibly about 1880-1900. It was on the Banagher Road, Birr. Offaly History will publish a further article on the school soon.
Galway 1875-1894
Richard Biggs and Sarah Francis Geoghegan had seven further children, Richard Thomas (1878-1883). Grace Elizabeth (1879). Henry Francis (1882). John (1884). James Richard (1886). Maurice William (1888). Edward (1891-1891). All the children’s place of birth is noted as College Road Galway and their father’s rank/profession is noted as Head/School Master or Gentleman.
Richard Biggs began his post as headmaster of Galway Grammer School in 1875, a newspaper advertisement reads under the headline, Education: ‘Galway Grammar School. On the foundation of Erasmus Smith. This school will after the summer holidays, be carried on by Richard Biggs, MA, L.L.D. Information can be had on application, to him at Parsonstown School. Boarders cannot be received for some months to come, but the work of the day school will be resumed by Howse, ex Scholar QCG, and the classes will be at once assimilated to those at Parsonstown School under the direction of the headmaster, Richard Biggs, MA, LL. D, Parsonstown’ (IT June 1875).
Despite unfavourable conditions Richard Biggs continued to build a reputable school. In 1876 he wrote to the Board of Harbour Commissioners requesting that an alteration of the strict rules would allow his boarders to bathe at the end of the jetty before seven o’clock in the morning. A Trinity College Dublin entrance examination placed a pupil of Galway Grammar School sixth out of eighty-five candidates, Mr F. Sheppard, son of Frank Sheppard, Esq was solely prepared by Dr Biggs headmaster of Galway Grammar School. 1885 saw Galway Grammar school rugby team join five other fledging rugby clubs to become Connacht Rugby, Richard Biggs became the first president of the Connacht branch of the IRFU.[iv]
An extract of a report given by inspector Professor Mahaffy employed by the Erasmus Trust reads, ‘Galway flourished under a new Headmaster Dr Biggs who was appointed in 1875 from Parsonstown School. Within 15 years numbers had increased to almost 90. This occurred in spite of conditions which Mahaffy described as unfavourable to a boarding school:
‘No advantage is offered by Galway except good bathing. The town is full of decay and pauperism. Idle boys trespass on the school grounds, and molest the school, because it is respectable.’
Nevertheless, Mahaffy was impressed by the school, although both the schoolroom and the boys ‘wanted brushing and cleaning.’ The Headmaster was ‘a very able man and thoughtful man, full of new ideas and very attentive to his school’ and his staff were also praised.[v]
In May of 1878, the Irish Times reported that Mr and Mrs Richard Biggs paid a short visit to Chesterfield school, and that a fete given by Mr and Mrs Rev. W. Ewing in honour of the late principal’s visit.
Portora, 1894-1904
In November 1894, an announcement in The Northern Whig named Richard Biggs as successor to the Rev. W.B. Lindesay headmaster of Portora Royal School, Enniskillen. Over the following years further advertisements at the beginning of each school term naming the assistant Masters, along with some of the pupils’ scholarships, first honours, prizes and various exam achievements were placed in newspapers.
In early 1899 the Intermediate Commissioner conducted an inquiry into the workings of the Intermediate Education Act. Mrs Biggs headmaster of Portora School amongst others gave his opinions and beliefs. Biggs believed it was highly desirable and practicable to have separate papers for pass and honour students, he also thought the middle grade be abolished, at that time there were one hundred pupils of which eighty-six were boarders in Portora School. (Daily Express, 09 February 1899).
In Portora (Enniskillen Rural, Fermanagh) the address on the Biggs family’s 1901 census, named the residence as, Richard Biggs Headmaster Royal School aged fifty-four, born in England, his wife Sarah F. Biggs, no occupation aged fifty-two born in Dublin, three of his children: Grace E. Biggs, no occupation aged twenty-one born in Galway; Henry F. Biggs, Scholar aged eighteen born in Galway; Maurice W. Biggs, Scholar aged twelve born in Galway; Nephew Richard Thomas, Scholar aged thirteen born in India; Margaret Bell Matron of school aged forty-seven born in England, and eight servants.[vi]
Richard Biggs, aged fifty-seven, drowned in Lough Erne on the 23rd of June 1904. A solicitor, Mr James Pringle, when arriving at his own boat house noticed Mr Biggs canoe floating on the lake. ‘The Sad Death of Dr Biggs’ headlines the inquest for Richard Biggs Headmaster of Portora Royal School, whose body was found close to Portora boat house about five yards from the shore in Lough Erne after his canoe was seen floating upside down. The jury found ‘that the deceased came to his death by drowning and added that they agreed with Dr Kidd’s evidence that from the appearance of the body it was not incompatible with heart seizure or a fit of apoplexy as a factor in the cause of death’ the jury expressed heartfelt sympathy with Mrs. Biggs and family. (Weekly Irish Times, 02 July 1904). Richard Biggs was buried in Rossery COI cemetery, Fermanagh on the 27th of June 1904. His effects in the sum of £21,970 13s 9d was granted to his wife Sarah Francis Biggs. Richard Biggs was the second member of his family whose death occurred accidently at Portora School, his cousin Robert Mallet (1843-1859) Purser, son of Benjamin Purser the brother to Richard’s mother, died in an accident on the 22nd March 1859 aged sixteen at Portora School Enniskillen.
Trinity College Dublin Entrance Awards Biggs Memorial Prize.
The Old Boys of Parsonstown and two other school where the late Dr Biggs was Principal and other friends supported by subscription a memorial which is to take the shape of a Trinity College Annual Prize. Subscriptions varied from £50 to 10s.
19041217 The Leinster Reporter Entrance award. This prize was founded in 1905 by subscription in memory of Richard Biggs. It is awarded annually on the basis of public examination results as defined in section 1, to the person who achieves the best results of those who have been pupils for at least one year at Chesterfield School, Birr (or such other school at Birr as may take its place), or at Portora Royal. The list includes (among others) Archie Wright of the Chronicle, Birr, an old boy of the school.
[i] Ronald Cox. Dublin Port Chief Engineers (Dublin 2023) p. 70.
[ii] King’s County Chronicle (Offaly 18690901), p. 3.
[iii] Patrick Lynch & John Vaizey. Guinness’s Brewery in the Irish Economy 1759-1876 (Cambridge 1960), p. 236.
This week we look at the background to the Vallancey report on the Offaly towns carried out in 1771 to facilitate the construction of the new Grand Canal line from Dublin to the Shannon. Vallancey was then a young engineer, employed to report to the Commissioners of Inland Navigation and his findings were published in a little known and very scarce pamphlet, AReport on the Grand Canal or Southern Line (Dublin 1771).[2] This report is useful as a window on some of the north King’s County (hereafter generally referred to as Offaly) towns and villages and all the more so because of the scarcity of published accounts of the midland towns prior to 1800.[3] The report was published in the same year as that of John Trail who was at the time employed by Dublin Corporation.[4] Vallancey was writing with a mission. He was being paid to spin the story of the benefits that would come from inland navigation and to highlight the difficulties with road transport and its adverse impact on competition and pricing of commodities so as to bolster the arguments in favour of canal construction and satisfy those who were paying his consultancy fees.
Why not contribute to our series of blog articles on the Grand Canal in Offaly – info@offalyhistory.com.
April 16th 2023 was the 100th anniversary of the death of James Perry Goodbody, a significant figure in business and political life in County Offaly. His family were connected with the commercial life of Clara from 1825 and were by the 1900s the largest employers in the county. He was a contributor to local government and pushed forward the provision of facilities for TB patients when nobody wanted such a hospital in their neighborhood.
James Perry Goodbody. Courtesy of Michael Goodbody
James Perry Goodbody was the second son of Marcus Goodbody and Hannah Woodcock Perry (a daughter of James Perry) and a grandson of Robert Goodbody who came to Clara in 1825. He was born in 1853 and married in 1875 Sophia Richardson, a daughter of Joseph Richardson, a prominent linen merchant of Springfield, Lisburn at the Lisburn Quaker meeting house.[1] She predeceased him in 1917. He graduated with a B.A. from Trinity College, Dublin. James Perry Goodbody was the principal partner in the Clara mills, M. J. & L. Goodbody, and also in Goodbody businesses in Tullamore and Limerick.[2] The three main family businesses of M., J. & L. Goodbody, J. & L.F. Goodbody and T.P. & R. Goodbody (besides the peripheral businesses) probably employed about 1,500 people in the 1920s.[3] Of this number about 700 jobs were in Clara, down from perhaps 1,000 in 1890, in the businesses, the houses and the farms.[4] This employment figure may be conservative. He served on the King’s County Grand Jury and was high-sheriff in 1893–4.[5] He was said to have been the only member of the old grand jury to be returned in the 1899 county council election and served as a member of the council up to 1920.[6] He was elected by the members to the vice chair of the county council in 1912. The Midland Tribune commented at the time that his dissent from a grand jury motion in 1895 against Home Rule was noted in his favour.[7] He was valued by the council members for his business acumen and chaired the Finance and Proposals Committee from 1899.[8] In 1916 he was instrumental in securing a dispensary for tubercular patients in Tullamore built at no cost to the council.[9] He served for many years as chairman of Clara Petty Sessions where his motto was ‘fair play’ to rich and poor alike and, it was noted, always disposed to temper justice with mercy.[10]
In Midnight Oil (London, 1971) V.S. Pritchett (1900-97) describes how The Christian Science Monitor sent him to Ireland early in 1923 to write about the Irish Civil War. The Anglo-Irish treaty had been signed, the Irish politicians split, and the two parties were killing each other. When Pritchett arrived the siege of the Four Courts in Dublin was well over and the fighting was drifting away to the south and west. In fact there was not much more than three months left before the Republicans decided to dump arms
On a misleadingly sunny day on the first of February 1923, I took the train from London to Holyhead. In a heavy leather suitcase I carried a volume of Yeats’s poems, an anthology of Irish poetry, Boyd’s Irish Literary Renaissance, Synge’s Plays, and a fanatical book called Priests and People in Ireland by McCabe [McCarthy, 1864–1926, published in 1902], lent to me by a malign Irish stationer in Streatham who told me I would get on all right in Ireland so long as I did not talk religion or politics to anyone and kept the book out of sight. Unknown to myself I was headed for the seventeenth century.
The Irish Sea was calm—thank God—and I saw at last that unearthly sight of the Dublin mountains rising with beautiful false innocence in their violets, greens, and golden rust of grasses and bracken from the sea, with heavy rain clouds leaning like a huge umbrella over the northern end of them. My breath went thin: I was feeling again the first symptoms of my liability to spells. I remember wondering, as young men do, whether somewhere in this city was walking a girl with whom I would fall in love: the harbours of Denmark gave way to Dublin Bay and the Wicklow Hills. The French had planted a little of their sense of limits and reason in me, but already I could feel these vanishing.
Growing up on Clontarf Road, Tullamore, on the banks of the Grand Canal in the 1950s and 1960s I spent many childhood hours playing beside the canal. This was where my father’s family had lived for generations in East View Terrace before he and several of his siblings had acquired houses in Frank Gibney’s new state-of-the-art housing on Clontarf Road. In early teenage years I took to walking the canal line and ventured to Kilgortin Mill and Rahan, where my mother’s people, my grandfather and uncles and a multiplicity of cousins, lived. Not surprisingly the canal got under my skin if not indeed into my bloodstream.
Hiking west from Tullamore the ‘canal line’ took us to exotic locations: The Metal Railway Bridge and slow-moving trains, the inaccessible Srah Castle, Molloy’s Bridge for in-season snowdrops and horse chestnuts and the hugely impressive six-chimneyed Ballycowan Castle, overlooking the imperious and impervious Huband Aqueduct. Rambling east towards Cappancur we soon explored in detail the small aqueduct which seemingly miraculously ushered the Barony River under the canal and were further allured by the rotundity of Boland’s lockhouse and a lock manned by a team of sisters. Graduating to the bicycle we set out along the towpath for far-flung towns and villages: Ballycommon and the Wood-of-O, the Kilbeggan Branch, historic Daingean and the outré but warm and welcoming church at Pollagh.
Grand canal from the 27th lock at Cox’s Bridge, Tullamore about 1910Continue reading →
On the 29th March 1919, 20 IRA Volunteers escaped from Mountjoy jail in broad day light. This escape was planned by Michael Collins on the outside and Piaras Béaslaí on the inside. A prison strike had been taking place in the jail in support of four prisoners who were not being afforded political status. In the lead up to the escape this strike was halted because the escape plan had a better chance of success with a quieter atmosphere in the prison.
The plan was to get Piaras Béaslaí and JJ Murphy both MPs and Padraig Fleming a volunteer from the Swan, Co. Laois out, followed by the four prisoners not being afforded political status. A list of men with long sentences was created and it was decided that men serving short sentences or who had sentences close to completion would not escape. Padraig Fleming had conducted an extraordinary fight for treatment as a political prisoner in Maryborough (Portlaoise) jail, enduring hunger strike, torture and physical mistreatment for months. In Mountjoy he was the Officer Commanding the political prisoners.
The escape was planned for 3 p.m. on Saturday March 29th. On the previous Monday the four prisoners being denied political status broke away from the warders in charge of them and led them on a big chase around the field before being recaptured. As a result, they were kept in a metal cage for exercise and guarded by no less than eleven warders. If these precautions were continued their chances of escape were slight, while the presence of so many warders also presented a serious obstacle to the escape plan. On Fleming’s orders the four prisoners caused no more problems for the warders and the prison authorities were lulled into a false sense of security.
Irish Sporting Lives (Royal Irish Academy, 2022) brings to life sixty figures who in their individual ways illustrate the drama and diversity of Irish sporting history.
This collection of biographical essays draws from the Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB) and spans 200 years from the early nineteenth century. It is edited by DIB researchers Terry Clavin and Turlough O’Riordan, with an introductory essay by former Tullamore GAA clubman and Offaly Gaelic football coach, Ireland’s foremost sports historian, Professor Paul Rouse.
The biographies in Irish Sporting Lives encompass serial winners and glorious losers, heroes and villains, role models and rogues, enduring legends and forgotten or overlooked greats. Trailblazing women feature prominently, and their stories highlight the adversity they had to overcome in pursuing their sporting dreams. Aside from household names such as George Best, Jack Kyle, Christy Ring, Lady Heath, Alex Higgins and Jack Charlton, the volume will also inform readers about less well-known but equally fascinating figures. These include Vere Goold, the only Wimbledon tennis finalist ever convicted of murder; Dave Gallaher, New Zealand’s most revered rugby captain; and Martin Sheridan, the winner of nine Olympic medals for the USA.
Arthur Griffith died of a heart attack, or stroke, in Dublin on 12 August 1922. He was only 51 and had given a lifetime of service to his country at huge personal cost. To mark the centenary of his death we recall an important contribution from Richard Barry (1880–1978) in 1970 where he set out some of the cultural history of Tullamore in the period before the Rising and the War of Independence. Barry was greatly influenced by the writings of Arthur Griffith in the United Irishman and also by the earlier contributions of William Rooney (1873–1901). Rooney met Griffith probably in 1888 and both were members of the Parnellite Leinster Literary Society, and after 1892 of the Celtic Literary Society. When the United Irishman was launched in 1899, with Griffith as editor, William Rooney was the main contributor and, working together, developed Sinn Féin policy. Rooney’s early death at the age of 27 was a devasting blow to Griffith. William Murphy in the short life of Rooney in DIB cites Michael Collins as describing Rooney in terms normally associated with John the Baptist: ‘Rooney spoke as a prophet. He prepared the way and foresaw the victory’ (Path to freedom, 150).
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