Tadhg (Timothy McKenna) was born in 1899, the eldest son of William and Maria-Louise McKenna of Oldcastle, Co. Meath. He was the younger brother of Kathleen McKenna Napoli. Following secondary school education at Blackrock College, Dublin, he secured employment at Greenore, Co. Louth, with the London & North Western Railway Company in 1917. A committed nationalist, although having no involvement with the physical force side of the movement, he was active in Sinn Fein in addition to being a representative of his trade union, the Railway Clerks Association (RCA), and a delegate to the Irish Congress of Trades Union. Railway employees, especially outside Ulster, often operated a policy of non-cooperation with the Crown forces using the trains. Following an incident in April 1921, when Tadhg and some of his colleagues were ill-treated by the Auxiliaries, in his capacity as a union official, he made a formal complaint at Dundalk RIC barracks. He was arrested on the spot and served with an internment order. Imprisoned initially in Belfast and Ballykinlar, most of his internment was at Rath Camp on the Curragh until his eventual release in December of the same year. His prison correspondence and note books (MS 47,789/1-7) give a detailed description of his life in the internment camp. The RCA brought pressure to bear on the government through its Westminster contacts in the British Labour Party and this was largely instrumental in securing his release in December 1921. He resumed his employment and shortly after the establishment of the Free State became a full-time employee of the RCA and later its Irish Secretary-General. He supported the Treaty and was horrified by the excesses of both sides during the Civil War and later became disillustioned with what he felt was the failure of the new government to embrace the socially progressive programme envisaged by the First Dail. He became active in the Irish Labour Party and in 1925 was elected to Blackrock (Co. Dublin) Urban District Council and served as its chairman from 1928. During these years he was an active and prominent local representative in the south county area and was in regular demand as a speaker. He drowned in 1931.

Physical description: 4 folders & 1 phase box.