Mary Spring Rice

Mary Ellen Spring Rice (14 September 1880 – 1 December 1924) was an Irish nationalist activist during the early 20th century. She was actively involved in gun-running during 1913–14, notably as part of the Howth Gun Run.

Biography

Spring Rice was the second child and only daughter of the moderate Unionist peer, Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon, and his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Bishop Samuel Butcher. She grew up at Mount Trenchard House near Foynes, County Limerick and learned to speak fluent Irish. She also paid for the hiring of an Irish language teacher to give classes in her local national school. This involved helping to ship weapons to be used in an Irish uprising from Germany into Ireland. Together with Molly Childers, she raised £2,000 towards the purchase of 900 Mauser rifles from Germany, many of which were used in the 1916 Easter Rising. Spring Rice sailed on the Asgard to collect the guns and helped to unload them in Ireland.

During the Irish War of Independence, she allowed her Mount Trenchard home to be used as a safe house by Irish Republican Army fighters and the family boat was used to carry men and arms over the Shannon Estuary. She was buried in Mount Trenchard, Loghill, County Limerick, Ireland. When her coffin arrived at Foynes railway station on 4 December 1924 it was greeted by several society members, including members of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (I.T.G.W.U.) Foynes Branch, lined up in military formation.

Her photographic portrait as a young girl by Eveleen Myers is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.