seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Monthly Archives: June 2016


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Birth of Theobald Wolfe Tone

theobald-wolfe-tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone, a leading Irish revolutionary figure and one of the founding members of the United Irishmen, is born on June 20, 1763, in Dublin. He is regarded as the father of Irish republicanism and leader of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

The son of a coach maker, Tone studies law and is called to the Irish bar in 1789 but soon gives up his practice. In October 1791 he helps found the Society of United Irishmen, initially a predominantly Protestant organization that works for parliamentary reforms, such as universal suffrage and Roman Catholic emancipation. In Dublin in 1792 he organizes a Roman Catholic convention of elected delegates that force Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act of 1793. Tone himself, however, is anticlerical and hopes for a general revolt against religious creeds in Ireland as a sequel to the attainment of Irish political freedom.

By 1794, he and his United Irishmen friends begin to seek armed aid from Revolutionary France to help overthrow English rule. After an initial effort fails, Tone goes to the United States and obtains letters of introduction from the French minister at Philadelphia to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris. In February 1796 Tone arrives in the French capital, presents his plan for a French invasion of Ireland, and is favourably received. The Directory then appoints one of the most brilliant young French generals, Lazare Hoche, to command the expedition and makes Tone an adjutant in the French army.

On December 16, 1796, Tone sails from Brest with 43 ships and nearly 14,000 men. The ships are badly handled and, after reaching the coast of west Cork and Kerry, are dispersed by a storm. Tone again brings an Irish invasion plan to Paris in October 1797, but the principal French military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, takes little interest. When insurrection breaks out in Ireland in May 1798, Tone can only obtain enough French forces to make small raids on different parts of the Irish coast. In September he enters Lough Swilly, County Donegal, with 3,000 men and is captured there.

At his trial in Dublin on November 10, 1798, he defiantly proclaims his undying hostility to England and his desire “in fair and open war to produce the separation of the two countries.” He is found guilty and is sentenced to be hanged on November 12. Early in the morning of the day he is to be hanged, Tone cuts his throat with a penknife.

Theobald Wolfe Tone dies of his self-inflicted wound on November 19, 1798, at the age of 35 in Provost’s Prison, Dublin, not far from where he was born. He is buried in Bodenstown, County Kildare, near his birthplace at Sallins, and his grave is in the care of the National Graves Association.


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Birth of Sister Stanislaus Kennedy

stanislaus-kennedy

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, campaigner against poverty and homelessness and a member of the congregation of Religious Sisters of Charity since 1958, is born in Dingle, County Kerry, on June 19, 1939. She is affectionately known as Sr. Stan.

At the age of 18, Sr. Stan, then Treasa Kennedy, decides to become a nun. Following in the footsteps of Mary Aikenhead, founder of the Religious Sisters of Charity, she too is drawn to work on behalf of the poor in the towns and cities of Ireland. For over fifty years she has pioneered, campaigned, explored, and developed a range of inspiring social innovations to benefit thousands of people who have experienced exclusion in its many forms.

In the 1960s, Sr. Stan is missioned to Kilkenny to work alongside Bishop Peter Birch in developing Kilkenny Social Services. For nineteen years Peter Birch is both guide and mentor to Sr. Stan as the Kilkenny social services develop into an innovative, comprehensive model of community care becoming a blue-print for the rest of Ireland.

In 1974, the Irish Government appoints Sr. Stan as the first chair of The National Committee on Pilot Schemes to Combat Poverty, and in 1985 the European Commission appoints her as trans-national coordinator in the European rural anti poverty programme working across Europe.

Moving to Dublin in the early 1980s, Sr. Stan tackles one of Ireland’s most neglected social inequalities – homelessness. In 1985, she establishes Focus Point which is now Focus Ireland, the biggest national, voluntary organisation helping people to find, create, and maintain a home.

Sr. Stan founds The Sanctuary in 1998, a meditation/spirituality centre in the heart of Dublin, a place where people can find a quiet space and time for themselves to explore and develop their inner world and wisdom and find stillness.

Sr. Stan establishes two other initiatives in 2001, the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI), an independent national organisation working to promote the rights of immigrants through information, advocacy, and legal aid and the Young Social Innovators (YSI), a national showcase providing an opportunity for students to become involved in social issues.

Sr. Stan has also written thousands of articles that have been published in Ireland and elsewhere. She lectures on social issues and policies, is a frequent keynote speaker at many events, and regularly gives talks to many diverse groups in Ireland, Europe, and outside of Europe.


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First Known Meeting of the Parliament of Ireland

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The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare on June 18, 1264, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature. There is some evidence to suggest that the word “parliament” may have been in use as early as 1234.

There is nothing new about parliamentary assemblies in Ireland. The Normans, who begin to settle in Ireland in 1169, are the first to give Ireland a centralised administration. The Irish legal system and courts of law are, in large measure, inherited from them. So too is the Irish legislature which is directly descended from the parliament which develops in medieval Ireland.

The Parliament of Ireland is formally founded in 1297 by the Justiciar, Sir John Wogan, to represent the Irish and Anglo-Norman population of the Lordship of Ireland. It exists in Dublin from 1297 until 1800 and is comprised of two chambers – the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Lords consists of members of the Irish peerage and the bishops (after the Reformation, Church of Ireland bishops), while the Commons is directly elected, albeit on a very restricted franchise.

The main purpose of parliament is to approve taxes that are then levied by and for the Lordship of Ireland. Those who pay the bulk of taxation, the clergy, merchants, and landowners, naturally comprise the members. In 1541 the parliament votes to create the Kingdom of Ireland.

Over the centuries, the Irish parliament meets in a number of locations both inside and outside Dublin. The first meeting at Castledermot in June 1264 takes place some months earlier than the first English Parliament containing representatives of towns and cities. However, this Irish Parliament is a meeting of Irish nobles and bishops, not representatives of Irish people. Later, in the 15th century, Irish parliaments began to invite representatives of the people.

Among its most famous meeting places are Dublin Castle, the Bluecoat School, Chichester House and its final permanent home, the Irish Parliament House in College Green.


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Birth of The Pogues’ Guitarist Philip Chevron

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Philip Ryan, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist professionally known as Philip Chevron and best known as a member of The Pogues, is born on June 17, 1957. He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in Irish punk music.

Chevron grows up in Santry, a suburb of Dublin. Beginning in the late 1970s, he is lead singer and co-founder of the punk rock group The Radiators from Space, receiving some critical acclaim but little widespread popularity or financial success. Following a temporary breakup of the band in 1981, he lives in London for a while where he meets and befriends Shane MacGowan through time spent working together at a record shop. Following the release of the Pogues’ 1984 debut album Red Roses For Me, Chevron is invited to join the band as a temporary replacement for banjo player Jem Finer while on paternity leave. He takes over as guitarist following MacGowan’s decision to concentrate on singing, thereby becoming a full-time member of the band in time for the recording of its second album, Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

Chevron proves himself as a singer-songwriter, writing the songs Thousands Are Sailing and Lorelei among others. He leaves The Pogues in 1994 following problems with drugs and alcohol. In 2003, he reforms The Radiators (Plan 9) with ex-Pogues bassist Cait O’Riordan. They release the album Trouble Pilgrim in 2006.

In later years, he becomes The Pogues’ unofficial spokesperson and resident expert on the reclusive MacGowan, frequently visiting online fora and directly answering questions from fans. In 2004, he personally oversees the remastering and re-release of The Pogues’ entire back catalogue on CD. He tours regularly with The Pogues, who reunite after a successful reunion tour in 2001.

In June 2007, The Pogues’ website announces that Chevron has been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. In early 2008, the website announces that Chevron has recovered, and to his surprise and joy, his hearing has returned to almost pre-treatment levels. He embarks on the March 2008 tour of the United States and manages to sing Thousands Are Sailing at each performance. By 2009, Chevron appears to have recovered from the cancer.

However, in May 2013, it is announced that the cancer has returned, and it is “lethal.” In June he stoically tells the Irish Daily Mail, “I am a gay, Irish, Catholic, alcoholic Pogue who is about to die from cancer – and don’t think I don’t know it.” Chevron dies on October 8, 2013, in Dublin at the age of 56. His last public appearance is at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin for a fundraiser in August of that same year.


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Six Irish Students Killed in Berkeley Balcony Collapse

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Five Irish J-1 visa students and one Irish American die and seven others are injured in Berkeley, California, on June 16, 2015, after a fourth-floor balcony on which they are standing collapses. Thirteen people fall from the balcony and four are pronounced dead at the scene while two die later at the hospital.

One of the six killed is a dual Irish American citizen, Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park, California. The other five are Olivia Burke (Donohue’s cousin), Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai ‘Nick’ Schuster, Lorcán Miller, and Eimear Walsh, all aged 21 and from Dublin.

In June 2015, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates promises a broad and wide-ranging investigation into the cause of the accident with the likely cause being that the balcony of the building had not been constructed properly leading to the development of dry rot, leading to the balcony becoming structurally compromised. Overwhelming evidence points to dry rot as the cause of the collapse, and not the weight of the 13 students on it at the time.

The New York Times publishes an article reporting the deaths and suggesting the deceased are to blame for the collapse. The paper states that Irish students coming to the U.S. on J-1 visas are an “embarrassment to Ireland.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny and former President Mary McAleese criticise the newspaper for “being insensitive and inaccurate” in its handling of the story. The newspaper subsequently apologizes, although the article remains available at its website.

Alameda County prosecutors open up a criminal investigation on the accident on June 25. They state that involuntary manslaughter charges could be filed. Berkeley District Attorney Nancy O’Malley denies that pressure from the Irish community have led to the collapse inquiry.

On July 3, 2015, the Alameda County Superior Court rejects a restraining order bid against the examination of evidence by construction company Segue Builders. D.A. O’Malley had argued that the granting of a restraining order would amount to an interference in her duty to investigate the tragedy.

In December 2015, a court is told that the collapse happened because contractors cut corners to save costs. It is alleged that Greystar, the management company for the building, ignored a “red flag” when students who rented the apartment complained about the presence of mushrooms growing on the balcony. Legal cases by some of the victims are set to be combined and heard together sometime in 2016.

A joint funeral service for Olivia Burke and her cousin Ashley Donohoe takes place on June 20, four days after the collapse, in a church in Cotati, California. Funeral services are held in Dublin for the remaining victims.


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The 1996 Manchester Bombing

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The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonates a powerful 3,300-pound truck bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of Manchester, England, at 11:17 AM on June 15, 1996. The biggest bomb detonated in Great Britain since World War II, it targets the city’s infrastructure and economy and causes widespread damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million.

The IRA sends telephone warnings about 90 minutes before the bomb is detonated. The area is evacuated but the bomb squad, using a remote-controlled device, is unable to defuse the bomb in time. More than 200 people are injured, but there are no fatalities. At the time, England is hosting the UEFA Euro ’96 football championships and a match between Russia and Germany is to take place in Manchester the following day.

The Marks & Spencer store, the sky bridge connecting it with the Arndale Centre, and neighbouring buildings are destroyed. The blast creates a mushroom cloud which rises 1,000 feet into the sky. Glass and masonry are thrown into the air and people are showered by falling debris behind the police cordon a half mile away. A search of the area for casualties is confused by mannequins blasted from shop windows, which are sometimes mistaken for bodies.

Since 1970 the Provisional IRA has been waging a campaign aimed at forcing the British government to negotiate a withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Although Manchester has been the target of IRA bombs before 1996, it has not been subjected to an attack of this scale. The IRA had ended its seventeen-month ceasefire in February 1996 with a similarly large truck bomb attack on the London Docklands.

The bombing is condemned by John Major‘s government, the opposition, and by individual members of parliament (MPs) as a “sickening”, “callous,” and “barbaric” terrorist attack. Early on, Major states that, “This explosion looks like the work of the IRA. It is the work of a few fanatics and…causes absolute revulsion in Ireland as it does here.” Sinn Féin is criticised by Taoiseach John Bruton for being “struck mute” on the issue in the immediate aftermath. The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, states he is “deeply outraged by the bomb explosion” and joins Bruton and Major in “utterly condemning this brutal and cowardly act of terrorism.” On June 20, 1996, the IRA claims responsibility for the bombing and states that it “sincerely regretted” causing injury to civilians.

Several buildings near the explosion are damaged beyond repair and have to be demolished, while many more are closed for months for structural repairs. Most of the rebuilding work is completed by the end of 1999, at a cost of £1.2 billion, although redevelopment continues until 2005. The perpetrators of the attack have not been caught and Greater Manchester Police concede it is unlikely that anyone will ever be charged in connection with the bombing.


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Birth of Tenor John McCormack

john-mccormack

John McCormack, an Irish tenor celebrated for his performances of the operatic and popular song repertoires and renowned for his diction and breath control, is born in Athlone, County Westmeath, on June 14, 1884.

McCormack receives his early education from the Marist Brothers in Athlone, and later attends Summerhill College in Sligo. He sings in the choir of the old St. Peters church in Athlone under choirmaster Michael Kilkelly. When the family moves to Dublin, he sings in the choir of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral where he is discovered by composer Vincent O’Brien. In 1903 he wins the coveted gold medal of the Dublin Feis Ceoil.

Fundraising activities on his behalf enable McCormack to travel to Italy in 1905 to receive voice training by Vincenzo Sabatini in Milan. In 1906, he makes his operatic début at the Teatro Chiabrera, Savona. The next year he begins his first important operatic performance at Covent Garden in Mascagni‘s Cavalleria rusticana, becoming the theatre’s youngest principal tenor.

In less than three years he is singing opera in the United States, as well as beginning a career on the recital stage that makes him one of the most successful singers of all time. In 1917 he becomes a citizen of the United States, his adopted country, where his concert appeal has proven to be nearly universal and unrelenting.

McCormack originally ends his career in 1938 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. However, one year after that farewell concert he is back singing for the Red Cross and in support of the war effort. He concertizes, tours, broadcasts, and records in this capacity until 1943 when failing health forced him to permanently retire.

Ill with emphysema, he purchases a house near the sea at Booterstown, County Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, just south of Dublin. After a series of infectious illnesses, including influenza and pneumonia, McCormack dies on September 16, 1945. He is mourned by his countrymen, his English public who had taken him to their hearts as well, a vast number of his fellow citizens in the United States, and music lovers all over the world. He is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery.


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Molly Malone Day

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The Dublin Millennium Commission proclaims in 1988 that June 13 is to be designated as “Molly Malone Day.”

Molly Malone is a popular song, set in Dublin, which has become the unofficial anthem of Dublin City. The song tells the fictional tale of a fishmonger who plies her trade on the streets of Dublin, but who dies of a fever at a young age. In the late 20th century a legend grows that there is a historical Molly, who lived in the 17th century. She is typically represented as a hawker by day and part-time prostitute by night. In contrast she has also been portrayed as one of the few chaste female street-hawkers of her day. However, there is no evidence that the song is based on a real woman of the 17th century or any other time for that matter. The name “Molly” originated as a familiar version of the names Mary and Margaret. While many such “Molly” Malones are born in Dublin over the centuries, no evidence connects any of them to the events in the song. Nevertheless, in 1988 the Dublin Millennium Commission endorses claims about a Mary Malone who died on June 13, 1699, and proclaims June 13 to be “Molly Malone Day.”

Artists who have recorded versions of Molly Malone include Heino, U2, The Saturdays, Danny Kaye, Pete Seeger, Frank Harte, Sinéad O’Connor, Johnny Logan, Ian McCulloch, Paul Harrington, and Damien Leith. However, the best-known version is recorded by The Dubliners.

Molly Malone is commemorated in a statue designed by Jeanne Rynhart and unveiled by then Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alderman Ben Briscoe during the 1988 Dublin Millennium celebrations. The statue is presented to the city by Jury’s Hotel Group to mark the Millennium. Originally placed at the bottom of Grafton Street in Dublin, the statue is known colloquially as “The Tart With The Cart,” “The Dish with the Fish,” and “The Trollop With The Scallops.” The statue portrays Molly as a busty young woman in seventeenth-century dress. Her low-cut dress and large breasts were justified on the grounds that as “women breastfed publicly in Molly’s time, breasts were popped out all over the place.”

The statue is later removed and placed in storage to make way for new tracks for Luas, Dublin’s tram/light rail system. On July 18, 2014, it is temporarily placed outside the Dublin Tourist Office on Suffolk Street. The statue is expected to be returned to its original location in late 2017.


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The Armagh Rail Disaster

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The Armagh rail disaster occurs on June 12, 1889, near Armagh, County Armagh, when a crowded Sunday school excursion train fails to negotiate a steep incline. The steam locomotive is unable to complete the climb and the train stalls. The train crew decides to divide the train and take the front portion forward, leaving the rear portion on the running line. The rear portion has inadequate brakes and rolls back down the gradient, colliding with a following train. Eighty people are killed and 260 are injured, about a third of them children. It is the worst rail disaster in the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century and remains Ireland’s worst railway disaster ever.

Armagh Sunday school organises a day trip to the seaside resort of Warrenpoint, a distance of about 24 miles. A special Great Northern Railway of Ireland train is arranged for the journey, intended to carry about eight hundred passengers. The railway route is steeply graded and curved.

Asked to provide a train to take 800 excursionists, the locomotive department at Dundalk sends fifteen vehicles however instructions provided to the engineer are that the train is to consist of thirteen vehicles. The engineer objects to the use of fifteen vehicles. Witnesses say that the engineer asks for a second engine if the additional carriages are added but his request is refused by the station master as no additional engines are available.

Initially, the train progresses up the steep gradient at about 10 mph but stalls about 200 yards from the top of the gradient. To prevent the train from rolling back, the brakes are applied. The chief clerk directs the train crew to divide the train and proceed with the front portion to Hamilton’s Bawn station about two miles away, leaving it there and returning for the rear portion.

After uncoupling the rear portion, the engineer attempts to proceed on with the front portion. Initially, it rolls back slightly, jolting the rear portion which begins to roll back and gathers speed down the steep gradient back towards Armagh station. The train crew reverses the front portion and tries to catch the rear portion, but this proves to be impossible.

The line is operated on a time interval system so there is no means at Armagh of knowing that the line is not clear. The following scheduled passenger train leaves Armagh after the required 20-minute interval. It is proceeding up the gradient at about 25 mph when the engineer sees the approaching runaway vehicles at a distance of about 500 yards. He brakes his train and has reduced speed to 5 mph at the moment of collision. The two rearmost vehicles of the excursion train are utterly destroyed, and the third rearmost is very badly damaged.


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Formation of the Independent Orange Order

independent-orange-orderThe Independent Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organisation, is formed in Belfast on June 11, 1903 by Thomas Sloan and others associated with the Belfast Protestant Association, who have been expelled from the Orange Order because they voice opposition to it being used for party political ends by Ulster Unionists. Originally it is associated with the labour movement, but it soon realigns itself with traditional unionist politics.

It takes its name in memory of King William of Orange of the house of Orange who fights at the Battle of the Boyne, brings about the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights giving the Westminster parliament ultimate power of the country rather than the Monarch. The Independent Order is small compared to the main organisation with 1,500 to 2,000 members. It is largely based around north County Antrim in Northern Ireland but has lodges around the world, including England, Scotland, and Australia. Its annual main Twelfth of July demonstration is held in a north Antrim town or village.

The first notable effect after the formation of the Independent Order is a more liberal interpretation of the rules of the “Old Order.” In the early years of the Institution, many suffer the full wrath of the “powers that be,” who are opposed to any splitting of the Orange Order. Jobs are lost, homes are burned, and their headquarters in Belfast is bombed.

Independent Orangeism today maintains that it is essential for the Orange Institution to be kept free from politics and to guard the principles of Reformation Protestantism. They often express alarm when they believe these principles are endangered by conciliatory politicians. They are opposed to ecumenism and, while being opposed to Orangeism being linked to the Ulster Unionist Party, they are not apolitical and tend to work alongside unionist politicians and parties.

The Institution also promotes Ulster Protestant history and proclaims the principle of “Liberty of Conscience.” They declare their right to think and act independently without direction from political or clerical masters, they seek to strengthen the position of Orangeism, and they often warn of the danger of the development of a social and cultural Orangeism devoid of Protestant principle.