seamus dubhghaill

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

Monthly Archives: December 2021


by Leave a comment

Canonisation of Laurence O’Toole by Pope Honorius III

Lorcán Ua Tuathail, also known as Saint Laurence O’Toole, is canonised by Pope Honorius III on December 11, 1225. It will be 750 years before another Irish person is canonised.

O’Toole is born in Castledermot in what is now County Kildare in 1128. His father is Maurice O’Toole, King of Hy Murray. It is common practice in the day for princes of one clan to be given as hostages to another clan, as a guarantee of peace. When he is ten years old O’Toole is given as hostage to Diarmaid Mac Murchada, King of Leinster, who treats him very badly. He is sent in chains to a remote place, where he gets very little to eat and does not have enough clothes to keep him warm in the winter. For two years, even though he is a king’s son, he learns what it is like to be poor and to be oppressed.

After two years, it is agreed that O’Toole is to be released. He is sent to a monastery at Glendalough, and the monks make him welcome. It is agreed that his father is to come and collect him there. But he soon comes to love Glendalough and likes joining the monks in prayer. After his two years as a hostage, he realises that wealth and power are not important. He feels very close to God in Glendalough. He asks his father’s permission to stay there and become a monk, to which his father agrees. At the age of only 26 years old, he is elected Abbot of Glendalough. As the leader of the community, he encourages the monks in their learning. There is always a welcome in the monastery for the poor. When there is a famine in the area, he sells some of the treasures of Glendalough to provide food for those who are hungry.

In 1162 O’Toole becomes the first Irish-born Archbishop of Dublin, then a city ruled by Danes and Norwegians. In those days, many of the people of Dublin do not take their Christian religion very seriously. He encourages them to become real Christians. He brings monks to Dublin from France, and they live at Christ Church Cathedral. They help many people to come back to Mass and the Sacraments. O’Toole himself never forgets his own days of poverty. He continues to care for the poor, especially homeless children. He makes room for them in his own house, and they share the food at his table.

The Normans land in Ireland in 1169. The following year they besiege Dublin under their leader, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, also known by the nickname of “Strongbow.” O’Toole meets Strongbow to arrange peace but the Normans attack while the talks are going on. They seize the city and begin killing the citizens and looting their houses. O’Toole saves the lives of many people.

As Archbishop of Dublin, O’Toole participates in the Third Council of the Lateran in Rome in 1179, with some of the other Irish bishops. Pope Alexander III knows that Ireland has been going through a bad time. He knows that many people, including priests, are no longer taking their religion seriously. He entrusts to O’Toole the task of reforming the Church in Ireland.

A new dispute breaks out between Henry II of England and the Irish Kings. In the spring of 1180, O’Toole leaves Ireland to see if he can help settle the dispute. King Henry II does not have much time for bishops. He has already arranged to have the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, murdered. He does not welcome O’Toole. He sees a chance to get rid of O’Toole as Archbishop of Dublin and does not let him return to Ireland. Henry has control of Normandy as well as England. O’Toole follows him there. As long as there is a chance of peace, he would not give up trying.

In 1180, O’Toole becomes seriously ill. The monks at Eu in Normandy look after him in their monastery but on November 14, 1180, at the age of 52, he dies. His tomb is in the crypt under the Collegial Church at Eu. Many people still go there to pray.

Laurence O’Toole is canonized by Pope Honorius III on December 11, 1225.

(From “St. Laurence O’Toole: a spiritual leader for difficult times,” CatholicIreland.net, November 30, 1999)


by 1 Comment

Birth of Nancy Wynne-Jones, Welsh & Irish Landscape Artist

Nancy Wynne-Jones HRHA, Welsh and Irish artist, is born Mary Esperance Wynne-Jones on December 10, 1922, in Penmaenucha, Dolgellau, Wales.

Wynne-Jones is born to landowner Charles Llewellyn Wynne-Jones and Sybil Mary Gella Scott. The family spends half the year in Wales and half the year in Thornhill, Stalbridge, Dorset, England. She has two brothers, Andrew and Ronald (“Polly”), both of whom die in Africa during World War II.

Wynne-Jones is educated at home. Her skill in art leads to her getting lessons in Sherborne from a children’s book illustrator. Her music is encouraged by the family doctor, and she begins to compose and study the violin, receiving lessons in Bournemouth with the first violinist of the symphony orchestra and continues in Aberystwyth after the start of World War II. She goes on to study the violin and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London (1940–43). While in London she also serves as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse until 1943 and later as a draughtswoman at the Ordnance Survey.

After the war Wynne-Jones purchases and manages a bookshop on the King’s Road in Chelsea, but it is not a financial success. She returns to painting, studying at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, London (1951-52) and the Chelsea School of Art (1952–55). She travels extensively through Portugal and Italy painting landscapes. An interest in completing landscapes in an abstract manner leads her to study with Peter Lanyon in St. Ives, Cornwall.

Wynne-Jones begins study in Cornwall in 1957 and remains there for fifteen years. Her first public exhibition is in a group show (1957) at the Pasmore Edwards Gallery, Newlyn. Other group shows are Jefferson Place Gallery, Washington, D.C., (1959), and in Falmouth, Cornwall (1960). Her solo exhibitions are at the New Vision Centre, London (1962 and 1965), Florence (1963) and Dolgellau (1964). From the 1960s through the 1990s she exhibits in Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Holland, South Africa, and the United States.

In 1962 Wynne-Jones purchases Trevaylor House near Penzance and provides accommodation for other artists including renowned Irish painter Tony O’Malley, sculptor Conor Fallon, and English poet and writer W. S. ‘Sydney’ Graham. In the 1970s she exhibits in Ireland at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin (1970) and at the Emmet Gallery, Dublin (1975 and 1977). During the 1980s she exhibits at the Lincoln and Hendricks galleries in Dublin before joining the Taylor Galleries, run by John and Patrick Taylor. She is elected honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1994 and becomes a member of Aosdána in 1996. Originally an abstract artist, her contact with the Irish countryside slowly transforms her work to that of a landscape artist, albeit with an influence of abstraction attached to it. She becomes well known in Irish art circles as an eminent Irish landscape artist.

Wynne-Jones is involved with artist Derek Middleton before moving to Cornwall. There she becomes romantically involved with Graham who is in an open marriage, however it is the death of her mentor Peter Lanyon that devastates her. She meets the sculptor Conor Fallon through their mutual friend Tony O’Malley. Fallon had arrived in Cornwall ostensibly to meet Lanyon. They marry in 1966. Their honeymoon in Provence is immortalised in expressionist paintings done by Wynne-Jones. The couple adopts a boy and a girl, siblings, John and Bridget. In 1972 she moves with her family to Kinsale, County Cork. It is in this area that a number of her paintings are created. She moves to Ballard House, near Rathdrum, County Wicklow in 1987. There she paints the mountain visible from her home.

Wynne-Jones dies at the age of 83 on November 9, 2006. She is buried in Ballinatone (Church of Ireland), Rathdrum.

(Pictured: “Klein Constantia with Table Mountain” by Nancy Wynne-Jones, acrylic on paper, 16 1/2″ x 23″)


by Leave a comment

Sinn Féin Holds First Formal Talks with the British Government in Over 70 Years

On December 9, 1994, Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), holds its first formal talks with the British Government in over 70 years. The negotiations take place in Belfast, almost one year after Britain and Ireland began an uncertain program to try to resolve the conflict in Northern Ireland. The first session is held at Stormont, a gigantic, columned edifice on top of a hill on the outskirts of Belfast that houses the old Northern Ireland parliament.

Although the announcement of the negotiations is not a surprise, it still sets off an exciting ripple that history is in the making. British officials have conducted secret talks with Sinn Féin leaders in the past, but never before have they sat down openly at the same table with them.

In both a letter to the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, and in a three-paragraph statement, Downing Street pointedly refers to the meeting as “exploratory dialogue.” This is in keeping with London‘s position that it is simply joining in “talks about talks,” not a full negotiating session, which must involve all parties to the conflict.

For 25 years the IRA has been fighting in the name of the Roman Catholic minority of 650,000 in Northern Ireland. It wants to link Ulster, the six counties of Northern Ireland that remain British after partition, to the Irish Republic, a move opposed by most of the province’s 950,000 Protestants.

The announcement of talks evoke a predictable pattern of responses across Northern Ireland’s political spectrum. Adams, who works to persuade the IRA to go along with a unilateral cease-fire that was declared on September 1, welcomes it. “The opportunity to realize a lasting peace, which will benefit all of the people of Ireland, has never been greater,” he says in a statement. Adams had been accusing London of foot-dragging on the peace effort. Now, he says, it is time to move on to “the next phase of dialogue — multilateral talks led by both Governments.”

The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the main Protestant political group in Northern Ireland, is skeptically accepting, as it has been all along. John Taylor, a Unionist Member of Parliament, says the talks will at least establish whether “Sinn Féin really is to become a normal political party.”

The Rev. Ian Paisley, a Member of Parliament whose Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has become a rejectionist front, continues to oppose talks or any move smacking of compromise. He tells the House of Commons that “a vast majority of people” resent the decision to talk to “the men of blood.”

Sinn Féin is represented at the talks by Martin McGuinness, a veteran IRA political leader who took part in secret contacts that broke up the previous year. In 1972, together with Adams, he was flown to London for a meeting with William Whitelaw, who was then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Those talks eventually failed.

Adams is in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, December 7. He attends a meeting at the White House, his first one there, with Anthony Lake, President Bill Clinton‘s National Security Advisor. Seven weeks earlier, Britain protests vigorously at the thought of Adams visiting the White House. But events moved so swiftly that he gains a kind of legitimacy that is hard for Whitehall to deny. His visa to the United States, good for three months, allows several visits.

The Government team of civil servants, in contrast to higher-level ministers, are led by Quentin Thomas, deputy secretary of the British administration called the Northern Ireland Office.

Going into the negotiations, the key question is what will be discussed. On the British side, the top of the agenda is how to get the IRA to turn over its considerable stash of 100 tons of arms and explosives. There is nothing, of course, that Sinn Féin is less likely to agree to at the outset. So should the British make this a condition for multilateral talks to begin, the two sides will meet an obstacle right away.

McGuinness says that the issue of IRA weapons has to be considered “in the context of us removing the causes of conflict, the reason why people use armed force in our society.”

From its side, Adams says Sinn Féin wants to discuss being treated with “a parity of esteem” with the other parties, and “the release of all political prisoners.”

The British Government says that it will soon hold talks with the so-called loyalist paramilitaries on the Protestant side. And it indicates it will have no objection if elected Sinn Féin councillors attend a major international investment conference in Belfast on December 13 and 14.

(From: “Britain and I.R.A. Group to Begin Talks in Northern Ireland” by John Darnton, The New York Times, December 2, 1994 | Pictured: Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness lead a Republican parade in Belfast, commemorating 25 years of British troops on the streets of Northern Ireland in 1994)


by Leave a comment

The Rotunda Hospital Opens in Dublin

The Rotunda Hospital, legally the Hospital for the Relief of Poor Lying-in Women, Dublin, is opened by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, on December 8, 1757. It is a maternity hospital on Parnell Street in Dublin, now managed by RCSI Hospitals. The eponymous Rotunda in Parnell Square is no longer a part of the hospital complex.

The hospital is founded by Bartholomew Mosse, a surgeon and midwife who is appalled at the conditions that pregnant women have to endure, in George’s Lane in March 1745. It is granted by Royal Charter on December 2, 1756 by King George II. Lying-in is an archaic term for childbirth, referring to the month-long bed rest prescribed for postpartum confinement. The venture is very successful and Mosse raises money through concerts, exhibitions and even a lottery to establish larger premises. The hospital moves to new premises, designed by Richard Cassels, where it becomes known as “The New Lying-In Hospital” in December 1757. The Church of Ireland Chapel is opened in 1762. Open to the public, it provides a healthy income to the hospital annually, Dr. Mosse successfully encouraging wealthy Protestant Dubliners to attend service there.

Records indicate that around 1781, “when the hospital was imperfectly ventilated, every sixth child died within nine days after birth, of convulsive disease; and that after means of thorough ventilation had been adopted, the mortality of infants, within the same, in five succeeding years, was reduced to one in twenty.” This issue is not limited to the Lying-In-Hospital. In the era, ventilation improvement is a general issue in patient care, along with other issues of sanitation and hygiene, and the conditions in which surgeons such as Robert Liston in Britain and elsewhere, have to operate. Florence Nightingale famously works on the design of safe and healthy hospitals.

The first Caesarean section in Ireland is undertaken at the hospital in 1889.

The eponymous Rotunda is a rotunda designed by James Ensor, which is completed just in time for a reception hosted by James FitzGerald, Marquess of Kildare, in October 1767. The extensive Rotunda Rooms, designed by Richard Johnston and built adjacent to the rotunda, are completed in 1791. By the early 19th century the hospital has become known as the Rotunda Hospital, after its most prominent architectural feature. The Rotunda becomes a theatre, where the Irish Volunteers first public meeting is held in 1913, and later the Ambassador Cinema. The Rotunda Rooms now house the Gate Theatre.

The Rotunda Hospital, as both a maternity hospital and also as a training centre (affiliated with Trinity College, Dublin) is notable for having provided continuous service to mothers and babies since inception, making it the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world. It is estimated that over 300,000 babies have been born there.

In 2000 the Rotunda is one of two Dublin maternity hospitals found to have illegally retained organ tissue from babies without parental consent. The tissue removed in postmortem examinations is retained for some years. The Rotunda Hospital admits that that permission should have been sought for this process to be allowed to take place.

A medical negligence award is approved in 2020 for a young boy who develops cerebral palsy as a result of complications with his delivery at the hospital in 2004.


by Leave a comment

The Ballygawley Barracks Attack

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) launches an assault on the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks in Ballygawley, County Tyrone, on December 7, 1985. Two RUC officers are shot dead, and the barracks are raked with gunfire before being completely destroyed by a bomb, which wounds an additional three officers.

In 1985, Patrick Kelly becomes leader of the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade. He, along with East Tyrone Brigade members Jim Lynagh and Pádraig McKearney, advocate using flying columns to destroy isolated British Army and RUC bases and stop them from being repaired. The goal is to create and hold “liberated zones” under IRA control that will be gradually enlarged. Although IRA Chief of Staff Kevin McKenna turns down the flying column idea, IRA Northern Command approves the plan to destroy bases and prevent their repair. In 1985 alone there are 44 such attacks. Among the most devastating is the mortar attack on Newry RUC barracks in March.

The Ballygawley attack involves two IRA active service units from the East Tyrone Brigade: an armed assault unit and a bomb unit. There are also several teams of IRA observers in the area. The assault team is armed with AK-47 and AR-15 rifles, while the bombing unit is responsible for planting and detonating a 100-pound (45 kg) bomb. Both units are commanded by Patrick Kelly.

The assault is launched on Saturday, December 7, at 6:55 PM, when the handful of RUC officers manning the base are getting ready to hand over to the next shift. In the first burst of automatic fire, the two guards at the entrance are killed, Constable George Gilliland and Reserve Constable William Clements. Constable Clements’s Ruger Security-Six revolver is taken by the attackers. The base is then raked with gunfire. Another three RUC officers who are inside run out to the back of the base, where they hope the walls might offer some cover. IRA members go into the building and take documents and weapons. The bomb is placed inside and, upon detonation, destroys the entire base, injuring three officers.

The republican IRIS Magazine (#11, October 1987) describes the attack as follows:

“One volunteer took up a position close to the front gate. Two RUC men opened the gate and the volunteer calmly stepped forward, shooting them both dead at point blank range. Volunteers firing AK-47 and Armalite rifles moved into the barracks, raking it with gunfire. Having secured the building, they planted a 100-lb. bomb inside. The bomb exploded, totally destroying the building after the volunteers had withdrawn to safety.”

The first British Army unit to arrive at the base in the wake of the attack is X Company, 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

The attack is one of the Provisional IRA’s biggest during this period. Twelve days later the same IRA brigade mortar the RUC station at Castlederg badly damaging the base and injuring four people. The Ballygawley base is rebuilt by the Royal Engineers in 1986.

The East Tyrone IRA launches two similar attacks in the following years: the successful attack on the Birches base in 1986, and the ill-fated attack on the Loughgall base in 1987, in which eight IRA members are killed. Ballygawley itself had seen conflict before with the Ballygawley land mine attack in 1983 and would see more violence in 1988 with the Ballygawley bus bombing, that cost the lives of eight British soldiers. The gun taken from Constable Clements is found by security forces after the SAS ambush at Loughgall.

The RUC base at Ballygawley is once again targeted by the East Tyrone Brigade on December 7, 1992, in what becomes the debut of the IRA’s brand-new Mark-15 improvised mortar, better known as “Barrack Buster.” Another attack with a horizontal mortar occurs on April 30, 1993, when a RUC mobile patrol leaving Ballygawley compound is targeted. According to an IRA statement, the projectile misses one of the vehicles, hits a wall and explodes.

(Pictured: A Provisional Irish Republican Army badge, with the phoenix symbolising the origins of the Provisional IRA)


by Leave a comment

The Arrest of Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh

Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, is accused of instigating the Popish Plot and arrested on December 6, 1679. He is the last victim of the Popish Plot.

Plunkett is born on November 1, 1625, in Loughcrew, County Meath, to parents of Hiberno-Norman ancestors. Until his sixteenth year, his education is entrusted to his cousin Patrick Plunkett, Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, and brother of Luke Plunkett, 1st Earl of Fingall, who later becomes successively Bishop of Ardagh and of Meath. As an aspirant to the priesthood, he sets out for Rome in 1647.

Plunkett is admitted to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome and proves to be an able pupil. He is ordained a priest in 1654 and deputed by the Irish bishops to act as their representative in Rome. Meanwhile, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) has defeated the Roman Catholic cause in Ireland. As a result, it is impossible for Plunkett to return to Ireland for many years, so he petitions to remain in Rome. At the Congregation of Propaganda Fide on July 9, 1669, he is appointed Archbishop of Armagh and is consecrated on November 30 at Ghent. He returns to Ireland on March 7, 1670, as the English Restoration of 1660 has begun on a basis of toleration.

Plunkett sets about reorganising the ravaged Roman Church and builds schools both for the young and for clergy. The Penal Laws have been relaxed in line with the Declaration of Breda in 1660 and he is able to establish a Jesuit College in Drogheda in 1670, which becomes the first Catholic-Protestant integrated school in Ireland.

On the enactment of the Test Act in 1673, to which Plunkett does not agree for doctrinal reasons, the college is closed and demolished. Plunkett goes into hiding, traveling only in disguise, and refuses a government edict to register at a seaport to await passage into exile.

In 1678 the so-called Popish Plot, concocted in England by clergyman Titus Oates, leads to further anti-Roman Catholic action. Archbishop Peter Talbot of Dublin is arrested, and Plunkett again goes into hiding. Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, he refuses to leave his flock.

Plunkett is arrested in Dublin on December 6, 1679, and imprisoned in Dublin Castle. He is tried at Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. The trial soon collapses as the prosecution witnesses are themselves wanted men and afraid to appear in court. Plunkett is moved to Newgate Prison in London in order to face trial at Westminster Hall. The first grand jury finds no true bill, but he is not released. The second trial is generally regarded as a serious miscarriage of justice as Plunkett is denied defending counsel.

Archbishop Plunkett is found guilty of high treason in June 1681 “for promoting the Roman faith,” and is condemned to death. Plunkett is hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on July 1, 1681, the last Roman Catholic martyr to die in England. His body is initially buried in two tin boxes in the courtyard of St. Giles in the Fields church. The remains are exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at Lamspringe, near Hildesheim in Germany. His head is brought to Rome, and from there to Armagh, and eventually to Drogheda where it has rested in St. Peter’s Church since June 29, 1921. Most of the body is brought to Downside Abbey, England, where the major part is located today, with some parts remaining at Lamspringe.

Sir Oliver Plunkett is canonised in Rome by Pope Paul VI on October 12, 1975, the first new Irish saint in almost seven hundred years, and the first of the Irish martyrs to be beatified. For the canonisation, the customary second miracle is waived.


by Leave a comment

British Ultimatum to the Irish Delegation at the Anglo-Irish Treaty Talks

The Irish delegation at the Anglo-Irish Treaty talks in London are given an ultimatum by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George on December 5, 1921. Sign the treaty or face “immediate and terrible war.”

In 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, the Government of Ireland Act not only establishes the new state of Northern Ireland but gives that state the right to opt-out of a future self-governing Irish Free State within the British Commonwealth of Nations.

The Northern state consists of the six northeastern counties of Ulster with a unionist majority. They are Antrim, Down, Armagh, Derry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh. Belfast is to be the seat of a government and hold limited devolved powers. The counties of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan are to be absorbed within the Irish Free State controlled from parliament in Dublin.

Irish nationalists are dismayed with the plan. Protestant Unionists, particularly those living within the boundaries of the new state, accept and start to implement the Act. Sectarian attacks are launched upon Catholic homes in Belfast, Derry, Banbridge, Lisburn, and Dromore. Catholics are driven from Belfast shipyards and from various engineering works in the city. Supposedly these attacks are in revenge for Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassinations.

The IRA continues the campaign to establish a republic with the Irish War of Independence. By the middle of 1921, both sides are exhausted, and a truce is called on June 9.

In July 1921, Éamon DeValera, the president of Dáil Éireann, goes to London to meet with Prime Minister Lloyd George. They agree an Irish delegation will come to London to discuss terms in the autumn.

The delegation appointed by the Dáil to travel to London consists of Arthur Griffith (Minister for Foreign Affairs and chairman of the delegation); Michael Collins (Minister for Finance and deputy chairman of the delegation); Robert Barton (Minister for Economic Affairs); George Gavan Duffy and Éamonn Duggan, with Erskine Childers, Fionán Lynch, Diarmuid O’Hegarty, and John Chartres providing secretarial assistance. DeValera himself does not attend. Future historians wonder if he knew they would not be able to negotiate a 32 county Irish Republic.

During the debate, Lloyd George insists Ireland remain part of the Commonwealth and Dáil Éireann members take the oath of allegiance to the British throne. After a delay of two months, Lloyd George delivers the ultimatum on December 5, sign a treaty within three days or there will be war.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty is to give Ireland a 26 county Free State with Dominion status. The right to raise taxes, regulate foreign trade, independence in internal affairs, own an army, and the oath of allegiance is changed to one of fidelity.

The British are to retain three naval bases within the jurisdiction of the Free State, at Cobh, Lough Swilly, and Berehaven. The Northern Ireland boundary is to be determined by a commission. This gives false hope to large tracts of Tyrone, Fermanagh, Down, Armagh, and Derry City would be given to the Free State as they have Catholic majorities.

Just after 2:00 AM on December 6, 1921, the Irish delegation, without consulting the Dáil, finally sign a treaty with the British. Collins writes, prophetically, later on the day of the signing, “early this morning I signed my death warrant.”

The Treaty displeases the Catholics in the north and the unionists in the south. Meanwhile, many of those involved in the conflict are abhorred at the fact that not all of Ireland is to leave the United Kingdom.

(From: “The Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921)” by Brian O’Neill, Your Irish Culture, http://www.yourirish.com, May 20, 2020)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Robert Horatio George Minty, Officer in the U.S. Union Army

Robert Horatio George Minty, a Brevet Major General in the Union Army during the American Civil War, is born in Westport, County Mayo, on December 4, 1831.

In 1836, Minty’s father, also named Robert, is promoted to lieutenant in the 1st West India Regiment of Foot, which is a regiment of black enlisted men with white officers. The whole family leaves Ireland and travels with him through Minty’s later childhood and teenage years. They move all around the Caribbean and West Africa ultimately being sent to Sierra Leone.

Minty’s father becomes judge advocate general in Jamaica in 1846 but dies after falling victim to yellow fever in 1848. Though he is only 17 at the time, he is allowed to take over his father’s commission in the regiment. After serving five years in the regiment he resigns his commission, possibly because he nearly becomes a victim of a tropical disease himself.

Minty immigrates to Ontario, Canada, where his mother and the family had moved after his father’s death. He is hired by the Great Western Railroad Company at a time when the railroad business is exploding in both the United States and Canada. He is involved with railroads for the rest of his life, with time out for the American Civil War.

Minty is commissioned as Major of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry Regiment on October 2, 1862, but holds that duty for only a month before he is transferred to the 3rd Michigan Cavalry Regiment and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. His time with the new regiment is again relatively brief, for in March 1862 he is given the task of recruiting another regiment that becomes the 4th Michigan Cavalry Regiment.

Promoted to Colonel and officially given command of the unit on July 21, 1862, Minty leads it as it fights in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas, taking part in the Battle of Chickamauga and the Battle of Atlanta. He is brevetted Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers and Major General, U.S. Volunteers on March 13, 1865, for “gallant and meritorious services during the war.”

Minty and the men under his command are noted as being the regiment that captures the fleeing President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, at Irwinville, Georgia on May 9, 1865, as the Confederacy collapses.

Minty is honorably mustered out of the Union Army on April 15, 1865, at Nashville, Tennessee, and becomes a successful railroad executive in his post-war career. He dies at the age of 74 on August 24, 1906, in Jerome, Arizona. He is buried at Aultorest Memorial Park in Ogden, Utah.


by Leave a comment

Birth of John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury

John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury PC, KC, Irish lawyer, politician and judge known as The Lord Norbury between 1800 and 1827, is born at Beechwood, Nenagh, County Tipperary, on December 3, 1745. A greatly controversial figure in his time, he is nicknamed the “Hanging Judge” and is considered to be one of the most corrupt legal figures in Irish history. He is Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland between 1800 and 1827.

Toler is the youngest son of Daniel Toler, MP, and Letitia, daughter of Thomas Otway (1665–1724), of Lissenhall, Nenagh, County Tipperary. His elder brother Daniel Toler is also a politician, serving as High Sheriff for Tipperary and also as MP for Tipperary. The Toler family is originally from Norfolk, East Anglia, England, but settles in County Tipperary in the 17th century. He is educated at Kilkenny College and at Trinity College, Dublin.

After graduating from university Toler enters the legal profession and is called to the Irish Bar in 1770. In 1781 he is appointed a King’s Counsel. He is returned to the Parliament of Ireland for Tralee in 1773, a seat he holds until 1780, and later represents Philipstown between 1783 and 1790 and Gorey from 1790 until the Acts of Union 1800. In 1789 he is appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, which he remains until 1798 when he is promoted to Attorney-General for Ireland and sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland. In his role as Attorney-General he is responsible for the prosecution of those involved in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. According to the Dictionary of National Biography “his indifference to human suffering … disgusted even those who thought the occasion called for firmness on the part of government.” In 1799, he brings forward a law which gives the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland power to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act and to impose martial law.

In 1800 Toler is appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland and raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Norbury, of Ballycrenode in the County of Tipperary. His appointment to the bench is controversial and John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, is said to have quipped, “Make him a bishop, or even an archbishop, but not a chief justice.” His tenure as Chief Justice lasts for 27 years, despite the fact that, the Dictionary of National Biography opines, “his scanty knowledge of the law, his gross partiality, his callousness, and his buffoonery, completely disqualified him for the position. His court was in constant uproar owing to his noisy merriment. He joked even when the life of a human being was hanging in the balance.” This earns him the nickname the “Hanging Judge.” His most famous trial is that of Irish nationalist leader Robert Emmet. He interrupts and abuses Emmet throughout the trial before sentencing him to death. In spite of this, with his strong belief in the Protestant Ascendancy, he is considered to have had great influence over the government in Ireland in the early part of the nineteenth century.

However, Toler’s position eventually becomes untenable even to his strongest supporters, especially with the British government‘s aim of establishing a better relationship with the Catholic majority. His reputation is tainted in 1822, when a letter written to him by William Saurin, the Attorney-General for Ireland, is discovered, in which Saurin urges him to use his influence with the Irish Protestant gentry which makes up local juries against the Catholics. Saurin is dismissed soon afterwards. He finds his greatest adversary in Daniel O’Connell, to whom Toler is “an especial object of abhorrence.” At O’Connell’s instigation the case of Saurin’s letter is brought before the House of Commons of the United Kingdom by Henry Brougham. Toler survives this as well as an 1825 petition drawn up by O’Connell, which calls for his removal on the grounds of him falling asleep during a murder trial and later being unable to present any account of the evidence given. However, it is not until George Canning becomes Prime Minister in 1827 that Toler, then 82, is finally induced to resign. His resignation is sweetened by him being created Viscount Glandine and Earl of Norbury, of Glandine in King’s County, in the Peerage of Ireland. Unlike the barony of Norbury these titles are created with remainder to his second son Hector John. His eldest son Daniel is then considered mentally unsound.

Toler marries Grace, daughter of Hector Graham, in 1778. They have two sons and two daughters. In 1797 Grace is raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baroness Norwood, of Knockalton in the County of Tipperary, in honour of her husband. She dies in 1822 and is succeeded in the barony by her eldest son, Daniel. Toler survives her by nine years and dies at the age of 85 at his Dublin home at 3 Great Denmark Street on July 27, 1831. He is succeeded in the barony of Norbury by his eldest son Daniel and in the viscountcy and earldom according to the special remainder by his second son, Hector. In 1832 the latter also succeeds his elder brother in the baronies of Norwood and Norbury. He is considered to be the father of the astronomer John Brinkley.

(Pictured: John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury, coloured etching by unknown artist, early 19th century, National Portrait Gallery, NPG D9303)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Cahir Healy, Irish Nationalist Politician

Cahir Healy, Irish nationalist politician, is born in Mountcharles, County Donegal, on December 2, 1877. He is a leader of northern Nationalists and is a self educated man who makes major contributions to Ireland’s cultural and literary heritage.

Healy becomes a journalist working on various local papers. He joins Sinn Féin on its foundation in 1905. He later campaigns against the inclusion of County Fermanagh and County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, arguing that they have an Irish nationalist majority. He is imprisoned for his activities in 1922, before being elected in the 1922 United Kingdom general election to represent Fermanagh and Tyrone as a Nationalist Party MP, but with the support of Sinn Féin.

Healy is re-elected in 1923, but remains in custody until the following year, in which he does not defend his seat. Instead, he is elected to represent the seat in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland in the 1925 Northern Ireland general election, but does not take his seat until 1927 due to the Nationalist abstentionist policy. In 1928 he becomes a founder of the National League of the North. In 1929, with the break-up of the large Fermanagh and Tyrone constituency, he switches to sit for the new seat of South Fermanagh. In a 1931 Fermanagh and Tyrone by-election he is again elected for Fermanagh and Tyrone to the British Parliament, but stands down again in 1935.

Healy becomes an insurance official but continues to write, his output including journalism, poetry and short stories. He is interned by the United Kingdom government for a year during World War II under Defence Regulation 18B. In 1950 he is elected to the British House of Commons for a third time, on this occasion representing Fermanagh and South Tyrone. He finally sits in the British Parliament in 1952, and holds the seat until he stands down in 1955. He leaves the Northern Ireland House of Commons in 1965, by which point he is the Father of the House.

Healy dies on February 8, 1970, at the age of 92 at Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.

(Pictured: Portrait of Cahir Healy by Lafayette, half-plate nitrate negative, July 7, 1932, given by Pinewood Studios via Victoria and Albert Museum, 1989, National Portrait Gallery, London)