seamus dubhghaill

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

Author Archives: Jim Doyle


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Birth of Emer Colleran, Microbiologist & Environmental Advocate

Emer Colleran, Irish microbiologist, academic and an environmental advocate, is born in Ballinrobe, County Mayo, on October 12, 1945. She is professor of microbiology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, a member of the Royal Irish Academy, one of Mary Robinson‘s nominees on the Council of State, and chairwoman of An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland.

Colleran, and her twin Noreen, are born to John and Josie Colleran. One of a family of five children, her father is a school principal and her mother, also a primary school teacher, dies when she is just 11 years old. She completes her secondary education at St. Louis secondary school in Kiltimagh. She spends a lot of time outdoors as a child, particularly fishing, which sparks her interest in the environment.

On entering higher education, Colleran has a grant from the Department of Education, which requires that she do her studies through the Irish language. Her first choice, Medicine, is not available in Irish so she chooses Science. She graduates with a first-class primary degree in Science at University College Galway (now National University of Ireland, Galway) in 1967.

Colleran specialises in anaerobic digestion as a postgraduate and in 1971 becomes a postdoctoral fellow for two years at the University of Bristol in the UK.

Colleran lectures in biology at Athlone Regional Technical College (now Athlone Institute of Technology) and Galway Regional Technical College (now Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology) before her appointment as a lecturer in microbiology at NUI Galway in 1976. She is appointed Associate Professor of Microbiology by the Senate of the National University of Ireland in 1990. She is a member of the university’s governing authority for a number of years, but steps down in May 2000 in connection with the selection procedure for the new university president. In October of that year, she is appointed professor of microbiology and chair of the department at NUI Galway.

Colleran is the first director of the Environment Change Institute at NUI Galway set up under the Higher Education Authority‘s Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions in 2000. In 2010, the Environmental Change Institute and the Martin Ryan Marine Research Institute are merged to form the current day Ryan Institute at NUI Galway.

In 1973 Colleran is elected to the committee of the Galway Association of An Taisce, part of a national voluntary organisation the aims of which are to conservation in Ireland through education, publicity and positive action. She serves as membership secretary and then treasurer to the Galway branch before becoming chairman. In 1981, as chairman of the Galway branch, she hits back at claims from Galway County Council that An Taisce are “an anonymous group, wielding power unfairly.” She is involved in the compilation of a controversial planning report, published by An Taisce in 1983, which highlights abuse of planning laws by city and county councillors across Ireland, and in particular in counties Galway, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry and Louth.

Colleran serves as Environmental Officer for An Taisce before being elected National Chairman in 1987, the first time a chairman has come from one of the western county associations. She continues to use her position to campaign against misuse of planning laws, for a clamp down on pollution of rivers and lakes, and against a move to scrap An Foras Forbartha, a body that provides independent monitoring of pollution. During her three years as chairman, until May 1990, she is particularly involved in debates over local environmental and planning issues, in particular over gold mining in the west of Ireland, a proposed airport for Clifden, and the planned sewage treatment plant at Mutton Island, County Galway.

In 1991 plans are announced for a new visitor centre, to be located at Mullaghmore in The Burren. Colleran is among those who are part of an appeal, saying that while the plan for the national park is welcomed by An Taisce, they want the visitor centre to be located three or four miles from Mullaghmore.

President Mary Robinson appoints seven new members to her Council of State in February 1991, including Colleran. Other new members appointed at the time are Monica Barnes, Patricia O’Donovan, Quintan Oliver, Rosemarie Smith, Dónal Toolan and D. Kenneth Whitaker. The new Council of State represents a wide spectrum of Irish life and is widely welcomed, although Fine Gael is disappointed that its leader John Bruton is not included.

In 1991, Colleran is one of 15 people appointed to Taoiseach Charles Haughey‘s Green 2000 Advisory Group, to determine which problems will face the environment in the next century. The group is led by Dr. David Cabot, special advisor on environmental affairs.

Colleran is appointed a member of the National Heritage Council in 1995 by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins. In the same year the Minister of State at the Department of the Marine, Eamon Gilmore, appoints her to the chair of the Sea Trout working group to oversee the implementation of recommendations to tackle a decline in sea trout stocks, particularly in the west of Ireland.

In 2003 Colleran is elected as a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Colleran is recognised at the annual NUI Galway Alumni Awards in 2004 when she receives the award for Natural Science, sponsored by Seavite Bodycare Ltd., which acknowledges a graduate who has made an outstanding contribution in the field of natural science.

Colleran dies on June 30, 2018, at University Hospital Galway.


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John Asgill Expelled from the Irish House of Commons

John Asgill, eccentric English writer and newly elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Enniscorthy, is expelled from the Irish parliament on October 11, 1703, on account of a pamphlet he published in Dublin in 1698, arguing that man may pass into eternal life without dying. The pamphlet is burned by the common hangman and he spends much of the rest of his life in prison in England for blasphemy or for matters arising from land speculation in Ireland.

John Asgill is born at Hanley Castle, Worcestershire, England, on March 25, 1659, the son of Edward and Hester Asgill. Little is known of his early life but in 1686 he becomes a student at the Middle Temple and is called to the bar in 1692. He founds the first land bank in 1695 with Nicholas Barbon, which, after proving to be a profitable venture, merges with the land bank of John Briscoe in 1696. However, after profits drop, the bank closes in 1699. He is then elected that year as Member of Parliament for Bramber.

In 1700 Asgill publishes An Argument Proving, that … Man may be Translated, a pamphlet aiming to prove that death is not obligatory upon Christians. Within days of its publication, he leaves England to travel to Ireland, where he hopes to profit from the Williamite confiscation, acting on behalf of individuals affected by the 1699 resumption act. He is reasonably successful but is unable to gain the profits that he had anticipated. He becomes involved in lengthy litigation with the estate of the Jacobite Nicholas Browne, which continues until the early 1730s.

In an attempt to further his interests Asgill enters the Irish House of Commons in 1703, representing Enniscorthy. His Irish parliamentary career is to be short. On September 25, the first day of the session, his pamphlet on death is discussed and voted “wicked and blasphemous” and ordered to be burned by the common hangman. He is allowed to make a personal defence of his work on October 11, but this proves insufficient. He is expelled and the Commons order that “he be forever hereafter incapable of being chosen, returned or sitting a member of any succeeding parliament in this kingdom.”

While in Ireland Asgill is re-elected to the English House of Commons for Bramber in 1702 and so returns to England. On June 12, 1707 he is arrested and imprisoned at Fleet Prison for debt. He claims parliamentary immunity as a member of a current parliament despite the confusion whether the last English parliament and the first Parliament of Great Britain are the same body, and in December the House of Commons agrees. Nevertheless, two days after ordering his release from prison, he is expelled from the Commons both for his religious views and because he is a declared bankrupt.

Asgill falls on hard times and spends the rest of his life imprisoned in the Fleet or within the bounds of the King’s Bench but his zeal as a pamphleteer continues unabated.

Asgill dies on November 10, 1738, in the parish of Southwark, and is survived by his sister Martha.


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Birth of Mary Anne Holmes, Poet & Writer

Mary Anne Holmes, Irish poet and writer, is born Mary Anne Emmet on October 10, 1773, in Dublin. She is connected by her brothers Thomas Addis and Robert Emmet, to the republican politics of the Society of United Irishmen.

Holmes is one of the four surviving children of Dr. Robert Emmet, state physician of Ireland, and Elizabeth Emmet (née Mason). As a young woman she is noted for her intelligence and is a classical scholar. Her father lauds her “good character” and is very hopeful she will make a good wife. Much like her brothers, Robert and Thomas Addis, who are both to join the Society of United Irishmen, she is interested in politics and is a member of liberal intellectual circles. She is a correspondent of Margaret King about their common passion for the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft.

In 1793, a family friend, William Drennan, describes her as genteel but distant. He predicts her match with the barrister Robert Holmes, who she secretly marries on September 21, 1799, in the Dublin Unitarian Church. The couple have at least four children, with Drennan attending all the births. One of their children is Elizabeth Emmet Lenox-Conyngham. Robert Holmes attends to the Emmet family legal affairs for a time, with the couple living with her parents at Casino, near Milltown, Dublin. Holmes helps to raise the children of her brother Thomas Addis, after he is sent to Fort George, Highland, Scotland for his involvement with the United Irishmen. During this time, their mother’s letters to Thomas Addis note Holmes’ devotion to her husband but also her delicate health and tendency towards low spirits. Holmes is the only surviving child of their 17 children who is still in Ireland, and she is a comfort to her parents in their old age. Her father dies in 1802, and her mother almost dies in 1803 at the same time as the arrest and execution of her brother Robert. Some claim that Holmes attempted to recover her brother’s body but failed.

After the failed Irish rebellion of 1803, Holmes’s husband is arrested but she is allowed to spend approximately a week with him. It is long claimed that she collapses and dies on her doorstep following his release in February 1804. In truth, she gives birth to a son at home, following which her health worsens, and her hearing also deteriorates. Her son, Hugh, also later dies. She is attended to by Drennan, who worries that she is succumbing to tuberculosis that December. She dies on March 10, 1805, and is buried with her parents in the graveyard of St. Peter’s Church, Aungier Street, Dublin. There is a legend that her brother Robert’s body is interred with her in secret, but this is unconfirmed. A portrait of Holmes by Thomas Hickey is held by Kilmainham Gaol.

Holmes writes prose and verse for The Press, a publication associated with the Society of United Irishmen. In 1799 she is active, along with members of her extended family, in the movement opposed to the legislative union of Ireland with the United Kingdom. The pamphlet An address to the people of Ireland is attributed to her but is now thought to have been written by Roger O’Connor. Holmes’ poems are included in her daughter’s 1833 book of verse The dream and other poems.

(Pictured: Portrait of Mary Anne Holmes by Thomas Hickey, held in the collections of Kilmainham Gaol)


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Death of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Revolutionary, Physician, Writer & Diplomat

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, writer, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist of Spanish-Irish descent, dies in La Higuera, Vallegrande, Bolivia, on October 9, 1967. After his execution by the Bolivian army, he is regarded as a martyred hero by generations of leftists worldwide, and his image becomes an icon of leftist radicalism and anti-imperialism.

Guevara is born on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a middle-class family of Spanish-Irish descent and leftist leanings. Although suffering from asthma, he excels as an athlete and a scholar, completing his medical studies in 1953. He spends many of his holidays traveling in Latin America, and his observations of the great poverty of the masses contributes to his eventual conclusion that the only solution lay in violent revolution. He comes to look upon Latin America not as a collection of separate nations but as a cultural and economic entity, the liberation of which would require an intercontinental strategy.

In particular, Guevara’s worldview is changed by a nine-month journey he begins in December 1951, while on hiatus from medical school, with his friend Alberto Granado. That trip, which begins on a motorcycle they call “the Powerful” (which breaks down and is abandoned early in the journey), takes them from Argentina through Chile, Peru, Colombia, and on to Venezuela, from which Guevara travels alone on to Miami, returning to Argentina by plane. During the trip he keeps a journal that is posthumously published under his family’s guidance as The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey (2003) and adapted to film as The Motorcycle Diaries (2004).

In 1953 Guevara goes to Guatemala, where Jacobo Árbenz heads a progressive regime that is attempting to bring about a social revolution. It is about this time he acquires his nickname, from a verbal mannerism of Argentines who punctuate their speech with the interjection “che.” The overthrow of the Árbenz regime in 1954 in a coup supported by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) persuades him that the United States will always oppose progressive leftist governments. This becomes the cornerstone of his plans to bring about socialism by means of a worldwide revolution. It is in Guatemala that he becomes a dedicated Marxist.

Guevara leaves Guatemala for Mexico, where he meets the Cuban brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro, political exiles who are preparing an attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. He joins Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, which lands a force of 81 men (including Guevara) in the Cuban Oriente Province on December 2, 1956. Immediately detected by Batista’s army, they are almost wiped out. The few survivors, including the wounded Guevara, reach the Sierra Maestra, where they become the nucleus of a guerrilla army. The rebels slowly gain in strength, seizing weapons from Batista’s forces and winning support and new recruits. Guevara had initially come along as the force’s doctor, but he has also trained in weapons use, and he becomes one of Castro’s most-trusted aides. Indeed, the complex Guevara, though trained as a healer, also, on occasion, acts as the executioner (or orders the execution) of suspected traitors and deserters.

After Castro’s victorious troops enter Havana on January 8, 1959, Guevara serves for several months at La Cabaña prison, where he oversees the executions of individuals deemed to be enemies of the revolution. He becomes a Cuban citizen, as prominent in the newly established Marxist government as he had been in the revolutionary army, representing Cuba on many commercial missions. He also becomes well known in the West for his opposition to all forms of imperialism and neocolonialism and for his attacks on U.S. foreign policy. He serves as chief of the Industrial Department of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, president of the National Bank of Cuba (famously demonstrating his disdain for capitalism by signing currency simply “Che”), and Minister of Industries.

During the early 1960s, Guevara defines Cuba’s policies and his own views in many speeches and writings, notably “El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba” (1965; “Man and Socialism in Cuba,” 1967), an examination of Cuba’s new brand of communism, and a highly influential manual, La guerra de guerrillas (1960; Guerrilla Warfare, 1961). The last book includes his delineation of his foco theory (foquismo), a doctrine of revolution in Latin America drawn from the experience of the Cuban Revolution and predicated on three main tenets: 1) guerrilla forces are capable of defeating the army; 2) all the conditions for making a revolution do not have to be in place to begin a revolution, because the rebellion itself can bring them about; and 3) the countryside of underdeveloped Latin America is suited for armed combat.

Guevara expounds a vision of a new socialist citizen who would work for the good of society rather than for personal profit, a notion he embodies through his own hard work. Often he sleeps in his office, and, in support of the volunteer labour program he had organized, he spends his day off working in a sugarcane field. He grows increasingly disheartened, however, as Cuba becomes a client state of the Soviet Union, and he feels betrayed by the Soviets when they remove their missiles from the island without consulting the Cuban leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He begins looking to the People’s Republic of China and its leader Mao Zedong for support and as an example.

In December 1964 Guevara travels to New York City, where he condemns U.S. intervention in Cuban affairs and incursions into Cuban airspace in an address to the United Nations General Assembly. Back in Cuba, increasingly disillusioned with the direction of the Cuban social experiment and its reliance on the Soviets, he begins focusing his attention on fostering revolution elsewhere. After April 1965 he drops out of public life. His movements and whereabouts for the next two years remain secret. It is later learned that he had traveled to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo with other Cuban guerrilla fighters in what proved to be a futile attempt to help the Patrice Lumumba battalion, which was fighting a civil war there. During that period he resigns his ministerial position in the Cuban government and renounces his Cuban citizenship. After the failure of his efforts in the Congo, he flees first to Tanzania and then to a safe house in a village near Prague.

In the autumn of 1966 Guevara goes to Bolivia, incognito (beardless and bald), to create and lead a guerrilla group in the region of Santa Cruz. After some initial combat successes, he and his guerrilla band find themselves constantly on the run from the Bolivian army. On October 9, 1967, the group is almost annihilated by a special detachment of the Bolivian army aided by CIA advisers. Guevara, who is wounded in the attack, is captured and shot. Before his body disappears to be secretly buried, his hands are cut off. They are preserved in formaldehyde so that his fingerprints can be used to confirm his identity.

In 1995 one of Guevara’s biographers, Jon Lee Anderson, announces that he had learned that Guevara and several of his comrades had been buried in a mass grave near the town of Vallegrande in central Bolivia. In 1997 a skeleton that is believed be that of the revolutionary and the remains of his six comrades are disinterred and transported to Cuba to be interred in a massive memorial and monument in Santa Clara on the 30th anniversary of Guevara’s death. In 2007 a French and a Spanish journalist make a case that the body brought to Cuba is not actually Guevara’s. The Cuban government refutes the claim, citing scientific evidence from 1997 that, it says, proves that the remains are those of Guevara.

Guevara would live on as a powerful symbol, bigger in some ways in death than in life. He is almost always referenced simply as Che — like Elvis Presley, so popular an icon that his first name alone is identifier enough. Many on the political right condemn him as brutal, cruel, murderous, and all too willing to employ violence to reach revolutionary ends. On the other hand, his romanticized image as a revolutionary looms especially large for the generation of young leftist radicals in Western Europe and North America in the turbulent 1960s. Almost from the time of his death, his whiskered face adorns T-shirts and posters. Framed by a red-star-studded beret and long hair, his face frozen in a resolute expression, the iconic image is derived from a photo taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960, at a ceremony for those killed when a ship that had brought arms to Havana exploded. At first the image of Che is worn as a statement of rebellion, then as the epitome of radical chic, and, with the passage of time, as a kind of abstract logo whose original significance may even have been lost on its wearer, though for some he remains an enduring inspiration for revolutionary action.


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Birth of Mick Galwey, Gaelic Football & Rugby Union Player

Michael Joseph Galwey, Gaelic football and rugby union player, is born on October 8, 1966, in Currow, County Kerry. As a 19-year-old he wins an All-Ireland Senior Football Championship with the Kerry Gaelic football team in 1986, before turning to rugby union. He is thus the only winner of an “All-Ireland” in both rugby union and Gaelic football. He also holds County Championship medals in Senior, Junior and Minor grades. His nickname ‘Gaillimh’ comes from the name of the Irish town Galway, in the Irish language.

Before becoming a rugby player Galwey plays Gaelic football with Kerry. His first success at intercounty level comes in 1986 when he is part of the Kerry team that wins that year’s All-Ireland. He plays in the semi-final win over Meath. The following year he wins a Munster Under 21 Championship medal and later plays in the All-Ireland final but his side loses out to Donegal. In 1989 he plays his second and last championship game with Kerry in the Munster Championship first round win over Limerick, a game that he also captains the side in.

At club level Galwey plays with his local Currow club. The club produces three other senior Irish Rugby Internationals – Moss Keane, Mick Doyle and Tommy Doyle, an All-Ireland Minor winner in 1962, along with an U-20 Irish Rugby International, JJ Hanrahan. He plays a key part in helping Currow win their first Kerry Junior Football Championship in 1988 when they beat Rathmore in the final.

Galwey also plays with the St. Kieran’s divisional team. In 1988 he helps them win their first and to date only Kerry Senior Football Championship title.

After making the switch to rugby union, Galwey is a key figure in Shannon RFC‘s side during their four in a row winning streak of All-Ireland League titles in the late 1990s. Throughout his career he proves to be a leader who can inspire and motivate players around him to punch above their collective weights. He instills a “don’t panic” and professional attitude in his Shannon team which later becomes the hallmarks of Munster Rugby during his tenancy as captain. He is seen as a legend of the sport in his native Munster, particularly in Limerick.

Galwey’s involvement in the Irish national squad is more of a mixed bag. Making his debut in 1991 against France, his 11-year international career is rarely without controversy. Owing to the selection decisions of various national coaches and selectors, he becomes the most dropped player in international history. He fights his way back onto the Irish squad, becoming the team’s captain ten years after he made his debut. In the 1993 Five Nations Championship match against England, he rounds off a fine display in the 17–3 defeat by scoring the only try of the game. His efforts are rewarded later that year when he is selected for the Lions tour to New Zealand.

Galwey plays for the Ireland national rugby sevens team at the inaugural 1993 Rugby World Cup Sevens.

Galwey’s rugby record includes 41 caps for Ireland, four times as captain and scorer of three tries; 1993 Lions tour to New Zealand; 130 caps for Munster, 85 as captain, 1 Celtic League; 10 Munster senior cups and 6 All-Ireland Leagues with Shannon R.F.C.; 113 games for Shannon in the All-Ireland League, scoring 28 tries.

Galwey has coached Shannon to two All-Ireland League victories and two Munster Senior Cups.


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Death of Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh

Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, Irish businessman and philanthropist, dies at his London home in Grosvenor Place on October 7, 1927

Guinness is born on November 10, 1847 at St. Anne’s, Clontarf, County Dublin, the youngest of three sons of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, brewer, of Dublin, and Elizabeth, third daughter of Edward Guinness of Dublin. He is not sent to public school but is taught at home by a private tutor before entering Trinity College Dublin, where he takes his degree in 1870. His father dies in 1868, leaving him a share in the brewery, and he takes over management of the business with his brother Arthur, who in 1876 sells his shares, making Edward sole proprietor.

Guinness is also prominent in municipal life, holding the offices of Sheriff of Dublin City in 1876 and High Sheriff of the County of Dublin in 1885, the year in which he is created a baronet. He is a brilliantly effective businessman, with close attention to detail and a focus solely on the brewery, to the extent of remaining independent from the rest of the brewing trade. In 1888 he bluntly tells the Country Brewers’ Association, “I have always declined to identify myself with any trade question, or to take any side in a controversy on the liquor question, and to this I must adhere.” In 1886 Guinness is floated as a public company, a superbly successful venture with applications for shares exceeding £100 million, and Edward remains as chairman until 1890, although his formal retirement in that year brings little reduction in his involvement with the company, and he continues to make the final decision on many minor matters as well as all major questions of policy.

Socially innovative, with a concern for the welfare of employees, from as early as 1870 Guinness establishes a free dispensary for his workforce and makes provisions for pension and other allowances – acts of social reform that are remarkable for the time. To mark his retirement in 1890 he places in trust £250,000 to be expended in the erection of working-class housing in London and Dublin. Both funds are administered from London until 1903, when the Dublin fund is amalgamated by the Iveagh Trust act with other schemes carried out in Dublin by Edward, who had been raised to the peerage of the United Kingdom in 1891 as Baron Iveagh of Iveagh, County Down. The funds, which increase considerably from the original amount, are thereafter managed entirely in Dublin as a separate undertaking under the name of the Iveagh Trust, still in existence in the early twenty-first century.

As one of the pioneers of the voluntary housing movement Guinness is essentially carrying on the tradition of “merchant prince and city father” established by his father and shared by his brother. Wealthy, ambitious, and resolutely unionist, he gives generous financial support to the Irish Unionist Alliance, and is also public-spirited, religious, and devoted to duty. Acknowledging that the Iveagh Trust is essentially ameliorative, he believes that major social change will only be achieved if numerous other wealthy people follow his example. He insists that gifts of money from the fund are permissible only to assist individuals to improve their condition “without placing them in the position of being the recipients of a bounty.” Numerous other philanthropic donations follow, including another £250,000 for slum clearance in the Bull Alley district of Dublin; various contributions to Dublin hospitals, particularly in 1903 and 1911 on the occasion of royal visits; and in 1907 the opening of the Iveagh Markets, situated in the Francis Street and Patrick Street areas of Dublin, are made possible with his financial backing. Generous contributions are also made to Trinity College Dublin, of which he is elected chancellor in 1908, and he donates land in Iveagh Gardens to University College Dublin (UCD).

In 1905 Guinness is raised to a viscountcy and in September 1909 the nationalist corporation of Dublin presents him with an address of thanks for his many gifts, and even discusses the possibility of offering him the lord mayoralty of the city, which he declines owing to his political affiliations. By this time he lives chiefly in England, having bought Elveden Hall in Suffolk, where he frequently entertains royalty. He also purchases Lord Kensington’s London estate and makes many donations to medical research societies in England, and in conjunction with Sir Ernest Cassel he founds the London Radium Institute, as well as donates £250,000 to the Laster Institute of Tropical Medicine for the endowment of bacteriological research.

In 1919 Guinness is elevated to an earldom and in 1925 purchases the remainder of the Kenwood estate to the north of Hampstead Heath and arranges for it to become public property, ensuring the estate will not be sold for building purposes, and also bequeaths to the nation a valuable collection of art for use in the gallery at the same location. As well as being elected a fellow of the Royal Society, he is awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Dublin and the University of Aberdeen.

In 1873, Guinness marries his third cousin Adelaide Maud, nicknamed “Dodo.” She is descended from the banking line of Guinnesses, and is the daughter of Richard Samuel Guinness, barrister and MP, and his wife Katherine, a daughter of Sir Charles Jenkinson. They have three sons, the eldest of whom, Rupert Edward Cecil Lee, succeeds his father as 2nd Earl of Iveagh.

Guinness dies at his London home in Grosvenor Place on October 7, 1927, and is buried at Elveden, Suffolk. He leaves an estate valued at £11 million.


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Birth of Maeve Kyle, Olympic Athlete & Hockey Player

Maeve Esther Enid Kyle, OBE, Irish Olympic athlete and hockey player, is born Maeve Esther Enid Shankey in County Kilkenny on October 6, 1928.

Kyle briefly attends Kilkenny College where her father C.G. Shankey is headmaster, before attending Alexandra College and finally, Trinity College, Dublin. She is the granddaughter of William Thrift.

Kyle competes in the 100m and 200m in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and subsequently in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, and the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, where she reaches the semi-finals of both the 400m and 800m. She takes the bronze medal in the 400m at the 1966 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Dortmund, Germany. She wins four gold medals in W45 Category at the 1977 World Masters Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the 100m, 400m, high jump and long jump. She holds World Masters records at W40 for the 100m (12:00 secs) and 400m (55.30 secs) and W45 100m (12.50 secs) and W50 long jump at 5.04m.

In field hockey, Kyle gains 58 Irish caps as well as representing three of the four Irish provinces (Leinster, Munster and Ulster) at different stages of her career. She is named in the World All Star team in 1953 and 1959. She is also a competitor in tennis, swimming, sailing and cricket and works as a coach. She is chair of Coaching NI. In 2006, she is awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of the University (DUniv) from the University of Ulster.

Kyle is awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2006 Coaching Awards in London in recognition of her work with athletes at the Ballymena and Antrim Athletics Club. Earlier in 2006 she is one of 10 players who are initially installed into Irish hockey’s Hall of Fame. She is appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.


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Birth of Sir John Purser Griffith, Civil Engineer & Politician

Sir John Purser Griffith, a Welsh-born Irish civil engineer and politician, is born at Holyhead, Wales, on October 5, 1848.

Griffith is educated at Trinity College Dublin and gains a licence in civil engineering in 1868. He serves a two-year apprenticeship under Dr. Bindon Blood Stoney, the Engineer in Chief of the Dublin Port and Docks, before working as assistant to the county surveyor of County Antrim. He returns to Dublin in 1871 and works as Dr. Stoney’s assistant, becoming the Chief Engineer in 1898 before retiring in 1913.

Griffith serves as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland between 1887 and 1889 and of the Institution of Civil Engineers between 1919 and 1920. He is elected Commissioner of Irish Lights in 1913 and is a member of the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways between 1906 and 1911.

Griffith purchases and drains the bogland at Pollagh, part of the Bog of Allen. A peat fueled power station is built which drives an excavator and excess peat is taken via the Grand Canal for sale in Dublin. The site is sold to the Turf Development Board in 1936 who use it as a basis for all of their later peat fueled power stations. The area is now a nature reserve.

Griffith receives a knighthood in 1911 and becomes vice-president of the Royal Dublin Society in 1922. He serves as Honorary Professor of Harbour Engineering at Trinity College, his alma mater, and receives an honorary M.A.I. degree from the University of Dublin in 1914. From 1922 he is an elected member of the Seanad Éireann, the Irish Free State senate, until its abolition in 1936. In the 1930s he and Sarah Purser endow the Purser Griffith Travelling Scholarship and the Purser Griffith Prize to the two best performing students in European Art History at University College Dublin.

Griffith dies at Rathmines Castle in Dublin on October 21, 1938.


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The Irish Brigade of France Fight in the Battle of Marsaglia

Units of the Irish Brigade of France fight in Italy at the Battle of Marsaglia, a battle in the Nine Years’ War, on October 4, 1693. The battle involves the French army of Marshal Nicolas Catinat against the army of the Grand Alliance, allies of William of Orange, under the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia.

Catinat, advancing from Fenestrelle and Susa to the relief Pinerolo, defended by René de Froulay, Comte de Tessé, and which the Duke of Savoy is besieging, takes up a position in formal order of battle north of the village of Marsaglia, near Orbassano. Here, on October 4, the Duke of Savoy attacks him with his entire army, front to front, but the greatly superior regimental efficiency of the French, and Catinat’s minute attention to details in arraying them, gives the new marshal a victory that is a worthy pendant to Neerwinden.

During the battle, Irish dragoons are reported to have “overthrown squadrons, sword in hand,” but elsewhere on the battlefield, Prince Eugene of Savoy overruns a French line and advances to the second line, held by Irish regiments. There Eugene’s advance is broken, and his troops are soon put to rout. The impetuous Irish then pursue without orders. Seeing this development, the French commander orders a general advance and the allied army breaks and runs. Official French reports speak of the “extreme valor” of the Irish that day.

The Piedmontese and their allies lose approximately 12,000 killed, wounded and prisoners, as against Catinat’s 1,800. Among the Irish killed in this great victory are Brigadier Francis O’Carroll of the dragoons and Colonel Daniel O’Brien, 4th Viscount Clare. One very young officer of the Irish Brigade who survives the fight is Lieutenant Peter Lacy.

Marsaglia is, if not the first, at any rate, one of the first, instances of a bayonet charge by a long deployed line of infantry. Hussars figure here for the first time in Western Europe. A regiment of them had been raised in 1692 from deserters from the Austrian service. It is also notable as one of the first major battles to see the new Irish Brigade in action for the French army.

(Pictured: Marshal Nicholas Catinat at the Battle of Marsaglia, October 4, 1693, painting by Eugène Devéria, 1837, Museum of the History of France)


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Death of James Maclaine, “The Gentleman Highwayman”

“Captain” James Maclaine, an Irish man of a respectable Presbyterian family who has a brief but notorious career as a mounted highwayman in London with his accomplice William Plunkett, is hanged at Tyburn Gallows in Middlesex, London, on October 3, 1750.

Maclaine is born in County Monaghan in 1724, second son among two sons and one daughter of the Rev. Lauchlin Maclaine, a Presbyterian minister from Scotland, and Elizabeth Maclaine (née Milling). His brother, Archibald Maclaine, later becomes a minister. Educated locally, he is reckless, headstrong, and dismissive of his parents’ attempts to make him respectable. When his father dies he squanders his inheritance on a dissolute lifestyle and is forced to find work in London.

Maclaine considers joining the Irish Brigade in the French Royal Army, but is told that he would make little progress with them unless he becomes a Roman Catholic, which he is unwilling to do. Instead he enlists in Lord Albemarle‘s horse troops. Again his propensity for fast living costs him dearly, and he suffers a thrashing after he is discovered having an affair with an officer’s wife.

Around 1746 Maclaine marries the daughter of a publican on Oxford Road, London, and with her dowry of five hundred pounds establishes himself as a grocer and chandler in Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square. His wife dies in 1748, leaving one daughter.

Frustrated by his lack of opportunities, Maclaine decides to embark on a life of crime. Together with William Plunkett, an Irish apothecary who had attended to his wife, he decides to find a rich heiress to marry. Pretending to be a high-living gentleman, with Plunkett as his liveried servant, he exhausts all his money dancing and gambling but has little success in his quest. Undaunted, he now turns his hand to robbery and becomes a highwayman. This proves extremely profitable and he takes lodgings at St. James’s Street, where he passes himself off as an Irish squire, with Plunkett again in attendance.

A dashing, handsome man, Maclaine soon becomes a popular figure in London. His most infamous adventure occurs in November 1749 when he robs the famous diarist and politician Horace Walpole at Hyde Park. For the first and only time in his career, he fires a shot, as one of his pistols discharges accidentally, scorching Walpole’s face. He later insists that he would have committed suicide if he had killed his victim. Walpole’s retort is that he would be satisfied if Maclaine just allowed himself to be hanged. Overcome with guilt, Maclaine afterwards sends two letters to Walpole apologising for the injury and suggesting a duel if he wants satisfaction. Walpole wisely ignores the correspondence.

After visiting his brother at The Hague, where he impresses with his extravagant gifts and lifestyle, Maclaine again decides to seek an heiress. Together with Plunkett, who is visiting Ireland, he sets his sights on a woman with an income of £40,000, but the scheme comes to nothing.

Returning to his career as a highwayman, Maclaine commits a number of daring robberies in the summer of 1750. On June 26, 1750, he and Plunkett hold up the coach of the Earl of Eglinton on Hounslow Heath, which proves to be his undoing. One passenger makes public a list of his stolen possessions, and when Maclaine sells some of the items on July 19 the crime is traced to him. On July 27 he is arrested and immediately breaks down in prison, confessing everything. Weeping in his cell, he consistently blames Plunkett, who evaded capture, for leading him astray.

Maclaine’s trial on September 13 attracts enormous interest, especially from women who are enamoured of his romantic image. The jury finds him guilty without leaving the box. Sentenced to death, he attempts to read a plea for mercy but loses his nerve and is only able to speak a few words. After a few minutes of embarrassed silence he cries, “My lord, I can go no further.” His brother denounces him, and from his cell he writes a number of letters expressing regret for his actions.

Maclaine is executed at Tyburn on October 3, 1750, having informed a minister that he went to his execution “without being daunted but rather with eagerness.” A great crowd attends the execution, before whom he maintains a steady composure, and his last words to them are, “O God, forgive my enemies, bless my friends and receive my soul!” A later publication tells that, as the cart is about to be drawn from under him, a witness hears him say, “I must never more behold this beauteous sun! Do thou, O sun of righteousness, shine on my departing soul.” After his death an enduring legend develops around the story of “the gentleman highwayman” and “the ladies’ hero.”

The film Plunkett and Macleane (1999) is an innovative retelling of his story, with Robert Carlyle as Plunkett and Johnny Lee Miller as the dashing highwayman.