Creighton Hale, Irish American theatre, film, and television actor, is born Patrick Fitzgerald on May 24, 1882, in County Cork. His career extends more than a half-century, from the early 1900s to the end of the 1950s.
Some believe that in 1923 Hale stars in an early pornographic “stag” filmOn the Beach (a.k.a. Getting His Goat and The Goat Man). In the film, three nude women agree to have sex with him, but only through a hole in a fence. Photographs of the scene clearly show that the man in the film is not Hale but is another actor who also wears glasses.
Hale’s two sons, Creighton Hale, Jr. and Robert Lowe Hale, from his first marriage to Victoire Lowe, are adopted by Lowe’s second husband, actor John Miljan. After his divorce, Hale marries Kathleen Bering in Los Angeles in 1931.
Drennan is son the son of ReverendThomas Drennan (1696–1768), minister of Belfast’s First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street. Thomas Drennan is an educated man from the University of Glasgow and is ordained to the congregation of Holywood, County Down in 1731. Drennan is heavily influenced by his father, whose religious convictions serve as the foundation for his own radical political ideas. His sister, Martha, marries fellow future United Irishman Samuel McTier in 1773.
In 1769 Drennan follows in his father’s footsteps by enrolling in the University of Glasgow where he becomes interested in the study of philosophy. In 1772 he graduates in arts and then in 1773 he commences the study of medicine at Edinburgh. After graduating in 1778 he sets up practice in Belfast, specialising in obstetrics. He is credited with being one of the earliest advocates of inoculation against smallpox and of hand washing to prevent the spread of infection. He also writes much poetry, coining the phrase “Emerald Isle” and is the founder and editor of a literary periodical, Belfast Magazine. He moves to Newry in 1783 but eventually moves to Dublin in 1789 where he quickly becomes involved in nationalist circles.
Like many other UlsterPresbyterians, Drennan is an early supporter of the American Colonies in the American Revolution and joins the Volunteers who had been formed to defend Ireland for Britain in the event of French invasion. The Volunteer movement soon becomes a powerful political force and a forum for Protestant nationalists to press for political reform in Ireland eventually assisting Henry Grattan to achieve legislative independence for the Irish parliament in 1782. However, Drennan, like many other reformers, quickly becomes dismayed by the conservative and sectarian nature of the Irish parliament and in 1791 he co-founds the Society of United Irishmen with Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell.
Drennan writes many political pamphlets for the United Irishmen and is arrested in 1794 for seditious libel, a political charge that is a major factor in driving the United Irishmen underground and into becoming a radical revolutionary party. Although he is eventually acquitted, he gradually withdraws from the United Irishmen but continues to campaign for Catholic Emancipation.
On February 8, 1800, Drennan marries Sarah Swanwick, “an English lady of some wealth” from Shropshire. They have one daughter and four sons.
Drennan settles in Belfast in 1807. In 1810 he co-founds the non-denominational Royal Belfast Academical Institution. As a poet, he is best remembered for his poem The Wake of William Orr, written in memory of a United Irishman executed by the British. Despite his links with revolutionary republicans, he gradually becomes alienated from the post-Union nationalism of the period. His abiding concern for Liberalism and post union realities make him contemplate his political ideas anew.
Drennan dies on February 5, 1820. He directs that his coffin be carried by an equal number of Catholics and Protestants with clergy from different denominations in attendance.
Edgeworth is born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, England on January 1, 1768. She is the second child of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Anna Maria Edgeworth (née Elers). She spends her early years with her mother’s family in England, until her mother’s death when Maria is five. When her father marries his second wife Honora Sneyd in 1773, she goes with him to his estate, Edgeworthstown, in County Longford. There, she assists her father in managing his estate. In this way she acquires the knowledge of rural economy and of the Irish peasantry that is to become the backbone of her novels.
Domestic life at Edgeworthstown is busy and happy. Encouraged by her father, Edgeworth begins her writing in the common sitting room, where the 21 other children in the family provide material and audience for her stories. She publishes them in 1796 as The Parent’s Assistant. Even the intrusive moralizing, attributed to her father’s editing, does not wholly suppress their vitality, and the children who appear in them, especially the impetuous Rosamond, are the first real children in English literature since William Shakespeare.
Her first novel, Castle Rackrent (1800), written without her father’s interference, reveals her gift for social observation, character sketch, and authentic dialogue and is free from lengthy lecturing. It establishes the genre of the “regional novel,” and its influence is enormous. Sir Walter Scott acknowledges his debt to Edgeworth in writing Waverley. Her next work, Belinda (1801), a society novel unfortunately marred by her father’s insistence on a happy ending, is particularly admired by Jane Austen.
Edgeworth never marries. She has a wide acquaintance in literary and scientific circles. Between 1809 and 1812 she publishes her Tales of Fashionable Life in six volumes. They include one of her best novels, The Absentee, which focuses attention on a great contemporary abuse in Irish society: absentee English landowning.
Before her father’s death in 1817 she publishes three more novels, two of them, Patronage (1814) and Ormond (1817), of considerable power. After 1817 she writes less. She completes her father’s Memoirs (1820) and devotes herself to the estate. She enjoys a European reputation and exchanges cordial visits with Scott. Her last years are saddened by the Irish famine of 1846, during which she works for the relief of stricken peasants.
After a visit to see her relations in Trim, Maria, now in her eighties, begins to feel heart pains and dies suddenly of a heart attack in Edgeworthstown on May 22, 1849. She is laid to rest in a vault at Edgeworthstown Church.
The feminist movement of the 1960s leads to the reprinting of her Moral Tales for Young People, 5 vol. (1801) and Letters for Literary Ladies (1795) in the 1970s. Her novels continue to be regularly reprinted in the 21st century.
The Jack Lynch Tunnel, described as the most challenging civil engineering project in the history of the state, is unveiled on May 21, 1999 by TaoiseachBertie Ahern at the entrance of the tunnel in Mahon, County Cork.
The Jack Lynch Tunnel is an immersed tube tunnel and an integral part of the N40 southern ring road of Cork. It is named after former Taoiseach Jack Lynch, a native of Cork. Construction involves the excavation of a large casting basin where the tunnel elements or pieces are constructed. After construction of elements is complete, the casting basin is filled with water and joined to the adjacent River Lee, each element is floated out and sunk into position into a carefully dredged river bed.
The tunnel takes the road under the River Lee. North of the tunnel, the ring-road joins the M8 motorway to Dublin and N8 road to the city centre, with the N25 road commencing east to Waterford. The tunnel is completed in May 1999, and carries nearly 40,000 vehicles per day as of 2005. This number rises further as the N40 ring-road’s upgrades progress, with the opening of the Kinsale Road Roundabout flyover in 2006 and subsequent upgrades to the Sarsfield Road and Bandon Road Roundabouts. Traffic in 2015 is 63,000 vehicles a day up from 59,000 in 2013.
The tunnel has two cells, each with two traffic lanes and two footpaths, and a central bore for use in an emergency only. Pedestrians and cyclists are expressly forbidden from using the tunnel. The exclusion of cyclists has been somewhat controversial as the feeder road is a dual-carriageway and so is open to cyclists, but the by-law is applied because of space limitations and the obvious danger of cyclists in an enclosed tunnel.
In May 1920, East Londondockers refuse to load the SS Jolly George, a ship intended to carry arms to be used against the new Bolshevik state. The Munitions Strike begins in Dublin on May 20, 1920, when dock workers follow suit and refuse to handle war material. They are soon joined by members of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.
When news of the proposed radical action is brought to trade unionist William O’Brien’s desk on May 19, he informs Thomas Foran, General President of the union. The following day, the men standing around waiting to begin work are told that the work is not to start.
On hearing of the political action at the Dublin docks, a second ship was diverted to Dún Laoghaire. There, the military are on hand to unload its cargo, but when the cargo arrives at Westland Row station, workers there refuse to handle the goods. While the dockworkers are casual workers who can be reallocated elsewhere, the railwaymen are permanent employers and members of the separate National Union of Railwaymen.
In the following days, the action taken in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire is replicated elsewhere. To sections of the conservative press, the behaviour of dockers and railwaymen is scandalous. The ever-reliable Punch illustrated news produces a sketch in a June 1920 edition showing an IRA gunman hiding behind a rural wall, joined by a railway worker, or “the blameless accomplice.”
The brave stand that began on the docks of Dublin spreads nationwide, largely thanks to the militancy of railway workers. From arms in storage, the strike is widened to include the carrying of men holding arms representing Crown Forces.
The munitions strike is an effective tactic, proven by the infuriated responses to it from the upper echelons of the British military and political class. In November, the British Government begins closing rail lines, including the Limerick to Waterford and Limerick to Tralee lines,as well as trains into Galway, which instigate a fear among the public that the Irish railway system could be shut down in its entirety.
In the absence of sympathetic strike action in Britain, and with increasingly vicious physical assaults on railwaymen, the Irish leadership feels increasingly vulnerable in the dispute, which eventually winds down in December.
Dixon is the youngest of the seven sons of George Dixon, a soap manufacturer, and Rebecca (née Yeates) Dixon. He is educated at Rathmines School and Trinity College, Dublin. In 1894, after studying in Bonn, Germany, he is appointed assistant and later full Professor of Botany at Trinity. In 1906 he becomes Director of the Botanic Gardens and in 1910 of the Herbarium also. He has a close working relationship with physicist John Joly and together they develop the cohesion theory of the ascent of sap.
Dixon’s early research includes work on the cytology of chromosomes and first mitosis in certain plants. Familiarity with work on transpiration and on the tensile strength of columns of sulfuric acid and water leads Dixon and Joly to experiment on transpiration. “On the Ascent of Sap” (1894) presents the hypothesis that the sap or water in the vessels of a woody plant ascends by virtue of its power of resisting tensile stress and its capacity to remain cohesive under the stress of great differences of pressure. Dixon and Joly further demonstrate that water is transported through passive vessels and not living cells.
Dixon writes Transpiration and the Ascent of Sap in Plants (1914), which brings various theories and experimental works together in a coherent argument. He also writes a textbook, Practical Plant Biology (1922).
In 1907 Dixon marries Dorothea Mary, daughter of Sir John H. Franks, with whom he raises three sons. He is the father of biochemistHal Dixon and grandfather of Adrian Dixon and Joly Dixon.
Rabbitte becomes involved in electoral politics for the first time in late 1982, when he unsuccessfully contests Dublin South-West for the Workers’ Party (WP) at the November general election. He is elected to Dublin County Council in 1985. He enters Dáil Éireann as a Workers’ Party Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin South-West at the 1989 election. He retains his seat at every election until 2016.
After Tomás Mac Giolla‘s retirement as President of the Workers’ Party in 1988, Rabbitte is seen as one of those who wants to move the party away from its hard left position. In 1992, he plays a prominent role with Proinsias De Rossa in an attempt to jettison some of the party’s harder left positions. This eventually splits the Workers’ Party.
In 1994, a new ‘Rainbow Coalition’ government of Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Democratic Left comes to power. Rabbitte is a member of the junior ministerial team, serving as Minister of State to the Government, as well as Minister for State at the Department of Enterprise and Employment with responsibility for Commerce, Science and Technology.
Following the 1997 general election the Rainbow Coalition loses power. The following year sees a merger between the Labour Party and Democratic Left, with Rabbitte participating in the negotiations. In October 2002 he succeeds Ruairi Quinn as the new leader of the Labour Party. Under his leadership the party makes some gains in the local elections of 2004.
The Labour Party agrees to enter a pre-election pact, commonly known as ‘The Mullingar Accord,’ with Fine Gael in an attempt to offer the electorate an alternative coalition government at the 2007 general election. This move causes some tension in the parliamentary party, as some members prefer not to be aligned with any party in advance of an election.
Following the disappointing result in the election for Labour, Rabbitte announces he is stepping down as leader on August 23, 2007. He is succeeded as party leader by Eamon Gilmore. Rabbitte is re-elected on the first count in the 2011 general election. His running mate Eamonn Maloney is also elected. On March 9, 2011, he is appointed as Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.
In July 2014, Rabbitte is replaced by Alex White as part of a reshuffle of the cabinet. He does not contest the 2016 general election.
Corr, the youngest of four children, is born to Gerry Corr, a manager of the payroll department of the Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB), and his wife, Jean, a housewife. Gerry and Jean have their own band, Sound Affair, which plays songs by ABBA and the Eagles in local pubs in Dundalk where they would often bring along their children.
With the encouragement of her parents, Corr takes up the tin whistle and is taught the piano by her father. Throughout their teenage years, she and her siblings often practise in her brother Jim‘s bedroom at a house he had rented. She sings lead vocals; her sister Sharon plays the violin and sister Caroline and Jim both play keyboards. She takes part in school plays at her school, Dundalk’s Dún Lughaidh Convent.
Corr debuts in 1990 as the lead singer of the Celticfolk rock and pop rock group The Corrs along with her three siblings. Aside from singing lead vocals she plays the tin whistle, the ukulele, and the piano.
With the others, Corr releases six studio albums, two compilation albums, one remix album and two live albums. She also pursues a solo career, releasing her debut album, Ten Feet High, in 2007. The album moves away from the sound of the Corrs and features a dance-pop sound. Her next album, released on May 30, 2011, is entirely made up of covers of songs that were important to her when younger.
The Real IRA broke off from the main Irish Republican Army and its political wing Sinn Féin in 1998 to oppose the decision by Sinn Féin to support the Northern Ireland peace process and work to end 30 years of fighting in Northern Ireland.
As a result of the FTO designation many activities, including fund-raising, of the Real IRA or its two so-called “front groups” or “political pressure groups” — the “32 County Sovereignty Movement” and the “Irish Republican Prisoner Welfare Association” — are now illegal.
A senior State Department official notes that this is the first time a group with “heavy ties” to the United States, with sympathizers and supporters coming from the United States, has been designated as a terrorist organization. But, in the words of this official, the “British and Irish government publicly asked us to look into this.” The “rigorous” review, begun in the fall of 2000, included volumes of evidence and was an inner-agency process that required the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State.
According to the State Department Patterns of Global Terrorism report in 2000, the Real IRA was formed in February-March 1998, has between 150-200 hard-line members and is dedicated to removing British forces from Northern Ireland and unifying Ireland.
State Department officials say they absolutely anticipate the Real IRA to challenge the FTO designation in court. The designation comes as the Irish Republic prepares to prosecute Michael McKevitt, the Real IRA’s alleged leader.
De Rossa takes the Official Sinn Féin side in the 1970 split. In 1977, he contests his first general election for the party. He is successful on his third attempt and is elected at the February 1982 general election as a Sinn Féin TD for the Dublin North-West constituency. He retains his seat until the 2002 general election when he stands down in order to devote more time to his work in the European Parliament.
In 1988, De Rossa succeeds Tomás Mac Giolla as president of the Workers’ Party. The party had been growing steadily in the 1980s and has its best-ever electoral performance in the general and European elections held in 1989. The party wins 7 Dáil seats with 5% of the vote. De Rossa himself is elected to the European Parliament for the Dublin constituency, where he tops the poll, and the party almost succeeds in replacing Fine Gael as the capital’s second-largest party. However, the campaign results in a serious build-up of financial debt by the Workers’ Party, which threatens to greatly inhibit the party’s ability to ensure it will hold on to its gains.
Long-standing tensions within the Workers’ Party come to a head in 1992. Disagreements on policy issues are exacerbated by the desire of the reformers to ditch the democratic centralist nature of the party structures, and to remove any remaining questions about alleged party links with the Official IRA. De Rossa calls a special Ardfheis to debate changes to the constitution. The motion fails to get the required two-thirds majority, and subsequently he leads the majority of the parliamentary group and councillors out of a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Committee the following Saturday, splitting the party.
De Rossa and the other former Workers’ Party members then establish a new political party, provisionally called New Agenda. At its founding conference in March 1992, it is named Democratic Left and De Rossa is elected party leader. Later that year he resigns his European Parliament seat, in favour of Democratic Left general secretary Des Geraghty.
Following the collapse of the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party coalition government in 1994, Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left negotiate a government programme for the remaining life of the 27th Dáil, which becomes known as the “Rainbow Coalition.” De Rossa becomes Minister for Social Welfare, initiating Ireland’s first national anti-poverty strategy, a commission on the family, and a commission to examine national pension policy.
The 1997 general election results in the defeat of the outgoing coalition. At this point, Democratic Left, having accumulated significant, merges with the Labour Party. Labour leader Ruairi Quinn becomes leader of the unified party. De Rossa takes up the symbolic post of party president, which he holds until 2002.
In 1999, De Rossa is elected at the European Parliament election for the Dublin constituency. He is re-elected at the 2004 European Parliament election. He does not contest his Dáil seat at the 2002 general election.
seamus dubhghaill 