The U-20, a GermanU-boat under the command of KapitänleutnantWalther Schwieger, sinks the British steamship Centurion off the southeast coast of Ireland on May 6, 1915. This tragic event has far-reaching consequences and shapes the course of World War I.
The Centurion is traveling through the waters southeast of Ireland when a torpedo fired from the U-20 hits the vessel, causing it to rapidly sink. This act of aggression results in the loss of many innocent lives and sends shockwaves throughout the world.
At the time of the incident, World War I is in full swing. Germany, engaged in submarine warfare, seeks to disrupt British supply lines and cut off its access to vital resources. The sinking of merchant ships, regardless of their civilian nature, is part of Germany’s strategy to weaken the enemy. The attack on the Centurion is just one of many instances in which German submarines target and sink British vessels.
A difference in this particular incident as opposed to other similar incidents is the widespread outrage it triggers. The Centurion is an unarmed cargo ship carrying civilian goods, and its destruction is seen as a ruthless and unjustifiable act. The loss of civilian lives and the callousness with which the submarine attack is executed causes public opinion to turn against Germany.
The sinking highlights the growing concern over unrestricted submarine warfare and its impact on civilian populations. It pushes the United States, which at the time is neutral, closer to entering the war on the side of the Allies. The incident also plays a significant role in shaping public opinion in other neutral countries, putting pressure on Germany to reconsider its aggressive tactics.
In response to international outrage, Germany initially defends its actions, arguing that the Centurion was carrying contraband cargo. However, under mounting pressure, the German government eventually backs down and pledges to modify its submarine warfare policies to reduce the risk to civilian lives. This move is meant to appease neutral countries and prevent the United States from entering the war.
The sinking of the Centurion has a lasting impact on maritime warfare. The incident leads to the introduction of new rules of engagement, such as the requirement for submarines to surface and warn civilian vessels before attacking. These rules aim to minimize civilian casualties and reduce the risk of similar tragedies occurring in the future.
Moreover, the sinking serves as a catalyst for technological advancements in submarine warfare. Navies worldwide realize the need for more sophisticated anti-submarine measures and began developing detection systems and tactics to counter the stealth of submarines. This incident marks a turning point in the evolution of naval warfare, as nations seek to adapt and respond to the new challenges posed by underwater vessels.
The following day, May 7, 1915, the U-20 sinks the British ocean linerRMS Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland. The liner sinks in eighteen minutes with 1,197 casualties. The wreck lies in 300 feet of water.
On November 4, 1916, U-20 becomes grounded on the Danish coast south of Vrist, after suffering damage to its engines. Her crew attempts to destroy her with explosives the following day, succeeding only in damaging the boat’s bow but making it effectively inoperative as a warship.
The U-20 remains on the beach until 1925 when the Danish government blows it up in a “spectacular explosion.” The Danish navy removes the deck gun and makes it unserviceable by cutting holes in vital parts. The gun is kept in the naval stores at Holmen, Copenhagen for almost 80 years. The conning tower is removed and placed on the front lawn of the local museum Strandingsmuseum St. George Thorsminde, where it remains today.
(Pictured: The U-20, second from left, at Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, on February 17, 1914)
Goan is an Irish language speaker. He studies Celtic studies at University College Dublin (UCD). He joins RTÉ in 1979 as an archivist with RTÉ Radio. He becomes a producer and senior producer on RTÉ Radio. In 1988, he moves to RTÉ Television and works on Today Tonight. Remaining in current affairs, he becomes editor of Cúrsaí, an Irish language television programme about arts and current affairs. He becomes Editor of Irish Language Programming in 1990.
Four years after being appointed Editor, Goan is approached to become “Ceannasaí” of the new Teilifís na Gaeilge. From August 1994, he manages the commencement of the new television channel. After a successful launch of the channel, where award-winning programming is produced during his tenure, he returns to RTÉ in 2000. He is appointed Director of Television and becomes a member of the RTÉ Executive Board.
Bob Collins retires as Director-General of RTÉ in 2003 to pursue a career elsewhere. It is announced in July 2003 that Goan will fill this position. He becomes the Director-General in October 2003. In 2008, he has a salary of €280,000, but it is reduced by €35,000. In 2006, he is announced as member of the board of National Concert Hall and serves there until May 2011. After the broadcast of a news item on nude pictures of TaoiseachBrian Cowen, Minister Michael Kennedy calls for Goan to “consider his position” as Director-General of RTÉ. He also receives criticism from Minister Éamon Ó Cuív in February 2010, when Sunday Mass is reduced to being broadcast just once a month on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.
Goan announces in July 2010 that he intends to step down at the end of his seven-year term. His resignation is accepted by the RTÉ Board.
He returns to England to be brigade major of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot in 1886. He becomes deputy assistant adjutant general at Horse Guards in 1892, and deputy assistant adjutant general at Aldershot in 1894. He takes part in the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War in 1895 and becomes assistant adjutant general at Horse Guards in 1897.
Stopford takes part in the Second Boer War as military secretary to General Sir Redvers Buller and later military secretary to the general officer commanding Natal, for which he is knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in November 1900. After his return to Britain, he is appointed deputy adjutant general at Aldershot in 1901, and chief staff officer for I Corps with the temporary rank of brigadier general, on April 1, 1902. Two years later, he is appointed director of military training at Horse Guards. Promoted to major general in February 1904, he is Major-General commanding the Brigade of Guards and general officer commanding (GOC) of the London District from 1906. He is promoted to lieutenant general in September 1909.
On August 5, 1914, a day after the British entry into World War I, he is appointed GOC First Army, part of Home Forces, a position he holds until he takes command of IX Corps the following year.
As GOC of IX Corps, Stopford is blamed for the failure to attack following the landing at Suvla Bay in August 1915, during the Gallipoli campaign. He chose to command the landing from HMS Jonquil, anchored offshore, but sleeps as the landing is in progress. He is quickly replaced on August 15 by Major-General Sir Julian Byng.
After almost 50 years of military service, Stopford retires from the army in 1920.
Stopford dies at the age of 75 on May 4, 1929, at Marylebone, City of Westminster, Greater London, England. He is buried in the Holy Trinity and St. Andrew’s Churchyard in Ashe, Basingstoke and Deane borough, Hampshire, England.
On Tuesday, May 3, 2016, ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the executions of Tom Clarke, Patrick Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh are held in the Stonebreakers’ Yard in Kilmainham Gaol, the first executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising. Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh are remembered in similar but distinct commemorations which take place on the spot where they died on May 3, 1916.
The transcripts of the short courts-martial are read aloud. In the case of Tom Clarke, who offered no defence and made no statement prior to his execution, the proceedings take only a few minutes to recount.
The presence of Capuchin friars from Church Street lends a sense of continuity to proceedings. Their predecessors had been there for the men in their final hours and their testimony is read aloud by their contemporaries.
Capuchin friar Adrian Kearns recalls the testimony of Fr. Columbus Murphy, who ministered to Pearse in his final hours. He did not “quail before the possibility of death . . . but faced his last moments with dignity and with grace.” Fr. Murphy remembered Pearse being a “sad, forlorn figure weighed down by the sense of responsibility” who lamented the loss of life and hoped it would not be in vain.
A wreath is laid on behalf of the Pearse family by his namesake Patrick Pearse, a great grandnephew.
Brother Peter Rogers recalls that Clarke was defiant rather than melancholic in his last hours. Fr. Murphy visited him as well. Clarke, the friar recalls, was “relieved that he was to be executed. His one dread was that he would be sent to prison again.” There is no member of Clarke’s family present to represent him at the commemorations, so a wreath is laid on behalf of the family by the staff of Kilmainham Gaol.
Several of MacDonagh’s surviving grandchildren are present. His granddaughter, Barbara Cashin, lays a wreath on behalf of the family. Her father Donagh and her aunt Barbara are left orphans a year after the Easter Rising when MacDonagh’s wife Muriel drowns off the coast of Skerries in July 1917. Cashin says her father had mixed feelings about the Rising, given the double tragedy that befell him and his sister a short time afterwards. “He had a horrendous childhood. He had a strange upbringing and hated to talk about it,” she says. “He had a split mind about it. I remember asking him as a child about it and saying he must be proud. Weren’t they wonderful. He said, ‘they may have been fools as well.’”
The commemorations are repeated the following day for the next four to have been executed: Joseph Plunkett, Edward Daly, Michael O’Hanrahan and Willie Pearse. Similar events are scheduled through May 12 to mark the exact centenary of the executions of the remaining eight men killed by a British Armyfiring squad at the Stonebreakers’ Yard.
The Battle of Glentaisie is fought in the north of Ulster on May 2, 1565. The result is a victory for Shane O’Neill over the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg. The conflict is a part of the political and military struggle for control of the north of Ireland, involving the English and occasionally the Scots. Although the MacDonalds are a Scottish family, based principally on the island of Islay in the Hebrides, they have long been associated with the Gaelic polity rather than the Kingdom of Scotland.
O’Neill assembles his army for the attack on the MacDonnells at the tower house of Feadan, at Fathom Mountain, near Newry. Traditionally, he “kept Easter” at Feadan, and an assembly of his clan would be unremarked until its size draws notice.
The MacDonnells expect O’Neill’s sizeable army to take some weeks to reach their territory on the Antrim coast. They start gathering as many warriors in the Highlands and Islands as they can muster. However, O’Neill advances with unprecedented speed. Within a week his army arrives at Edenduffcarrick.
Sorley Boy MacDonnell gathers a small holding force at a forward base at Cloughdonaghy. He attempts to stop O’Neill’s advancing army at Knockboy, a wooded pass in the hills above Broughshane. O’Neill sweeps Sorley’s ambush away, takes Cloughdonaghy and sends a force of cavalry to seize James MacDonald of Dunnyveg’s recently constructed Red Bay Castle. With the landing beaches at Waterfoot and Cushendall now controlled by O’Neill’s army, the first several hundred of MacDonnell’s men are compelled to land farther north. They land at Ballycastle beach to await the locally raised MacDonnnell army. Their plan is to await the arrival of their brother Alexander, the MacDonnell seneschal of Cantyre, who is assembling a second army composed from late comers to James of Dunnyveg’s army.
O’Neill does not permit the MacDonnells any time for their reinforcement to arrive. His advance guard continues to press the retreating MacDonnell army, who fall back from the beach through Ballycastle. They are driven past the area of the modern Diamond and well away from the river Tow, denying them the necessary water supply for a sizeable army.
Both armies set up camp for the night. O’Neill’s army occupies land at the centre of modern Ballycastle, between the modern Diamond and the river Tow, giving them full access to water. The combined MacDonnell army of around five hundred men occupy the exposed higher ground at Ramon, the ridge at the head of modern Castle Street, Ballycastle, where the Presbyterian Church now stands, with only a small well for their needs.
At very first light, O’Neill attacks uphill with a sudden onslaught led by his heavy Gallowglassinfantry. By forgoing the customary exchange of spears, darts, and arrows by the light infantry kernagh and Scots archers that customarily precede the usually decisive deployment of the Gallowglass corrughadh, or battalions, O’Neill surprises the MacDonnell army. The MacDonnell leaders try to rally their men, but after a violent interlude of some confusion, they break and flee over Knocklayd mountain in the direction of Glenshesk, heading back toward the beach at Cushendun. James of Dunnyveg is seriously wounded in the early fighting and his brother Angus MacDonnell is killed.
The attempt to flee by the old mountain road between Greenan and Ballypatrick Forest in an attempt to reach a possible landing place for their birlinns at Cushendun beach is finally stopped at a hollow at Legacapple. Sorley Boy and James are both taken prisoner. James dies of his wounds two months later at Castle Crocke, near Strabane. Their brother Alistair Og MacDonnell had landed at Rathlin, with the final levies raised in the Highlands and Islands, reputed to be nine hundred men. However, in the immediate aftermath of O’Neill’s decisive victory, Alistair can achieve nothing without a base on the mainland. O’Neill marches on along the north coast to mop up the MacDonnell garrisons and deny Alistair any foothold from which to launch a MacDonnell recovery. Dunseverick and Dunluce fall within a few days, and Alistair returns to Scotland.
McDonald is born into a middle-class family in south Dublin. Her father Patrick McDonald, a builder and surveyor, and her mother Joan, separate when she is nine years old, and she stays with her mother in Rathgar. She has three siblings, one older and two younger. Her great-uncle, James O’Connor, was a member of the Anti-Treaty IRA and was executed at the Curragh Camp during the Irish Civil War.
She works as a researcher for the Institute of European Affairs, a consultant for the Irish Productivity Centre, a human resources consultancy that is jointly operated by Ibec and Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), and a trainer in the Partnership Unit of the Educational and Training Services Trust.
McDonald starts her political career by first joining Fianna Fáil in 1998 but leaves the party after a year due to core policy differences, particularly in relation to Northern Ireland and social justice. She quickly realises that Sinn Féin is a more appropriate party for her Republican views after meeting Sinn Féin members through the Irish National Congress.
She first runs for office at the 2002 Irish general election when she unsuccessfully contests the Dublin West constituency for Sinn Féin, polling 8.02% of first preference votes.
In 2004, McDonald becomes Sinn Féin’s first Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in Ireland, when she is elected at the 2004 European Parliament election in Ireland for the Dublin constituency, receiving over 60,000 first preference votes. She serves until 2009 and is a prominent member of the Employment and Social Affairs committee and Civil Liberties committee.
McDonald contests the Dublin Central constituency again at the 2011 Irish general election, this time picking up 13.1% of first preference votes. She is successful in taking the last seat in the constituency. Following the election, she becomes Sinn Féin’s Spokesperson for Public Expenditure and Reform and is a member of the Public Accounts Committee from then until 2017.
After her re-election to the Dáil at the 2016 Irish general election, in which she tops the poll in Dublin Central, she becomes Sinn Féin’s All-Ireland Spokesperson for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, which she holds until being elected president of Sinn Féin in 2018.
At a Sinn Féin party conference on November 18, 2017, Gerry Adams is re-elected party leader but announces that he will ask party leadership to call for a special Ard Fheis to be held within three months to choose a new president, and that he will not stand for re-election as TD for the Louth constituency in the next election.
At the close of nominations to succeed Adams on January 20, 2018, McDonald is announced as the president-elect of Sinn Féin, as she is the sole nominee to enter the race. She is confirmed as president at a special Ard Fheis on February 10, 2018, in Dublin.
McDonald is nominated as Taoiseach on February 20, 2020, but is defeated 45 to 84. On June 26, 2020, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party form a coalition government, leaving Sinn Féin as the largest opposition party, and McDonald as Leader of the Opposition. She dismisses the coalition agreement as a “marriage of convenience,” and accuses Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael of conspiring to exclude Sinn Féin from government.
At the 2024 Irish general election, McDonald is re-elected to the Dáil topping the poll in Dublin Central with Sinn Féin increasing their seat share by two seats, remaining the second largest party by representation in the Dáil and attaining 19% of the first preference votes, a fall of 5.5% from 2020 and fall behind Fianna Fáil by 2.9% and Fine Gael by 1.8%.
McDonald is again nominated as Taoiseach on December 18, 2024, but is defeated 44 to 110.
McDonald’s husband, Martin Lanigan, works as a gas control superintendent for the emergency dispatch division of Gas Networks Ireland, a state infrastructure provider. They have two children and live in Cabra, Dublin.
In a letter to his family written on April 30, 1916, Thomas MacDonagh recalls “I was astonished to receive by a messenger from P.H. Pearse, Commandant General of the Army of the Irish Republic, an order to surrender unconditionality to the British General. I did not obey the order as it came from a prisoner. I as then in supreme command of the Irish Army, consulted with my second in command and decided to confirm the order. I knew that it would involve my death and the deaths of other leaders. I hoped that it would save many true men among our followers, good lives for Ireland. God grant it has done so and God approve our deed. For my self I have no regret. The one bitterness that death has for me is the separation it brings from my beloved wife Muriel, and my beloved children, Donagh and Barbara. My country will then treat them as wards, I hope. I have devoted myself too much to National work and too little to the making of money to leave them a competence. God help them and support them, and give them a happy and prosperous life. Never was there a better, truer, purer woman than my wife Muriel, or more adorable children than Don and Barbara. It breaks my heart that I shall never see my children again, but I have not wept or murmured. I counted the cost of this and am ready to pay it. Muriel has been sent for here. I do not know if she can come. She may have no one to take the children while she is coming. If she does.”
MacDonagh and Pearse are contemporaries of one another: poets, progressive educators, Gaelic revivalists. They are men who gird for battle “with a revolver in one hand and a copy of Sophocles in the other.” Each man commands a unit of Irish Volunteers during the Easter Rising, which takes place the week of April 24-30,1916. MacDonagh occupies Jacob’s biscuit factory and Pearse the General Post Office (GPO), from which he issues the surrender at the end of the week.
McDonagh and Pearse are signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, a document issued by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army at the beginning of the Easter Rising, proclaiming Ireland’s independence from the United Kingdom. The reading of the proclamation by Pearse outside the General Post Office (GPO) on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street), Dublin‘s main thoroughfare, marks the beginning of the Rising.
Pearse’s and MacDonagh’s signatures on the Proclamation are a fatal endorsement for them and for each of the other five men to lend it their signatures. After being court-martialed, both Pearse and MacDonagh, along with Thomas Clarke, are executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin on May 3, 1916, the first of the rebels to be executed.
(Pictured: Thomas McDonagh (left) and Patrick Pearse)
In January and February 1689, Butler votes against the motion to put William of Orange and Mary on the throne and against the motion to declare that James II has abdicated it. Nevertheless, he subsequently joins the forces of William of Orange, by whom he is made colonel of the 2nd Troop of Horse Guards on April 20, 1689. He accompanies William in his Irish campaign, debarking with him in Carrickfergus on June 14, 1690, and commands this troop at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. In February 1691 he becomes Lord Lieutenant of Somerset.
Butler serves on the continent under William of Orange during the Nine Years’ War and, having been promoted to major general, he fights at the Battle of Steenkerque in August 1692 and the Battle of Landen in July 1693, where he is taken prisoner by the French and then exchanged for the Duke of Berwick, James II’s illegitimate son. He is promoted to lieutenant general in 1694.
Butler plays a dramatic role at the notorious meeting of the Privy Council on March 8, 1711, when Antoine de Guiscard, a French double agent who is being questioned about his treasonable activities, attempts to assassinate Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, against whom he has a personal grudge for drastically cutting his allowance, by stabbing him with a penknife. Harley is wounded, but not seriously, due largely to the fact that he is wearing a heavy gold brocade waistcoat in which the knife gets stuck. Several Councillors, including Butler, stab Guiscard in return. Guiscard implores Butler to finish the deed, but he replies that it is not for him to play the hangman. In any case, he has the sense to see that Guiscard must be kept alive at least long enough to be questioned, although as it turns out Guiscard’s wounds are fatal, and he dies a week later.
On April 23, 1712, Butler leaves Harwich for Rotterdam to lead the British troops taking part in the war. Once there he allows himself to be made the tool of the Tory ministry, whose policy is to carry on the war in the Netherlands while giving secret orders to him to take no active part in supporting their allies under Prince Eugene. In July 1712, he advises Prince Eugene that he can no longer support the siege of Le Quesnoy and that he is withdrawing the British troops from the action and instead intends to take possession of Dunkirk. The Dutch are so exasperated at the withdrawal of the British troops that they close the towns of Bouchain on Douai to British access, despite the fact that they have plenty of stores and medical facilities available. Butler takes possession of Ghent and Bruges as well as Dunkirk, in order to ensure his troops are adequately provided for. On April 15, 1713, he becomes Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk.
Ormonde’s position as Captain-General makes him a personage of much importance in the crisis brought about by the death of Queen Anne and, during the last years of Queen Anne, he almost certainly has Jacobite leanings and corresponds with the Jacobite Court including his cousin, Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount Galmoye, who keeps barrels of gunpowder at Kilkenny Castle. King George I, on his accession to the throne in August 1714, institutes extensive changes and excludes the Tories from royal favour. Butler is stripped of his posts as Captain-General, as colonel of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards and as Commander in Chief of the Forces with the first two posts going to the Duke of Marlborough and the role of Commander-in-Chief going to John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair. On November 19, 1714, Butler is instead made a member of the reconstituted Privy Council of Ireland.
Accused of supporting the Jacobite rising of 1715, Butler is impeached for high treason by Lord Stanhope on June 21, 1715. He might avoid the impending storm of Parliamentary prosecution, if he remains in England and stands trial but instead, he chooses to flee to France in August 1715 and initially stays in Paris with Lord Bolingbroke. On August 20, 1715, he is attainted, his estate forfeited, and honours extinguished. The Earl Marshal is instructed to remove the names and armorial bearings of Butler and Bolingbroke from the list of peers and his banner as Knight of the Garter is taken down in St. George’s Chapel.
On June 20, 1716, the Parliament of Ireland passes an act extinguishing the regalities and liberties of the county palatine of Tipperary; for vesting Butler’s estate in the crown and for giving a reward of £10,000 for his apprehension, should he attempt to land in Ireland. But the same parliament passes an act on June 24, 1721, to enable his brother, Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, to purchase his estate, which he does accordingly.
Butler subsequently moves to Spain where he holds discussions with Cardinal Giulio Alberoni. He later takes part in a Spanish and Jacobite plan to invade England and puts James Francis Edward Stuart on the British throne in 1719, but his fleet is disbanded by a storm in the Bay of Biscay. In 1732, he moves to Avignon, where he is seen in 1733 by the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He dies at Avignon in exile on November 16, 1745, but his body is returned to London and buried in Westminster Abbey on May 22, 1746.
On July 20, 1682, Butler, then called Lord Ossory, marries Lady Anne Hyde, daughter of Laurence Hyde, who is then Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth but becomes Earl of Rochester in November. The couple has a daughter, Mary, who dies young in 1688.
Following the death of his first wife in 1685, Butler plans to marry again in order to secure a male heir. He gains permission from the House of Lords for the arranging of a jointure for another marriage in May 1685, and in August of that year, he marries Lady Mary Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort and Mary Capel. The couple has a son, Thomas (1686–1689), and two daughters, Elizabeth (1689–1750) and Mary (1690–1713). His second wife is a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. Their younger daughter, Mary, marries John Ashburnham, 1st Earl of Ashburnham.
(Pictured: Portrait of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, by Michael Dahl, National Portrait Gallery)
In October 1964, during the general election campaign, a photo of McMillen is placed in the window of the election office in Divis Street flanked on one side by the Starry Plough flag and on the other by the tricolour. His campaign draws national attention after Ian Paisley demands that police remove the tricolour from McMillen’s election offices. The RUC raids the premises and confiscates the flag, sparking several days of rioting during which McMillen leads several thousand protesters in defiantly displaying the tricolour. He recalls the IRA gaining a “couple of dozen recruits” following the election, but he finishes at the bottom of the poll with 3,256 votes (6%). Around this time, he succeeds Billy McKee as the Officer commanding (OC) of the Belfast Brigade.
McMillen is keen to work for the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers. Roy Garland recalls that McMillan’s grandfather was master of an Orange lodge in Edinburgh and McMillan knew of that heritage and the meaning of the colours of the Irish flag. He prominently displays in his election offices a verse of a poem by John Frazier, a Presbyterian from County Offaly: “Till then the Orange lily be your badge my patriot brother. The everlasting green for me and we for one and other.”
In 1967, McMillen is involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and is a member of a three-man committee which draws up the Association’s constitution. The NICRA’s peaceful activities result in violent opposition from many unionists, leading to fears that Catholic areas will come under attack. In May 1969, when asked at an IRA army council meeting by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh how many weapons the Belfast Brigade has for defensive operations, McMillen states they have only one pistol, a machine gun and some ammunition.
By August 14, 1969, serious rioting has broken out in Belfast and Catholic districts come under attack from both civilian unionists and the RUC. McMillen’s IRA command by this point still has only a limited number of weapons because the leadership in Dublin are reluctant to release guns. While he is involved in some armed actions on this day, he is widely blamed by those who established the Provisional IRA for the IRA’s failure to adequately defend Catholic neighbourhoods from Ulster loyalist attack. He is arrested and temporarily detained by the RUC on the morning of August 15 but is released shortly afterward.
McMillen’s role in the 1969 riots is very important within IRA circles, as it is one of the major factors contributing to the split in the movement in late 1969. In a June 1972 lecture organised by Official Sinn Féin in Dublin, he defends his conduct, stating that by 1969 the total membership of the Belfast IRA is approximately 120 men, and their armaments have increased to a grand total of 24 weapons, most of which are short-range pistols.
In September, McMillen calls a meeting of IRA commanders in Belfast. Billy McKee and several other republicans arrive at the meeting armed and demand McMillen’s resignation. He refuses, but many of those unhappy with his leadership break away and refuse to take orders from him or the Dublin IRA leadership. Most of them join the Provisional Irish Republican Army, when this group splits off from the IRA in December 1969. McMillen himself remains loyal to the IRA’s Dublin leadership, which becomes known as the Official IRA. The split rapidly develops into a bitter rivalry between the two groups. In April 1970, he is shot and wounded by Provisional IRA members in the Lower Falls area of Belfast.
In June 1970, McMillen’s Official IRA have their first major confrontation with the British Army, which had been deployed to Belfast in the previous year, in an incident known as the Falls Curfew. The British Army mounts an arms search in the Official IRA stronghold of the Lower Falls, where they are attacked with a grenade by Provisional IRA members. In response, the British flood the area with troops and declare a curfew. This leads to a three-day gun battle between 80 to 90 Official IRA members led by McMillen and up to 3,000 British troops. Five civilians are killed in the fighting and about 60 are wounded. In addition, 35 rifles, 6 machine guns, 14 shotguns, grenades, explosives and 21,000 rounds of ammunition, all belonging to the OIRA, are seized. McMillen blames the Provisionals for instigating the incident and then refusing to help the Officials against the British.
This ill-feeling eventually leads to an all-out feud between the republican factions in Belfast in March 1971. The Provisionals attempt to kill McMillen again, as well as his second-in-command, Jim Sullivan. In retaliation, McMillen has Charlie Hughes, a young PIRA member, killed. Tom Cahill, brother of leading Provisional Joe Cahill, is also shot and wounded. After these deaths, the two IRA factions in Belfast negotiate a ceasefire and direct their attention instead at the British Army.
When the Northern Ireland authorities introduce internment in August 1971, McMillen flees Belfast for Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland, where he remains for several months. During this time, the Official IRA carries out many attacks on the British Army and other targets in Northern Ireland. However, in April 1972, the organisation in Belfast is badly weakened by the death of their commander in the Markets area, Joe McCann. In May of that year, the Dublin leadership of the OIRA calls a ceasefire, a move which McMillen supports. Nevertheless, in the year after the ceasefire, his command kills seven British soldiers in what they term “retaliatory attacks.” McMillen serves on the Ard Chomhairle (leadership council) of Official Sinn Féin.
By 1974, a group of OIRA members around Seamus Costello are unhappy with the ceasefire. In December 1974, they break away from the Official movement, forming the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Some OIRA members under McMillen’s command, including the entire Divis Flats unit, defect to the new grouping. This provokes another intra-republican feud in Belfast. The feud begins with arms raids on OIRA dumps and beatings of their members by the INLA. McMillen, in response is accused of drawing up a “death list” of IRSP/INLA members and even of handing information on them over to the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
The first killing comes on February 20, 1975, when the OIRA shoot dead an INLA member named Hugh Ferguson in west Belfast. A spate of shootings follows on both sides.
On April 28, 1975, McMillen is shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson, as he is shopping in a hardware shop on Spinner Street with his wife Mary. He is hit in the neck and dies at the scene. His killing is unauthorised and is condemned by INLA/IRSP leader Seamus Costello. Despite this, the OIRA tries to kill Costello on May 9, 1975, and eventually kills him two years later. McMillen’s death is a major blow to the OIRA in Belfast.
Barry seems to be an extreme example of an eighteenth-century rake, a man of quarrelsome and violent nature, and a heavy drinker. He is a member of the notorious Dublin Hellfire Club. The club’s reputation never fully recovers from the sensational publicity surrounding his trial for murder, although there is no reason to think that any of his fellow members knew of or condoned the crime. There are widespread rumours that he had committed at least one previous murder which was successfully hushed up, although there seems to be no firm evidence for this.
On August 9, 1738, Barry is drinking with some friends at a tavern in Palmerstown, then a small village near Dublin. Drinking more heavily than usual, he attacks a drinking companion but is unable to draw his sword. Enraged, he runs to the kitchen, where he chances to meet Laughlin Murphy, the tavern porter, and for no known reason runs him through with his sword. He then bribes the innkeeper to let him escape. Murphy is taken to Dublin where he lingers for several weeks, dying on September 25, 1738.
Although Barry is not immediately apprehended, there is no reason to believe that the Crown intends that he should escape justice. The authorities clearly aim not only to prosecute him but to secure a conviction. Even in an age when the aristocracy enjoys special privileges, the murder of Murphy, who by all accounts was an honest and hardworking man with a wife and young family to support, shocks public opinion, whereas Barry is regarded, even among members of his own class, as a public nuisance. In due course, he is arrested and indicted for murder. He demands, as the privilege of peerage, a trial by his peers. The trial, which takes place in the Irish Houses of Parliament on April 27, 1739, arouses immense public interest.
Bowes dominates the proceedings, and his speeches make his reputation as an orator. Thomas Rundle, Bishop of Derry, who as a spiritual peer is only an observer at the trial, says, “I never heard, never read, so perfect a piece of eloquence…the strength and light of his reason, the fairness and candour.” The Bishop is scathing about the quality of counsel for the defence, describing the performance of Barry’s counsel as “detestable.” The defence case is that Murphy had died not from his wound but from a long-standing illness (or alternatively a rat bite), but in view of the medical evidence produced by the prosecution this is a hopeless argument. According to Bishop Rundle, Barry’s counsel fails even to mention the possibility that Murphy, who lingered for six weeks after being stabbed, might have died through inadequate medical care. Given the overwhelming evidence of Barry’s guilt, however, any defence would probably have been useless, and despite what is described as their “looks of horror,” his peers have little difficulty in finding him guilty. Wyndham, who had conducted the trial with exemplary fairness, pronounces the death sentence. His retirement soon afterward is generally thought to be due to the strain of the trial.
King George II, like all British monarchs, has the prerogative of mercy, and a campaign is launched by Barry’s friends and relatives to persuade the King to grant a pardon. Their plea concentrates on the victim’s low social standing, the implication being that the life of a peer is worth more than that of a tavern worker, despite the victim’s blameless character and the savage and wanton nature of the murder. The King proves reluctant to grant a pardon, and for a time it seems that Barry will be executed, but in due course, a reprieve is issued. Popular legend has it that his uncle, Sir Compton Domvile, through whose estate at Templeogue the River Dodder flows, secured a royal pardon for his nephew by threatening to divert the course of the river, thus depriving the citizens of Dublin of what is then, and remains long after, their main supply of drinking water.
On June 17, 1740, Barry receives a full royal pardon and the restoration of his title and estates. Soon afterward he leaves Ireland for good and settles in England. He is said to have had a personal audience with the King and thanked him in person for his clemency.
Barry’s last years are wretched. Although he has a second marriage shortly before his death, he is abandoned by all his former friends, is in great pain from gout, and is prone to depression. He dies in Nottingham on March 22, 1751, and is buried at St. Nicholas Church, Nottingham. On his death the title becomes extinct. His estates pass to his cousin, Sir Compton Domvile, 2nd Baronet, who makes unsuccessful efforts to have the barony revived. His widow Elizabeth outlives him by many years, dying in December 1816.
seamus dubhghaill 