Beresford employs Lewis Nockalls Cottingham, one of the most skilled architects of the time, to restore St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh. Cottingham removes the old, stunted spire and shores up the belfry stages while he rebuilds the piers and arches under it. The arcade walls which had fallen away as much as 21 inches from the perpendicular on the south side and 7 inches on the north side, are straightened by means of heated irons, and the clerestory windows which had long been concealed, are opened out and filled with tracery.
Beresford dies on July 18, 1862, at Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, the home of his niece, in the parish of Donaghadee and is buried in the cathedral. There is a memorial to him in the south aisle at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh.
As a teenager, Foster is on a school bus that is bombed by the IRA, the vehicle targeted because its driver is a soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). A girl sitting near her is seriously injured. She is a pupil at Enniskillen Collegiate Grammar School in Enniskillen from 1982 to 1989, and attends Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), where she graduates with an LLB degree. Her political career begins at QUB when she joins the Queen’s Unionist Association, part of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). She serves as the association’s chair from 1992 to 1993.
After leaving QUB Foster remains active in the UUP, chairing its youth wing, the UYUC, in 1995. In 1996, she becomes an Honorary Secretary of the UUP’s ruling body, the Ulster Unionist Council, a position which she holds until her resignation from the UUP on December 18, 2003. She is a councillor on Fermanagh District Council representing Enniskillen from 2005 to 2010.
McGuinness resigns as deputy First Minister in January 2017 amid the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, which involves a green energy scheme that Foster set up during her time as Minister for Enterprise and Investment. The scheme is set to cost the taxpayer £490 million and there are allegations of corruption surrounding her role in implementing the scheme. McGuinness asks her to step aside as First Minister while her involvement in the scheme is investigated, but she refuses to step aside or resign and says that the voices calling for her resignation are those of “misogynists and male chauvinists.” Under the terms of the Northern Ireland power-sharing agreement, the First and deputy First Ministers are equal and, therefore, she cannot remain in her post as First Minister and is subsequently removed from office. McGuinness’s resignation causes a 2017 snap assembly election to be held, in which the DUP loses ten seats. After no party receives an outright majority in the 2017 United Kingdom general election, the DUP enters into an agreement with the Conservative Party to support Prime MinisterTheresa May‘s government. In January 2020, she becomes First Minister of Northern Ireland again after the Executive is reinstated under the terms of the New Decade, New Approach agreement.
On April 28, 2021, after more than twenty DUP MLAs and four DUP MPs sign a letter “…voicing no confidence in her leadership,” Foster announces that she will resign as party leader and as First Minister. She is succeeded by Edwin Poots as DUP leader on May 28, 2021. She leaves office as First Minister on June 14, 2021, and is succeeded by Paul Givan as First Minister on June 17, 2021. She resigns from the Northern Ireland Assembly in October 2021 and becomes a presenter on GB News.
In May 2024, it is confirmed that Foster will be appointed chairperson of Intertrade UK, a new body to promote trade within the UK which is announced as part of the UK government package to restore devolution.
Foster and her husband, Brian, have three children. They live on the outskirts of Brookeborough, a village in the east of County Fermanagh. In 2008, she is recognised as Assembly member of the year at the Women in Public Life Awards.
(Pictured: Official portrait of Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee, January 30, 2024)
Cameron is the son of Captain Ewen Cameron of Scotland and Belinda Smith of County Cavan. He is descended from Clan Cameron of Lochiel. He receives his early education in chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry in Dublin. In 1852 he is elected professor to the newly founded Dublin Chemical Society while continuing to study medicine at several schools and hospitals in Dublin. In 1854 he goes to Germany where he graduates in philosophy and medicine. While there he publishes his translations of German poems and songs.
Upon his return to Ireland, Cameron becomes scientific advisor to the British government in Ireland in criminal cases and over the years takes part in many notable trials, including those relating to the Phoenix Park Murders. In 1862, he becomes public analyst for the City of Dublin, a position which is later extended to 23 counties in Ireland. In 1867, he is elected Professor of Hygiene in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He is also lecturer in chemistry in Dr. Steevens’ Hospital and the Ledwich School of Medicine, succeeding Dr. Maxwell Simpson, and retains these positions until 1874. In 1875 he is appointed Professor of Chemistry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
From 1858 to 1863, Cameron is editor and part proprietor of the Agricultural Review, in which he writes hundreds of articles on various subjects. In 1860–62, he is also editor of the Dublin Hospital Gazette and afterward publishes many reports on public health to the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. At this time, he is in contact with many agricultural associations both in Ireland and abroad and receives a number of awards and tributes.
In 1874, Cameron becomes Co-Medical Officer of Health for Dublin Corporation and two years later becomes Chief Medical Officer. Being in charge of the Public Health Department of Dublin City means that he is always in the public eye, and due to the level of poverty and disease in the city at the time his work is cut out for him. He makes many recommendations for improving the sanitation of dwellings and sees to it that unsanitary housing is either improved or closed down. He publishes numerous sanitary reports, papers on hygiene, the social life of the very poor and proper eating habits, those of the very poor in particular. On the other hand, he is in a position to meet the major figures of the day, from the monarchy and the government downward. He is a member of several clubs in the city and dines with local and visiting celebrities alike, which he describes in his reminiscences.
In 1884, Cameron becomes vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and the following year becomes president. He is knighted in 1885 in consideration of “his scientific researches, and his services in the cause of public health.” In 1886, he publishes his History of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and of the Irish Schools of Medicine. This work contains nearly 300 biographies of the most eminent medical men in Ireland.
Cameron marries Lucie Macnamara of Dublin in 1862, who dies in the early 1880s. They have eight children. His eldest son, Captain Charles J. Cameron, dies in a boating accident in Athlone in 1913, while another son, Lieutenant Ewen Henry Cameron, shoots himself in a train in Newcastle in 1915 while on the way to the Western Front. Two sons, Edwin and Mervyn, die of pulmonary tuberculosis in their 20s.
Cameron is a leading Freemason in Dublin, serving as Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland (1911–20), Deputy Grand Master of the Great Priory of Ireland, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the 33rd degree (Ancient and Accepted Rite for Ireland). He is first initiated as a member of Fidelity Lodge No. 125 in 1858 and is also a member of the Duke of York Lodge No. 25, serving as its secretary for over 50 years.
Cameron dies at his home on Raglan Road in Dublin on February 27, 1921, and is interred in Mount Jerome Cemetery. At his death he leaves a son, Ernest Stuart Cameron, and two daughters, Lucie Gerrard and Helena Stanley.
An Taisce is established on a provisional basis in September 1946 and incorporated as a company based on an “association not for profit” in June 1948. It is a charitable non-governmental organisation (NGO) active in the areas of the environment and built heritage in the Republic of Ireland. It considers itself the oldest environmental and non-governmental organisation in the country and is somewhat similar to the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland but based more directly on the National Trust for Scotland. Its first president is the prominent naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger.
An Taisce is a membership-based charity, rather than a state or semi-state organisation, or quango, but it does receive government and European Union funding for specific programmes, such as Blue Flag beaches, and Green Schools private-sector funding for, for example, the Irish Business Against Litter surveys, and a mix of State and private funding for the annual National Spring Clean. An Taisce has for decades also had a statutory role in certain planning and environmental processes in the country.
The work of the organisation includes policy recommendation and campaigning in the built and natural heritage areas, the holding in trust of relevant properties, and environmentally relevant education. It has a number of local associations, which may assist in caring for properties, and monitor planning in their areas.
A public meeting to consider the need for a national trust is held in the Mansion House in September 1946, convened by the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, An Óige, the Geographical Society of Ireland, the Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club and the Irish Society for the Preservation of Birds. The meeting resolves to create such a body, and elect both a provisional committee, and a council of 16 plus 4 co-opted members, who secure bankers, auditors and solicitors. After extensive debate, the two-part name is chosen and application is made to form a not-for-profit company. Special approval is sought from the Minister for Trade and Commerce for charity-appropriate memorandum and articles, adhering to the “association not for profit” section of the then Companies Act, with a prohibition on distribution of surpluses, and for permission to omit the word “Limited” from the company name.
An Taisce is an indirect successor to the all-Island National Trust Committee which had ceased to exist in 1946 after the passing of the Northern Ireland National Trust Act.
The organisation is duly incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on June 28, 1948. The initial constitution is modelled on that of the National Trust for Scotland. The first official meeting of the company was held on July 15, 1948, at the Royal Irish Academy’s headquarters, Academy House on Dawson Street, and the first annual general meeting is convened on September 23 of the same year, with formal greetings from the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland.
Keating is the youngest of six surviving children of Michael Keating, baker, and his wife Johanna, a native of County Kerry. He was educated at a local school and was an active member of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), playing football and hurling. After the 1916 Easter Rising, he leaves school at the age of thirteen to join the Irish Volunteers, which later becomes the IRA, serving in the 4th Cork Brigade. He is arrested by British troops in November 1920 and badly beaten. He spends a month in the Cork jail and is then interned for a year in Ballykinlar internment camp until December 1921. While interned he participates in several hunger strikes and makes several escape attempts. Following his release, he opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty and serves in the Fianna Cork 4th Brigade on the Republican side under Seán Moylan during the Irish Civil War.
Keating emigrates to New York City in 1927 and becomes involved in Irish cultural organizations and Democratic party politics. He is a founder of American Friends of Irish Neutrality, which opposes Irish involvement in World War II, ostensibly fearing it will result in British re-occupation of Ireland.
Following World War II, Keating is chairman of the executive council of the 1947 Irish Race Convention and president of the American League for an Undivided Ireland, lobbying in support of the Fogarty Amendment, which unsuccessfully attempts to tie the release of Marshall Plan funds to British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.
Between the 1940s and 1960s, Keating serves as president of the County Corkmen Association, president of the United Irish Counties Association, and president of the Irish Institute. In 1956, he serves as Grand Marshal of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Keating serves in various positions under New York City mayors William O’Dwyer, Vincent R. Impellitteri, and Robert F. Wagner, Jr., rising to the position of Deputy Mayor, under Wagner. He is reportedly the first to publicly introduce future President Kennedy as “the next President of the United States” at an Irish Institute event in 1957. He is appointed Regional Director of the United States Postal Service by President Kennedy and serves in that position from 1961 until his retirement in 1966.
In retirement, Keating returns to Kanturk and continues to advocate for the reunification of Ireland. Keating dies at his home in Kanturk on July 2, 1976, and is buried in a local cemetery with military honors. He represents an emigrant political and social milieu which is often treated dismissively by later, more cosmopolitan Irish commentators, but his career reflects not only his own considerable talents but the ways in which this milieu sustains a generation of immigrants, and the contribution of Irish America to Irish development in the post-war decades.
Gray is the third son of John and Elizabeth Gray of Mount Street. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin and obtains the degree of M.D. and Master of Surgery at the University of Glasgow in 1839. Shortly before his marriage in the same year, he settles in Dublin and takes up a post at a hospital in North Cumberland Street. He is admitted as a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in due course.
Gray is publicly minded and contributes to periodicals and the newspaper press. In 1841, he becomes joint proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, a nationalist paper which is then published daily and weekly. He acts as political editor of the Journal for a time, before becoming sole proprietor in 1850. As owner, he increases the newspaper’s size, reduces its price and extends its circulation.
Gray enters politics at a relatively young age and attaches himself to Daniel O’Connell‘s Repeal Association. As a Protestant Nationalist, he supports the movement for the repeal of the Acts of Union with Britain. In October 1843, he is indicted with O’Connell and others in the Court of the Queen’s Bench in Dublin on a charge of sedition and “conspiracy against the queen.” The following February, he, together with O’Connell, is condemned to nine months imprisonment, but in early September 1844 the sentence is remitted on appeal. The trial has a strong element of farce, as the hot-tempered Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, challenges Gray’s counsel, Gerald Fitzgibbon, to a duel, for which he is sternly reprimanded by the judges. From then on Gray is careful to distance himself from the advocacy of violence in the national cause, though he is sympathetic to the Young Ireland movement without being involved in its 1848 rebellion. Through the growing influence of the Freeman’s Journal, he becomes a significant figure in Dublin municipal politics. He is also active in national politics during an otherwise quiet period of Irish politics up until 1860. With the resurgence of nationalism after the famine, he helps to organise the Tenant’s League founding conference in 1850, standing unsuccessfully as the League’s candidate for Monaghan in the 1852 United Kingdom general election.
Later Gray originates and organises the “courts of arbitration” which O’Connell endeavours to substitute for the existing legal tribunals of the country. Following O’Connell’s death, in 1862 he inaugurates an appeal for subscriptions to build a monument to O’Connell on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street). Independent from O’Connell, he continues to take a prominent part in Irish politics and in local affairs.
In municipal politics, Gray is elected councillor in 1852 and alderman of Dublin Corporation and takes an interest in the improvement of the city. As chairman of the committee for a new water supply to Dublin, he actively promotes what becomes the “Vartry scheme.” The Vartry Reservoir scheme involves the partial redirection and damming of the River Vartry in County Wicklow, and the building of a series of water piping and filtering systems (and related public works) to carry fresh water to the city. This work is particularly important in the improvement of conditions in the city, and to public health, as it improves sanitation and helps reduce outbreaks of cholera, typhus and other diseases associated with contaminated water. On the opening of the works on June 30, 1863, he is knighted by the Earl of Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Partially in recognition of these efforts, he is later be nominated for the position of Lord Mayor of Dublin for the years 1868–69, but he declines to serve.
In national politics, the Liberal government at the time is keen to conciliate an influential representative of the moderate nationalists to support British Liberalism and who will resume O’Connell’s constitutional agitation. In an unusual alliance with the CatholicArchbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen, a man devoted to O’Connell’s memory, Gray’s newspaper exploits this shift in government policy. It supports the archbishop’s creation, the National Association of Ireland, established in 1864 with the intention of providing a moderate alternative to the revolutionary nationalism of the Fenians. The Freeman’s Journal adopts the aims of the Association as its own: it advocates the disestablishment of the AnglicanChurch of Ireland, reform of the land laws, educational aspirations of Irish Catholicism and free denominal education.
In the 1865 United Kingdom general election Gray is elected MP for Kilkenny City as a Liberal candidate. In this capacity he campaigns successfully at Westminster and in Ireland for the reforms also advocated in his paper. His newspaper’s inquiry into the anomalous wealth of the established church amidst a predominately Catholic population contributes considerably to William Ewert Gladstone‘s Irish Church Act 1869. He helps to furnish the proof that Irish demands are not to be satisfied by anything other than by radical legislation. He fights for the provision in the new Landlord & Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 for fixity of tenure, which Gladstone eventually concedes. The Act’s other weaknesses, however, result in its failure to resolve the “land question,” the accompanying coercion, the disappointment with Gladstone’s handling of the university question and national education, causing Gray to deflect from the Liberals and become mistrusted in Britain. In the 1874 United Kingdom general election he is re-elected as a Home Rule League MP for Kilkenny, joining its Home Rule majority in the House of Commons, and holds his seat until his death the following year.
Gray dies at Bath, Somerset, England, on April 9, 1875. His remains are returned to Ireland, and he is honoured with a public funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery. Almost immediately afterwards public subscriptions are sought for the erection in O’Connell Street, of a monument to Gray. The monument is completed in 1879 and is dedicated to the “appreciation of his many services to his country, and of the splendid supply of pure water which he secured for Dublin.” His legacy also includes his contributions to the passage of the Irish Church and Land Bills, his advocacy for tenant’s rights and his support of the Home Rule movement.
(Pictured: Statue to Sir John Gray on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, designed by Thomas Farrell and unveiled on June 24, 1879. Photo credit: Graham Hickey)
Major rioting and civil disorder break out in Ardoyne, north Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 12, 2001. In some of the worst rioting in years, 113 police officers are injured in clashes which follow a July 12 parade. Police are attacked when trying clear the path for about 100 Orangemen returning from the parade to go along a main road passing the Catholic Ardoyne area.
In the seven-hour riot which involves about 250 nationalist youth, two blast bombs and 263 petrol bombs are exploded, while a dozen vehicles are hijacked, and 48 plastic bullets are shot by the police. Riot police also use water cannons. There are also incidents in east Belfast, Derry and Ballycastle, but the clashes in Ardoyne are by far the most serious.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) says the riots are orchestrated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a claim denied by Sinn Féin, who believe the RUC’s heavy response escalates tensions. The incident also intensifies a row over the use of plastic bullets. Forty-eight of them are fired by the RUC in Ardoyne, and Sinn Féin claims fifty of them hit civilians, ten of which are badly injured. Chief ConstableRonnie Flanagan strongly rejects calls from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) to halt its use in riots. Nationalist politicians see the ban on plastic bullets as a vital reform to make Catholics trust the police force more. Gerry Kelly from Sinn Féin says that the RUC “started the riot in Ardoyne. They are a sectarian force, using a very lethal weapon predominantly against nationalists and they should not be allowed to do so.”
A few days later another riot breaks out involving petrol bombs and acid being thrown by loyalists at police in north and west Belfast. Loyalists claim shots are fired at them from the Catholic Short Strand. A buffer zone is created by riot police in North Queen Street. Well-known Ulster Defence Association (UDA) members are spotted. From September 2001 the area sees fresh violence during the Holy Cross dispute and on the 23rd, with rioting also occurring in October and November.
Abraham is born on April 5, 1869, in Rathgar, County Dublin. She works to improve conditions for industrial workers and is also involved in women’s health and education. She is one of the first people to be appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1917.
Abraham is educated at home. Following her father’s death in 1887, she decides to move to London in search of employment. In London she becomes secretary to Emilia, Lady Dilke, who is a leader of the Women’s Trade Union League, an organisation of which she becomes treasurer. She supports the London Dock Strike of 1889 and helps organise laundresses.
In 1891, Abraham is appointed to the Royal Commission on Labour, set up to investigate the poor conditions faced by industrial workers, as one of four women assistant commissioners.
H. H. Asquith decides to appoint women factory inspectors in 1893, and Abraham is one of his first choices, soon superintending a team of five women inspectors. In this position, she is known for her good humour which helps relations with factory managers. In 1895, she joins the Departmental Committee on Dangerous Trades. She writes a book on factory legislation in 1896, The Laws Relating to Factories and Workshops, Including Laundries and Docks.
In 1896, Abraham marries Harold Tennant, brother-in-law of and parliamentary secretary to Asquith, and chairman of the Departmental Committee on Dangerous Trades. She resigns in 1897 shortly before the birth of her first son, to devote herself to her family. She goes on to have five children. Her eldest son, Henry, is killed in battle in 1917 during World War I.
Despite her new family life, Tennant does not give up her work entirely, remaining on the Committee on Dangerous Trades. In 1899, she becomes chairman of the Industrial Law Indemnity Fund, which provides compensation to victimised workers. She is on the Royal Commission on Divorce in 1909 and is a founder and treasurer of the Central Committee for Women’s Employment.
During World War I, Tennant takes on more work. She works initially for the War Office as welfare advisor, then briefly in the Women’s Department of the National Service Department, before moving to the Ministry of Munitions. After the war, she reduces her workload, but still serves on committees on maternal mortality and maternal health. She is also a governor of Bedford College in London, an institution founded for the education of women that is part of the University of London. From 1941 she is closely involved in campaigning for the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund.
Tennant and her husband purchase and rebuild a country house, Great Maytham, at Rolvenden, Kent, a property whose old walled garden had earlier been the inspiration for The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. She develops expertise as a gardener, becoming prominent in the Royal Horticultural Society. After her husband’s death in 1935, she moves to a smaller house named Cornhill at Great Maytham, where she dies July 11, 1946. Some of her correspondence is in the British Library, London.
Jack “Legs” Diamond, an Irish Americangangster in Philadelphia and New York City during the Prohibition era also known as John Nolan and Gentleman Jack, is born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1897, to Sara and John Moran, who emigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia in 1891. A bootlegger and close associate of gambler Arnold Rothstein, he survives a number of attempts on his life between 1916 and 1931, causing him to be known as the “clay pigeon of the underworld.” In 1930, his nemesis Dutch Schultz remarks to his own gang, “Ain’t there nobody that can shoot this guy so he don’t bounce back?”
In 1899, Diamond’s younger brother Eddie is born. He and Eddie both struggle through grade school, and their mother suffers from severe arthritis and other health problems. She passes away on December 24, 1913, following complications brought on by a bacterial infection and a high fever. John Moran then moves his family to Brooklyn, New York.
Diamond soon joins a Manhattan street gang called the Hudson Dusters. His first arrest for burglary occurs when he breaks into a jewelry store on February 4, 1914. He serves in the United States Army in World War I but is convicted and jailed for desertion in 1918 or 1919. He serves two years of a three- to five-year sentence at Leavenworth Military Prison. After being released in 1921, he becomes a hired thug and later personal bodyguard for crime boss Arnold Rothstein.
Diamond is known for leading a rather flamboyant lifestyle. He is an energetic individual, his nickname “Legs” derived either from his being a good dancer or from how fast he could escape his enemies. His wife Alice is never supportive of his life of crime but does not do much to dissuade him from it. He is a womanizer, with his best-known mistress being a showgirl and dancer, Marion “Kiki” Roberts.
In the late 1920s, Prohibition is in force, and the sale of beer and other alcoholic beverages is illegal in the United States. Diamond travels to Europe to acquire beer and narcotics but fails. However, he does obtain liquor, which is dumped overboard in partially full barrels that float to Long Island as ships enter New York Harbor. He pays children a nickel for every barrel they bring to his trucks.
Following the death of Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen, Diamond oversees illegal alcohol sales in downtown Manhattan via the Hotsy Totsy Club, an establishment partly owned by Diamond on Broadway. This work brings him into conflict with Dutch Schultz, who wants to move beyond his base in Harlem. He also runs into trouble with other gangs in the city. On July 14, 1929, he and fellow gang member Charles Entratta shoot three drunken brawlers in the Hotsy Totsy Club. Two of the brawlers, William Cassidy and Simon Walker, are killed, while the survivor, Peter Cassidy, is severely wounded. The club’s bartender, three waiters, and the hat check girl vanish, with one of them being found shot dead in New Jersey. He is not charged but is forced to close the club.
In 1930, Diamond and two henchmen kidnap truck driver Grover Parks in Cairo, New York, demanding to know where he had obtained his load of hard cider. When Parks denies carrying anything, Diamond and his men beat and tortured Parks, eventually letting him go. A few months later, he is charged with the kidnapping of James Duncan. He is sent to Catskill, New York, for his first trial, but is acquitted. However, he is convicted in a federal case on related charges and sentenced to four years in jail. He is tried in December 1931 in Troy, New York, also for kidnapping, and is once again acquitted.
On August 23, 1930, Diamond, under the false name John Nolan, boards the ocean liner SS Belgenland, bound for Europe. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) suspect that he might have left the U.S. aboard RMS Olympic or RMS Baltic, but he is not found on either ship when they reach Europe. The NYPD then sends a wireless telegraph message to the crew of SS Belgenland, who reply that a man similar to Diamond’s description is among the passengers. Diamond spends much of the voyage in the ship’s smoking-room playing poker, with one report claiming that he won thousands of dollars in this game. The SS Belgenland‘s officers, however, refute this, saying his winnings were small.
The NYPD telegraphs police in England, France and Belgium with the warning that Diamond is an undesirable character. When SS Belgenland reaches Plymouth on August 31, Scotland Yard officers tell Diamond he will not be allowed to land in England. He tells reporters that he wants to travel to the French spa town of Vichy for “the cure.” He disembarks in Antwerp on September 1, where Belgian police take him to their headquarters. Eventually, he agrees to voluntarily leave Belgium and is put on a train to Germany. When his train reaches Aachen, German police arrest him. On September 6, the German government decides to deport Diamond. He is driven to Hamburg and put on the cargo ship Hannover for passage to Philadelphia.
On September 23, Hannover arrives in Philadelphia, and Diamond is immediately arrested by the Philadelphia police. At a court hearing that day, the judge says he will release him if he leaves Philadelphia within the hour. Diamond agrees.
On October 24, 1924, Diamond is shot and wounded by shotgun pellets, reportedly after trying to hijack liquor trucks belonging to a rival crime syndicate.
On October 16, 1927, Diamond tries to stop the murder of “Little Augie” Orgen. His brother Eddie is Orgen’s bodyguard, but Diamond substitutes for Eddie that day. As Orgen and he are walking down a street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, three young men approach them and start shooting. Orgen is fatally wounded, and Diamond is shot twice below the heart. He is taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he eventually recovers. Police interview him in the hospital, but he refuses to identify any suspects or help the investigation in any way. Police initially suspect that he is an accomplice and charge him with homicide, but the charge is dropped. The assailants are supposedly hired by Lepke Buchalter and Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, who are seeking to encroach on Orgen’s garment-district labor rackets.
On October 12, 1930, Diamond is shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello on Manhattan’s West Side. Two men force their way into his room and shoot him five times. Still in his pajamas, he staggers into the hallway and collapses. When asked later by the police commissioner how he managed to walk out of the room, he says he drank two shots of whiskey first. He is rushed to the Polyclinic Hospital, where he eventually recovers. He is discharged from Polyclinic on December 30, 1930.
On April 21, 1931, Diamond is arrested in Catskill on assault charges for the Parks beating in 1930. Two days later, he is released from the county jail on $25,000 bond. Five days later, he is again shot and wounded at the Aratoga Inn, a roadhouse near Cairo. After eating in the dining room with three companions, he is shot three times and collapses by the front door. A local resident drives him to a hospital in Albany, where he eventually recovers. On May 1, while he is still in the hospital, the New York State Police seize over $5,000 worth of illegal beer and alcohol from his hiding places in Cairo and at the Aratoga Inn.
In August 1931, Diamond and Paul Quattrocchi go on trial for bootlegging. The same month, he is convicted and sentenced to four years in state prison. In September 1931, he appeals his conviction.
On December 18, 1931, Diamond’s enemies finally catch up with him. He is staying in a rooming house on Dove Street in Albany while on trial for kidnapping in Troy. On the night of his acquittal, December 17, he and his family and friends visit a restaurant in Albany. At 1:00 a.m., he and mistress, Marion “Kiki” Roberts, entertain themselves at the Rain-Bo Room of the Kenmore Hotel on North Pearl Street.
At 4:30 a.m., Diamond drunkenly goes back to the rooming house and passes out on his bed. Two gunmen enter his room about an hour later. One man holds Diamond down and the other shoots him three times in the back of the head.
There is much speculation as to who is responsible for the murder. Likely candidates include Schultz, the Oley Brothers, the Albany Police Department, and relatives of Red Cassidy, another Irish American gangster at the time. According to author William Kennedy in his book O Albany, Dan O’Connell, who runs the local Democraticpolitical machine, orders Diamond’s execution, which is carried out by the Albany police.
Given the power that the O’Connell machine holds in Albany and its determination to prevent organized crime, other than their own, from threatening their monopoly of vice in the city, some accept this account of the story. For those believing this theory, William Fitzpatrick’s promotion to chief of police is said to be a reward for executing Diamond. In 1945, Chief Fitzpatrick is shot and killed in his own office by John McElveney, an Albany police detective. McElveney is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He is released in 1957 when his sentence is commuted by GovernorW. Averell Harriman.
On December 23, 1931, Diamond is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens. There is no church service or graveside ceremony. Family and spectators numbering 200 attend the interment. No criminal figures are spotted.
On July 1, 1933, Alice Kenny Diamond, Diamond’s 33-year-old widow, is found shot to death in her Brooklyn apartment. It is speculated that she is shot by Diamond’s enemies to keep her quiet.
Muriel Enid Gifford is born at 12 Cowper Road, Rathmines, on December 18, 1884. She is the fourth daughter and eighth child of twelve of Frederick and Isabella Gifford. As a child, she suffers at different times from rheumatic fever and phlebitis. She attends Alexandra College and spends a brief time in England training to as a poultry instructor. Returning to Ireland, she trains at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, Dublin, as a student nurse, but her health suffers from the work.
Along with her sisters, MacDonagh is active in the Irish Women’s Franchise League and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, a nationalist organisation. She is involved in the school meals programme of 1910 to 1911, takes part in a 1914 Women’s Franchise League fundraiser, appearing in a tableau vivant as Maeve, the Warrior Queen. Less ardently feminist than her sisters, she takes delight in inviting home activists and artists for a “proper meal.” In an outgoing family, she is shy and reserved, known for her gentle manner. In 1908, she is introduced to Thomas MacDonagh by suffragette journalist Nannie Dryhurst along with her sisters, Grace and Sidney, on a visit to St. Enda’s School. Dryhurst advises Thomas to “fall in love with one of these girls and marry her,” to which he replies laughingly, “That would be easy; the only difficulty would be to decide which one.” The Gifford sisters remain acquaintances with Thomas until the autumn of 1911, when the couple has a short and intense courtship. They meet secretly in galleries and museums and have copious correspondence. When he is appointed assistant lecturer to University College Dublin (UCD) in December 1911, they marry on January 3, 1912. They have one son, Donagh MacDonagh, and one daughter, Barbara MacDonagh Redmond. The family lives first at 32 Baggot Street, and later at 29 Oakley Road, Rathmines.
MacDonagh suffers with poor health and depression, which leads to periods of convalescence and confinement. When her husband is arrested after the Easter Rising, she is unable to see him before his execution on May 3, 1916, which heightens the intensity of her bereavement. Devastated by his death and estranged from her parents due to their disapproval of his involvement in the Rising, she briefly lives with the Plunketts at Larkfield, Kimmage, and then with relatives of her husband in Thurles, County Tipperary. She later returns to Dublin to rent rooms in a Plunkett family property, 50 Marlborough Road. With two young children to support, she is nearly destitute, but like the other widows and orphans of the executed leaders of the Rising, they are aided by the Irish Volunteers Dependents’ Fund, in her case with £250. She also serves as an officer and committee member on this aid association. Her husband had named her as his literary executor, and she prepares a collected edition of his poetry that is published in October 1916. The success of this volume, and his bestselling Literature in Ireland, published at the time he is executed, ease her financial difficulties somewhat.
MacDonagh dies while swimming in the sea during a holiday with other 1916 widows and orphans in Skerries, County Dublin, on July 9, 1917. She almost does not attend the holiday, as her son is in hospital having been injured in a fall. It is believed that she is attempting to swim to Shenick Island from Skerries, possibly to place a tricolour flag on the island’s Martello tower. Her body is found near Loughshinny Beach and, as there is no water in her lungs, it is concluded that she died of heart failure and not drowning. As there is great interest in the 1916 widows and their families, her funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery attracts a large crowd of mourners estimated at 5,000 in the funeral procession.
Following MacDonagh’s death, there is a legal custody battle between the Giffords and the MacDonaghs over Donagh and Barbara. Their aunt Mary MacDonagh, a nun known as Sister Francesca and with whom MacDonagh had grown close, wins custody. Even though several of her siblings offer to take the children, she places them in a foster home.
On the centenary of MacDonagh’s death, a festival takes place in Skerries in her memory.
seamus dubhghaill 