seamus dubhghaill

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

Author Archives: Jim Doyle


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The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920 Receives Royal Assent

The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to address the collapse of the British civilian administration in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence, receives royal assent on August 9, 1920, following a guillotine motion.

In effect a special extension of the Defence of the Realm Acts, the aim of the Act is to increase convictions of nationalist rebels while averting the need to declare martial law. Under Section 3(6) of the Act, military authorities are empowered to jail any Irish person without charge or trial. Secret courts-martial are established, and lawyers (appointed by Crown agents) can be present only if the death penalty is involved. Inquests of military or police actions are banned.

By the middle of 1920, Ireland is in the throes of a full-fledged rebellion that is barely recognized by the British Government in Ireland headquartered in Dublin Castle. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the military arm of the Dáil Éireann revolutionary government, is engaged in a guerilla campaign to destroy elements of British power, particularly burning down courthouses and attacking members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), Britain’s police force in the countryside.

The British response to the increase in violence and the assassination of police officers is twofold. To suppress the IRA “murderers,” Major General Hugh Tudor, commander of the RIC and self-styled “Chief of Police,” begins supplementing that body with the employment of World War I veterans known as the “Black and Tans” because of the colour of their surplus World War I uniforms, and an additional temporary force of Auxiliaries. With little discipline and utter indifference to the plight or moral indignation of the Irish population, these groups raid and burn villages, creameries, and farm buildings to intimidate supporters of the IRA.

The second measure is the enactment of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (ROIA). The Act is envisioned as a remedy to the problem perceived by Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood that “throughout the greater part of Ireland criminal justice can no longer be administered by the ordinary constitutional process of trial by judge and jury.”

The genesis of the Act may be seen in a Cabinet discussion on May 31, 1920, in which the members focus on the violence in Ireland. Rather than addressing violence as the product of rebellion, Greenwood insists that, “The great task is to crush out murder and arson.” He asserts that the violence is perpetrated by handsomely paid thugs. Commenting on a pending Irish bill, Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill states, “You should include in the Bill a special tribunal for trying murderers. It is monstrous that we have some 200 murders, and no one hung.” The prime minister agrees that convicted murderers should be hanged but questions whether convictions can be obtained from Catholics. The concern of all is that the civil courts are incapable of strictly administering justice to the revolutionaries because the juries largely consisted of Irish Catholics. The ensuing discussion of possibly imposing court-martial jurisdiction is inconclusive.

After the May 31 meeting, Greenwood investigates the feasibility of imposing martial law in Ireland and raises martial law as the specific subject of a July 23, 1920, conference committee meeting of the Cabinet led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to which the key members of the Dublin Castle administration are invited. William E. Wylie, the law advisor at Dublin Castle, notes that the RIC is disintegrating through resignations brought on by terrorist attacks, and that with “regard to the Civil Courts, the entire administration of the Imperial Government had ceased.” The civilian participants from Dublin Castle, especially Wylie, maintain that martial law is counter-productive, and will only antagonize the Irish people. As an alternative to martial law, General Tudor argues for the imposition of court-martial jurisdiction. Tudor argues forcefully that court-martial jurisdiction over all crimes will support the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries that he is recruiting. He declaims that “not a single criminal had been brought to justice for murder.” Lloyd George closes the discussion directing the Dublin Castle participants to provide final proposals for enforcement of the laws.

A draft bill to establish military criminal jurisdiction is considered by the Cabinet on July 26. The prime minister’s most telling contribution is his question as to whether a convicted man would be shot or hanged. It appears that he is comforted by the response that the defendant will be tried under the ordinary law which implies death by hanging. The resulting bill is completed by July 30, 1920, and is then quickly pushed through Parliament and receives royal assent on August 9, 1920. The ROIA provides that all crimes punishable under the laws in Ireland can be brought before a court-martial. The court-martial will have the power to impose any punishment authorized by statute or common law including the death penalty. The final step is taken on August 20, 1920, when the final regulations for implementation go into effect.

The combination of growing police and military pressure and recourse to the ROIA lead to increased internments of known or suspected IRA members and a steady increase in convictions to 50-60 per week. This makes it more difficult for IRA soldiers to continue openly working day jobs while carrying on part-time guerrilla activities. As a result, the IRA shifts its approach to guerrilla warfare in the rural counties. Volunteers from IRA units are organized into elite, full-time, mobile flying columns of around 25 men who live off the land and on the run. These flying columns prove to be more suited to ambushes of patrols and convoys and other targets of opportunity, rather than attacks on barracks which had become better defended.

On December 10, 1920, martial law is proclaimed in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. In January 1921 martial law is extended to counties Clare and Waterford.

In a crucial judgement, R (Egan) v Macready, the Irish courts rule that the Act does not give power to impose the death penalty. This would no doubt have proved politically contentious had not hostilities ended the same day.

Despite its name, the courts are of the view that ROIA applies in England as well. Following the creation of the Irish Free State, when the Act is repealed by implication, it is still used to deport ex-members of the Irish Self-Determination League to Ireland.


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Birth of Patrick Devlin, Irish Rock Guitarist & Singer

Patrick Devlin, guitarist and singer, is born in Dublin on August 8, 1967. He currently fronts Blaggards, an American Celtic rock band based in Houston, Texas. The Houston Press describes Blaggards as “H-town’s heir to the emerald throne of Phil Lynott and Shane MacGowan.”

Growing up in Dublin, Devlin listens to and is influenced by Irish rebel music and heavy metal bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden.

After moving to Houston in 1994, Devlin tends bar in Irish pubs and music venues for a number of years before starting his first band. From his perspective behind the bar, he realizes there is a local demand for Irish rock music that nobody is fulfilling. In 1996, to this end he forms a band called On the Dole. Although the band does well for several years, opening for legendary Irish touring acts like The Wolfe Tones and The Saw Doctors, eventually he decides it is time to clear the decks and start again.

In 2003, while hosting a weekly open mic at an Irish pub, Devlin meets bassist and singer Chad Smalley, son of Nobel laureate Richard Smalley and a veteran of the Houston music scene who had recently returned from New York and is looking for a new project. The two of them soon begin singing and performing together every week, developing a tight vocal harmony style.

In July 2004, Devlin and Smalley form Blaggards, along with violinist Turi Hoiseth and drummer Brian Vogel. Hoiseth and Vogel have since left the band, leaving Devlin and Smalley as the only original members.

Blaggards tours nationally and internationally. They perform at South by Southwest in 2008, where they are the only Celtic-based act on the official schedule. Their music has been played on the Sirius Satellite Radio program Celtic Crush, hosted by Larry Kirwan of Black 47. In 2013 he includes their recording of “The Irish Rover” on his compilation album Larry Kirwan’s Celtic Invasion.

The song “Big Strong Man” from Blaggards’ first album Standards (2005) appears in the 2010 British film The Kid, directed by Nick Moran.

“Big Strong Man” and “Drunken Sailor” (also from Standards) are both featured in episode 86 of the CBS series The Good Wife, aired on March 24, 2013.

Blaggards’ second album, Live in Texas, is released in 2010. It is a recording of a live performance at Houston’s Continental Club on June 13, 2009. The band’s latest album, Blagmatic, is released on July 14, 2021.

Blaggards, with Arizona-based fiddle player Heide Riggs and drummer Kevin “Turbo” Newton in the current lineup, continue to maintain a rigorous schedule, playing constantly throughout Texas and touring nationally several times a year. Beginning in 2010 (excluding the COVID years), the band does a 10-day Ireland tour every year in the early fall.


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Birth of Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, Landscape Artist

Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, Irish oil and watercolour landscape artist, is born in India on August 7, 1910.

Wilmer is born to Major Harold Gordon Wilmer and Alice Violet McEntire. Her father is killed at Gallipoli when she is four years old. She has a younger brother, Harold, who follows in the family military tradition and is killed in 1942. She learns her skills in the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) schools in Dublin, starting in 1926, where she wins a number of awards for her art. She is trained by Lilian Davidson who is working out of her studio in Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin. She wins the Taylor Scholarship in 1933 which sends her to the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

In 1936, Wilmer marries Dr. Brendan O’Brien, a Dublin surgeon and son of Dermod O’Brien. She and her husband settle in Dublin after working abroad for a few years. They have two sons, Dermod and Anthony, who is also an artist. Another artistic relative is Geraldine O’Brien.

In the period from the 1940s and 1950s O’Brien exhibits in Dublin with Brigid Ganly, RHA, her sister-in-law, as well as submitting works to the Society of Dublin Painters, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Water Colour Society of Ireland. She exhibits annually in the Irish Living Art Exhibition and the Oireachtas Art Exhibition. O’Brien is elected a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1976. She is president of the Water Colour Society of Ireland from 1962 to 1981.

O’Brien dies in Dublin in 1982.


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Olympic Champion Michelle de Bruin Banned from Swimming

On August 6, 1998, Irish Olympic swimming champion Michelle de Bruin is banned from swimming for four years after being found guilty of tampering with a drug test. The International Swimming Federation says she used alcohol to tamper with urine samples taken the previous January at her home as part of the out-of-competition doping control programme run by FINA, the world governing body of swimming.

De Bruin is the golden girl of Irish swimming, winning three medals at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Her performances in Atlanta give rise to much muted comment about a dramatic improvement in her times. U.S. swimmer and then world record holder Janet Evans is more vocal, stating at one press conference that the Irish swimmer’s performance is “questionable and suspicious.” Supporters decry the comments as jealousy. At the same time, the Irish media does not cover itself in glory with the national broadcaster RTÉ apparently decreeing that comment about possible drug taking should not be referenced by commentators.

FINA says her urine sample shows “unequivocal signs of adulteration” and has an alcohol content (to mask drug taking) that is “compatible with physical manipulation.”

De Bruin confirms a challenge to the ban at a news conference on Friday, August 7. It continues her emphatic and repeated claims that she has never breached drug rules. Her sister, Aisling Smith, speaking from the family home in Rathcoole, on the outskirts of Dublin, says, “Michelle is determined to fight it through.”

De Bruin competes under her maiden name of Smith at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and wins gold medals in the 400m individual medley, 400m freestyle, and the 200m individual medley. She wins a bronze medal in the 200m butterfly event.

Reacting to news of the ban, Irish Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation Dr. Jim McDaid says it is a personal tragedy for the swimmer and her family. Taking time out from government business in Reykjavik, Iceland, he says, that like the rest of the Irish people, he is “saddened and disappointed” at the ban and hopes that the Olympic champion can establish her innocence.

A four-year ban from any national or international swimming contest at De Bruin’s age of 28 effectively ends her swimming career. She could also be stripped of the four medals – two gold, two silver – she won at the 1997 European Aquatics Championships in Seville, Spain.

At a later conference, Evans highlights that the accusations of de Bruin’s doping had been heard by her poolside. De Bruin later receives an apology from Evans.

De Bruin never returns to competitive swimming and later works as a barrister, practising under her married name. Despite the ban for manipulating samples, none of Smith’s swimming achievements have been annulled, and she remains Ireland’s most successful Olympian.

Her coach and husband, Erik de Bruin, previously serves a four-year ban for using illegal drugs during his career as a discus thrower.


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Death of John Havelock Nelson, Composer & Conductor

John Havelock Nelson, composer and conductor, dies in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 5, 1996. He makes an immense contribution to the development of the cultural life of the province – and beyond – over the second half of the 20th century.

Nelson is born of middle-class parents in Cork, County Cork, on May 25, 1917, his distinctive forename being taken from a cousin of his mother who lost his life in World War I. Despite his birthplace, both his parents’ ancestral roots lie firmly in Northern Ireland.

Nelson’s father Robert comes from Larne, County Antrim, where he was raised. However, the early years of his mother Grace are quite eventful. She is born in the Belgian Congo on account of her father’s placement there as a missionary in the latter years of the 19th century (his family hail from Tobermore, County Londonderry). She is eventually sent home at an early age, due to the threat of malaria, and is raised in Belfast by an aunt and uncle who have no family of their own. It appears that Nelson inherits his musical genes from both parents. Although his father is trained as a chartered accountant, he is a capable baritone singer who studies in the early 1900s with C. J. Brennan, later to become the organist and choirmaster at St. Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast). Meanwhile, his mother shows talent as a pianist during her upbringing in her adopted city and by her early 20s is offering her services as an accompanist.

By chance, this is how his parents meet. They marry in 1916, shortly before their arrival in Cork where Robert takes up his first accountancy job. Within a month of Nelson’s birth, the family moves to Dublin where his father has secured a better post, eventually settling near Dún Laoghaire, just south of the capital city. From the age of five, now the eldest of four brothers born a year apart, he starts piano lessons and makes such rapid progress that, by the age of ten, he is able to play in a piano trio and to accompany his father in informal concerts. By the age of twelve, he wins a scholarship to the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin, giving him the opportunity to study piano and theory and helping him to establish his core musical skills. Soon he adds conducting and organ lessons to his study programme.

As far as Nelson’s general education is concerned, this is completed at St. Andrew’s College, Dublin, where he excels in English, history and the sciences. By his late teens, he is determined to pursue a professional career as a musician. His father, however, exercises caution in this regard, advising him to take a science degree in the first instance. Consequently, he gains entry to Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1935 to read Natural Science, then makes a decision the following year to change to Medical Science. By 1939, he completes his primary degree in Medical Science, leading to doctoral research in bacteriology. At the same time, he begins a 4-year music degree at TCD while remaining musically active outside the university in relation to his piano studies, and also co-founds and conducts the Dublin Orchestral Players, a body that continues to provide an invaluable platform for amateur performers. He completes his university studies in 1943, graduating with a PhD in Medical Science and a primary Music degree. Seven years later he also completes a doctorate in Music from the same university.

His university career now behind him, like many fellow Irishmen, Nelson feels a desire to contribute to the World War II effort and applies for a commission in the medical branch of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1944. Eventually, he is called up and located at RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire, where he remains until after the end of the War, only returning to Dublin for his marriage in 1945. By nature, an outgoing, sociable person, he wastes no time in immersing himself in music-making activities when off duty, both inside and outside his RAF base. It is during this immediate post-war period that he becomes convinced that he wants to pursue a career in music. By chance, his attention is drawn to a BBC advertisement regarding a number of regional posts for staff accompanists, including Northern Ireland. His application is successful, and he reports for duty at BBC Northern Ireland in March 1947, where he remains for the next 30 years. In his new post, his main role is to play and accompany on the piano. To this end, he becomes involved in a number of new radio programmes, notably Children’s Hour. Elsewhere, he composes and arranges music for adult dramas and serials, the best known being The McCooeys. Another responsibility is to assist in auditioning local musicians for broadcasting opportunities, a process that uncovers much local talent, including a young James Galway. While his activities revolve around radio work in the 1950s, the next 20 years embrace opportunities arising from the new medium of television, including the popular Songs of Praise which involve him as conductor.

Nelson’s decision to retire from the BBC in 1977 enables him to focus fully on his free-lance career which had been running parallel, up until then, with his broadcasting work. In this capacity he is able to give full rein to his diverse range of musical skills as choral and orchestral conductor, chamber musician, music-festival adjudicator, composer and arranger. One should not overlook his role as animateur in founding the Studio Symphony Orchestra (1947) and the Studio Opera Group (1950). Both became integral parts of the local cultural scene during Nelson’s lifetime. His contribution as a festival adjudicator is an important activity, notably when undertaking tours abroad, including to Canada and the Caribbean. His visits to the latter area lead him to form the Trinidad and Tobago Opera Company shortly after his BBC retirement. In his busy lifestyle, he makes time to satisfy his creative energy as a composer and arranger. In total he publishes over 100 pieces, many inspired by his love of Irish traditional song and are of short duration and scored for a variety of vocal combinations. His enjoyment of his reputation as a piano accompanist of international standing is confirmed by his association with some of the leading Irish and British professional singers of the period, including Bernadette Greevy (soprano), Margaret Marshall (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor) and Ian Wallace (bass-baritone).

During his lifetime, Nelson’s outstanding services to music, both inside and outside the province, are recognised by a number of awards. The first of these is an OBE in 1966, followed in the latter part of his life by four honorary doctorates, three from local universities. A gifted and versatile musician, his personality is described by one colleague as “magnetic”- he has the unique ability to reach out to everybody irrespective of their age, status and position in life in whatever role he performs. In his best-known role as a conductor, a critic says of him that, “Dr. Nelson has a remarkable touch in getting people to do what he wants in the pleasantest way possible.” His vision and determination help to establish a vibrant music culture throughout Northern Ireland, an achievement that will remain his lasting legacy.

Nelson is survived by his three children and eight grandchildren; his wife Hazel having predeceased him in 1983.

(From: “John Havelock Nelson (1917-1996),” Dictionary of Ulster Biography, http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk)


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Birth of Guitarist Henry Cluney

Henry Cluney, guitarist and former member of the band Stiff Little Fingers, is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 4, 1957. He remains with the group until lead singer Jake Burns disbands them in 1983.

Cluney tours briefly with the band Dark Lady supporting Jake Burns and the Big Wheel, notably at the Marquee Club in Wardour Street, Soho, City of Westminster, London, but then spends five years back in Belfast teaching guitar until Stiff Little Fingers is reformed. He is a regular songwriting contributor for the group’s first four albums, taking over lead vocal duties on his own compositions. He leaves the group amid some acrimony in 1993.

Cluney moves to Rochester, Minnesota, in 1997, keeping up his involvement in music, playing guitar with several regional rock bands.

Cluney completes a feature-length film in 2009 and tours the United Kingdom for the first time in fifteen years, as the opening for The Damned and The Alarm on their 341 tour. He subsequently tours the next two years, as a solo artist, and in 2013 forms XSLF with former bandmate Jim Reilly, and friend, Ave Tsarion.

Cluney currently lives in Rochester with his wife, Carol, while touring frequently throughout the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), Ireland and Europe with his nephew David Cluney who also plays the guitar.


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Birth of Eamon Dunphy, Media Personality & Journalist

Eamon Martin Dunphy, Irish media personality, journalist, broadcaster, author, sports pundit and former professional footballer, is born in Dublin on August 3, 1945.

Dunphy grows up in Drumcondra, Dublin, in what he describes as “a one-room tenement flat [with] no electricity, no hot water.” He attends Saint Patrick’s National School, Drumcondra. In 1958, he gets a one-year government scholarship to Sandymount High School but has to work as a messenger at the tweed clothing shop Kevin and Howlin.

A promising footballer, Dunphy leaves Dublin while still a teenager to join Manchester United as an apprentice. He does not break into the first team at United, and subsequently leaves to play for York City, Millwall, Charlton Athletic, Reading and Shamrock Rovers. It is at Millwall that he makes the most impact. He is considered an intelligent and skillful player in the side’s midfield. He is a member of “The Class of ’71,” the Millwall side that fails by just one point to gain promotion to the Football League First Division.

Dunphy plays 23 times for the Republic of Ireland and is Millwall’s most capped international footballer with 22 caps, until surpassed by David Forde and Shane Ferguson. He makes his Ireland debut on November 10, 1965, in the playoff at the Parc des Princes in Paris for the 1966 FIFA World Cup which Spain wins 1–0, thanks to a José Ufarte goal. He goes on to become, in his own words, “a good player, not a great player.”

Dunphy accompanies Johnny Giles back to Ireland to join Shamrock Rovers in 1977. Giles wants to make the club Ireland’s first full-time professional club and hopes to make Rovers into a force in European football by developing talented young players at home who would otherwise go to clubs in England. Dunphy is originally intended to be in charge of youth development. However, despite an FAI Cup winners medal in 1978, his only medal in senior football, and two appearances in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, he becomes disillusioned with the Irish game and drops out of football altogether to concentrate on a career in journalism.

After retiring from the game, Dunphy first begins writing on football for the Sunday Tribune and then contributes regular columns on both football and current events for the Sunday Independent. He currently writes a column on football for the Irish Daily Star. He coins the term “Official Ireland” to refer to the establishment. He also works for Ireland on Sunday (now the Irish Daily Mail), The Sunday Press (now defunct), and the Irish Examiner.

Since the 1980s, Dunphy has written a number of books. His first and most widely praised book is Only a Game? The Diary of a Professional Footballer, which is an autobiographical account of his days playing for Millwall. Written in diary form, it records events from the dressing room of his 1973–74 season, which begins well for him at Millwall but subsequently ends in disillusionment: after being substituted in an October 27, 1973, home loss to eventual league winners Middlesbrough, he does not play another game all season, the club finishing mid-table.

In 1985, rock band U2 and manager Paul McGuinness commission Dunphy to write the story of their origins, formation, early years and the time leading up to their highly successful album The Joshua Tree. His book Unforgettable Fire – Past, Present, and Future – The Definitive Biography of U2 is published in 1988. It receives some favourable reviews, but critics close to the band speak of many inaccuracies. A verbal war erupts in the press during which he calls lead singer Bono a “pompous git.”

Dunphy also writes a biography of long-serving Manchester United manager Matt Busby and in 2002 ghost writes the autobiography of Republic of Ireland and Manchester United player Roy Keane.

Since the mid-1980s, Dunphy has regularly appeared as an analyst during football coverage on Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). Since RTÉ acquired the rights to show English football, he has been a regular contributor to Premier Soccer Saturday. He also contributes to analysis of UEFA Champions League games and, in international football, RTÉ’s coverage of FIFA World Cups, UEFA European Football Championships and qualifying matches involving the Republic of Ireland national football team.

In 2001, Dunphy becomes the first male host of the quiz show The Weakest Link, which airs on TV3, for just one series. In 2003, he is hired again by TV3 to host their new Friday night chat show, entitled The Dunphy Show. Pitted head-to-head with RTÉ’s long-running flagship programme, The Late Late Show, Dunphy’s show loses what is a highly publicised “ratings war,” and is cancelled before its original run concludes.

Dunphy is the first presenter of a made-for-mobile television show on the 3 mobile network in Ireland. His rants and “Spoofer of the Week” are watched by thousands of 3 Mobile customers. The shows are awarded “Best Entertainment Show” at Ireland’s Digital Media Awards. He admits he never uses a mobile himself but enjoys filming for a mobile audience from his living room in Ranelagh.

In July 2018, Dunphy announces that he is leaving RTÉ after 40 years with the broadcaster, and that he intends to focus on his podcast The Stand with Eamon Dunphy.

Dunphy has also has a prominent radio career with several stations, including Today FM, Newstalk and RTÉ Radio 1. He is the original host in 1997 of the popular current affairs show The Last Word on Today FM. In September 2004, he takes over The Breakfast Show slot on the Dublin radio station Newstalk 106 from David McWilliams. The show tries to court controversy and listeners in equal measure. He fails to attract the large listenership predicted, with only a few additional thousand tuning in. He announces in June 2006 his intention to leave Newstalk 106, citing an inability to sustain the demands of an early morning schedule. After his departure from Newstalk 106, he confirms he is suffering from a viral illness from which he later recovers.

In July 2006, RTÉ announces that Dunphy will present a new weekly programme as part of the new RTÉ Radio 1 autumn schedule.

Dunphy rejoins Newstalk but leaves again in 2011 “due to interference from management and a push to put a more positive spin on the news.” On his last show he accuses his boss, Denis O’Brien, of “hating journalism.” He quits after Sam Smyth is sacked from Today FM (also owned by O’Brien) and says management at Newstalk is trying to remove “dissenting voices” like Constantin Gurdgiev from the airwaves.

Dunphy is a daily Mass-goer until he is preparing for marriage to his first wife, Sandra from Salford, when he is 21. He is Catholic and she is Protestant. The priest instructing them for marriage disapproves strongly of the mixed couple, saying that he should not marry her because she is “not a proper person.” Dunphy’s observance is already weakening but he quits his daily Mass-going at this point. He and Sandra have two children, a boy and a girl, and he is now a grandfather. His first marriage ends, and he moves to Castletownshend in County Cork for two years in the early 1990s. He lives with another partner, Inge, before meeting his second wife, RTÉ commissioning editor Jane Gogan, in the Horseshoe Bar in Dublin in 1992. They marry at the Unitarian Church on St. Stephen’s Green on September 24, 2009.

In an interview with An Phoblacht, Dunphy, who had previously written highly critical articles on the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, states that he is now a Sinn Féin supporter and declares he had voted for them in the 2011 Irish general election. He describes their representatives as “incredibly hard-working and incredibly intelligent.”

Dunphy publishes his autobiography entitled The Rocky Road in October 2013.

Today, Dunphy generally resides at his home near Ranelagh in Dublin. He also owns a holiday home in Deauville, France.

(Pictured: Éamon Dunphy at the Sinn Féin Summer School, 2013)


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Death of Joseph Whitty, Irish Republican Army Hunger Striker

Michael Joseph Whitty, a Volunteer in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), dies on hunger strike at the Curragh Camp hospital on August 2, 1923. At 19 years of age, he is the youngest of the twenty-two Irish republicans to die while on hunger strike in the 20th century. He fights with the IRA in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), on the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War (1922-23) and dies while under internment by the Irish Free State government. Decades after his death another Volunteer, Kieran Doherty, also dies on August 2 during the 1981 Irish hunger strike.

Whitty is born in on January 7, 1904, in Newbawn, County Wexford. He is a Volunteer in the IRA, who serves in the South Wexford Brigade during the Irish War of Independence. After the signing of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, he joins the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War.

In late October 1922, Whitty is arrested (although never charged or convicted of any crime) in a roundup of dissidents. He is initially interned by Irish Free State troops at Wexford Prison and from there is transferred to the Curragh Camp. It has been asserted that his arrest was in revenge for the actions of his brothers who are deeply involved with the IRA. The authorities are unable to locate his brothers, so he is arrested instead.

While at the Curragh Camp, Whitty decides to independently start a hunger strike and dies as a result on August 2, 1923, at the Curragh Camp hospital. At the time, hunger strikes are not an official policy of the IRA and are not directed by its General Headquarters. Instead, each hunger striker makes an individual decision to strike. Due to the newly formed Irish Free State government’s news embargo on conditions in prisons at the time, very little is published on Whitty’s motivations and the circumstances of his hunger strike and death, including the number of days of his strike.

Earlier, the high-profile hunger strike deaths of Thomas Ashe, president of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in 1917 and Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork in 1920, bring international attention to the Republicans’ cause. The Irish Government’s news embargo prevents the embarrassment of having to publicly announce the death by hunger strike of a 19-year-old internee. From 1922, hunger strikes are of value only when a government is likely to be embarrassed sufficiently by the death of a prisoner.

With the ending of the 1923 Irish Hunger Strikes in late November 1923, the news embargo is relaxed. The November 20, 1923 death of Denny Barry from County Cork and the November 22, 1923 death of Andy O’Sullivan from County Cavan are widely reported in the media, while Whitty’s earlier death in August remains largely unreported.

After Whitty’s non-sanctioned hunger strike and death, Michael Kilroy, the Officer Commanding (OC) of IRA prisoners in Mountjoy Prison announces that 300 men will go on hunger strike on October 13, 1923. By late 1923, thousands of Irish republican prisoners are on hunger strike in multiple prisons and internment camps across Ireland. The mass hunger strikes of October/November 1923 see around 8,000 of the 12,000 Anti-Treaty republican prisoners on hunger strikes in Irish prisons, protesting internment without charge/trial, poor prison conditions and demanding immediate release of all political prisoners. Previously, the Irish Free State government had passed a motion outlawing the release of prisoners on hunger strike.

With the death of Whitty and two other recent Irish republican hunger strikers, Michael Fitzgerald (died October 17, 1920) and Joe Murphy (died October 25, 1920) and the large numbers of Irish republican prisoners on hunger strike, the Irish Free State Government sends a delegation to speak with IRA leadership in late October 1923. On November 23, 1923, the day after Andy O’Sullivan’s death, the hunger strike is called off, eventually setting off a release program for many of the prisoners, although some are not released until as late as 1932. The mass hunger strike of 1923 lasts for 41 days and met with little success.

Whitty is buried at Ballymore Cemetery. Killinick, County Wexford. The inscription on his grave reads: “In Memory of Joseph Whitty, Connolly St, Wexford. South Wexford Brigade who died for Ireland 2nd August 1923.”

The Sinn Féin Cumann (Association) in Wexford is named after Joe Whitty. The annual Joe Whitty Commemoration is held each year on Easter Saturday evening in Ballymore, County Wexford.


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Death of American-Born Painter Charles Brady

Charles Brady, American-born painter who spends most of his life in Ireland, dies in Dublin on August 1, 1997.

Brady is born on July 27, 1926, in New York City, the son of Arthur Brady, an industrial hardware merchant. He is best known for small-scale paintings of still life and landscape. At the end of World War II, while serving with the United States Navy, he suffers an accident which results in his discharge. As a result of this, he has the opportunity of pursuing further study. In 1948, he enrolls at the Art Students League of New York. Founded in 1875 and distinguished by its progressive approach to art education, it is one of the most important art schools in the United States in the early twentieth century.

Initially, Brady studies design and fashion before studying fine art under John Groth and Morris Kantor. In 1949, he becomes Groth’s assistant. In 1950, his work is included in the exhibition “American Painting 1950,” held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where he is employed as a guard at the time. Around this time, he meets artists associated with abstract expressionism such as Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock, and exhibits with them in exhibitions such as the “9th Street Show” (1951). Four years later, his first solo exhibition is held at the Urban Gallery, New York. By this time, his father, mother, and a younger brother have all died. In 1956 he decides to leave New York and spend some time in Ireland.

On his arrival, Brady bases himself in Lismore, County Waterford, where the landscapes he begins to paint are in contrast to the abstract style he had developed in New York. In May 1956, he joins his aunt and uncle on a tour that include London and Paris. He remains in Ireland until early in 1958 and during this time becomes acquainted with such figures as Camille Souter, Frank Morris and Desmond McAvock. Though he spends the next year in the United States, he soon decides to return to Ireland. In 1959 he is living in Dublin, where, along with artists such as Noel Sheridan and Patrick Pye, he is involved in founding the Independent Artists group. His work is included in the group’s first exhibition in 1960.

Also in 1960, Brady marries Eelagh Noonan, and the couple go to live in Spain. On their return to Ireland in 1961, they settle in Dún Laoghaire, where he begins to produce still lifes of objects such as envelopes and boxes painted in muted tones. Though figurative, the painterly quality of these works and the way in which they assert the flat nature of the picture plane suggest something of his experience of postwar American abstract art. Soft, hazy light, another key characteristic of his work, can also be seen in his paintings of Sandymount Strand, which might be compared with the work of Nathaniel Hone the Younger, whose work Brady had seen on his first trip to Ireland. He also works in other media, producing lithographs and, from the mid-1980s, small bronzes of such mundane objects as discarded bus tickets.

From 1976 to 1983 Brady lectures in painting at the National College of Art and Design. In 1981 he becomes a member of Aosdána and in 1994 he is elected an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). He exhibits regularly in Ireland at venues such as the RHA. He receives a number of awards including the P. J. Carroll award at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art as well as the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal and the landscape award at the Oireachtas exhibitions of 1973 and 1989 respectively.

Brady dies of cancer at the age of 71 on August 1, 1997, in Dublin. He is buried in Shanganagh Cemetery, Shankill, County Dublin. His work can be found in collections such as those of the Arts Council of Ireland, Bank of Ireland, Ulster Museum, Allied Irish Bank, and Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.

(From: “Brady, Charles” by Rebecca Minch, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: “Charles Brady, 1967,” oil on board by Koert Delmonte)


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Birth of David Thornley, Irish Labour Party Politician

David Andrew Thornley, Irish Labour Party politician and university professor at Trinity College Dublin, is born in Surrey, England, on July 31, 1935.

Thornley is the youngest child of Welshman Frederick Edward Thornley and Dublin-born Maud Helen Thornley (née Browne). His parents, both civil servants, meet while working in Inland Revenue in Dublin in the 1910s.

Thornley receives a BA and PhD at Trinity College Dublin. His PhD is entitled “Isaac Butt and the creation of an Irish Parliamentary Party (1868–1879)” and is written under the supervision of Theodore William Moody. Working as a presenter on 7 Days since 1963, he is appointed Associate professor of Trinity in 1968. In 1964, he publishes the book Isaac Butt and Home Rule.

After joining Labour in 1969, Thornley is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency at the 1969 Irish general election. He confronts the party leader Brendan Corish, who at the time of the Arms Crisis reportedly rejects out of hand any suggestion of military aid or use of force after the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland.

Thornley considers himself to be “in the mould of James Connolly,” being a practising Catholic, Marxist and republican.

In December 1972, Thornley calls for the immediate release of Seán Mac Stíofáin, then leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He is re-elected at the 1973 Irish general election. In April 1976, he loses the Labour Party whip after appearing on a Sinn Féin platform during Easter Rising commemorations. In September 1976, he votes for the Criminal Justice (Jurisdiction) Bill despite misgivings. He tells The Irish Times, “When I get very depressed, I drink too much. When I voted for the Criminal Justice (Jurisdiction Bill) I went on the batter for a forthnight [sic].” In February 1977, he is re-admitted to the Labour Parliamentary Party. He loses his seat at the 1977 Irish general election.

In 1978, Thornley joins the newly formed Socialist Labour Party (SLP) stating that he has done so because “There is no man in politics that I respect more than Noël Browne, despite our occasional differences. If the SLP is good for him, it’s good enough for me.”

Overweight, afflicted with undiagnosed diabetes, his judgement increasingly erratic, from the early 1970s Thornley suffers a steady deterioration of health, compounded by his heavy drinking, on which he relies to cope with stress and emotional depression. On one occasion he collapses in the Dáil and is attended by party colleague Dr. John O’Connell. He dies at the age of 42 on June 18, 1978, one week after admission into Jervis Street private nursing home. After a sung Latin Requiem Mass in St. Andrew’s Church, Westland Row, Dublin, he is buried in Bohernabreena Cemetery, County Dublin.

The Trinity College Labour Branch is formerly named the David Thornley Branch in his honour.