seamus dubhghaill

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

Category Archives: Free State & Republic (1922-Present)


by Leave a comment

Death of Feargal Quinn, Businessman & Politician

Feargal Quinn, Irish businessman, politician and television personality, dies in Dublin on April 24, 2019. He is the founder of the Superquinn supermarket chain and serves as a Senator in Seanad Éireann representing the National University of Ireland constituency from 1993 to 2016.

Quinn is born in Dublin on November 27, 1936. His father, Eamonn, founds a grocery brand and later the Red Island resort in Skerries, Dublin. He is a first cousin of Labour Party politician Ruairi Quinn and of Lochlann Quinn, former chairman of Allied Irish Banks (AIB). He is educated at Newbridge College and is a commerce graduate of University College Dublin (UCD). He builds a career in business and later takes on a range of public service roles.

Quinn founds the national supermarket chain Superquinn (originally Quinn’s Supermarkets), of which he remains non-executive president for some years after his family sells out their interest in August 2005 for over €400 million. Superquinn is known for its focus on customer service and pioneers a number of innovations, including Ireland’s first supermarket loyalty card in 1993, SuperClub. It also introduces self-scanning of goods by customers in a number of its outlets. Superquinn becomes the first supermarket in the world to guarantee the absolute traceability of all its beef from pasture to plate, using DNA TraceBack, a system developed at Trinity College, Dublin by IdentiGEN.

Quinn becomes the chairman of the Interim Board for Posts and serves as chairman of its successor An Post (the Irish postal administration) until 1989. He also serves on several other public authorities and boards. From 1993 to 1998, he chairs the steering committee which oversees the development of the Leaving Certificate Applied. In 2006, he is appointed an Adjunct Professor in Marketing at National University of Ireland Galway. He is also chairman of Springboard Ireland.

Quinn is a former President of EuroCommerce, the Brussels-based organisation which represents the retail, wholesale and international trade sectors in Europe. He also serves on the board of directors of CIES, the Food Business Forum based in Paris, as well as the American-based Food Marketing Institute.

In 2009, Quinn works with independent shops and helps them to revamp, modernise and stave off stiff competition from multi-national retailers. It airs as RTÉ‘s six-part television series, Feargal Quinn’s Retail Therapy. A second series airs in 2011, and a third series airs in 2012. In 2011, he fronts RTÉ’s Local Heroes campaign in Drogheda, County Louth, which is an assembled team of experts to kick-start the local economy. It airs as RTÉ One‘s six-part television series, Local Heroes – A Town Fights Back.

Quinn is first elected as a senator in 1993 from the National University of Ireland constituency and is re-elected in 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2011. He is a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs, the Joint Committee on Finance and Public Service and is an Oireachtas member of the National Economic and Social Forum, along with the Joint Committee on Jobs and Innovation.

Quinn is one of the co-founders and is a driving force behind Democracy Matters – a civil society group that is formed to oppose the Government’s plans to abolish Seanad Éireann. In May 2013, with Senators Katherine Zappone and Mary Ann O’Brien, he introduces the Seanad Bill 2013 to reform the system of electing the elected members of Seanad Éireann (as provided for in Article 18.10 of the Constitution of Ireland) through a one-person, one vote franchise. The Seanad Bill 2013 succeeds in being passed at Second Stage in the Seanad. During the Seanad abolition referendum campaign, the Bill demonstrates to the electorate, in a very palpable way, that reform of the Seanad is achievable if they vote for its retention. In a referendum held in October 2013 on the Abolition of Seanad Éireann, the people vote to retain the Seanad by 51.7%.

In 2014, Quinn reveals that since being first elected to Seanad Éireann, he has donated his entire salary to charity and in more recent years he has refused to accept any salary. In March 2015, he opposes the Marriage Equality bill in the Seanad, and votes ‘No’ in the referendum. He serves as Chairman of the Independent Alliance. He does not contest the 2016 Seanad election.

Quinn is the recipient of five honorary doctorates from education institutions, including NUI Galway in 2006, a papal knighthood along with a fellowship and the French Ordre National du Mérite. He shares with Oprah Winfrey the 2006 “Listener of the Year” award of the International Listening Association.

Quinn dies peacefully at his home in Howth, County Dublin, on April 24, 2019, following a short illness. His funeral Mass takes place at St. Fintan’s Church in Sutton, Dublin. In attendance is President Michael D. Higgins, a representative for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, Senator Michael McDowell, and a host of other current and former politicians, business figures, and past colleagues of the “Superquinn family.” Fittingly, the coffin is carried from the church to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”


by Leave a comment

Commissioning of the Second USS The Sullivans

The United States Navy commissions USS The Sullivans (DDG-68), an Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided-missile destroyer, on April 19, 1997. She is the second ship to be named for the five Sullivan brothers who perished on the USS Juneau (CL-52) when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942. This is the greatest military loss by any one American family during World War II. The Sullivans are descendants of Irish immigrants.

The first ship named for the brothers is the Fletcher-class destroyer USS The Sullivans (DD-537), now a museum ship in Buffalo, New York.

The contract to build USS The Sullivans is awarded to Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine on April 8, 1992, and her keel is laid down on July 27, 1994. She is launched on August 12, 1995, and sponsored by Kelly Ann Sullivan Loughren, granddaughter of Albert Sullivan. The ship is commissioned on April 19, 1997, with Commander Gerard D. Roncolato in command. Upon her commissioning, the ship is given the motto that is thought to have been spoken by the brothers when asked to separate during World War II, “We Stick Together.”

On April 26, 1997, USS The Sullivans departs New York City for Norfolk, Virginia, where, after arriving on April 27, the crew completes underway replenishment qualifications with USS Platte (AO-186). The warship then sails for Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 29 and arrives in her new homeport on May 2. After completing two days of gunnery trials in mid-May, USS The Sullivans embarks upon her shakedown deployment to the West Indies on May 27.

Members of al-Qaeda attempt an attack on USS The Sullivans while in port at Aden, Yemen on January 3, 2000, as a part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. The plan is to load a boat full of explosives and detonate it near USS The Sullivans; however, the boat is so overladen that it sinks. Later, al-Qaeda attempts the same type of attack a second time, successfully bombing USS Cole (DDG-67) on October 12, 2000.

While underway and sailing for Composite Unit Training Exercise 01-2 USS The Sullivans receives word of the September 11 attacks. USS The Sullivans, as part of the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) Battle Group, takes part in Operation Noble Eagle. The destroyer provides air-space security along the mid-Atlantic seaboard.

In February 2002 USS The Sullivans deploys with the USS John F. Kennedy carrier battle group to the Arabian Sea in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

On September 14, 2020, it is announced that USS The Sullivans will be part of HMS Queen Elizabeth‘s Task Group for the GROUPEX and Joint Warrior exercises. On January 19, 2021, a declaration confirms that USS The Sullivans will form part of the escort for HMS Queen Elizabeth during her first active deployment as part of the UK Carrier Strike Group in 2021.

(Photo: U.S. Navy photo of USS The Sullivans on the Mediterranean Sea in July 2002 by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Jim Hampshire)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Margaret Hassan, Irish-born Aid Worker in Iraq

Margaret Hassan, Irish-born aid worker also known as “Madam Margaret,” is born Margaret Fitzsimons in Dalkey, County Dublin on April 18, 1945. She works in Iraq for many years until she is abducted and murdered by unidentified kidnappers in Iraq in 2004. Her remains have never been recovered.

Soon after the end of World War II Hassan’s family moves to London, where she spends most of her early life and where her younger siblings are born. At the age of 27, she marries Tahseen Ali Hassan, a 29-year-old Iraqi studying engineering in the United Kingdom. She moves to Iraq with him in 1972, where she begins work with the British Council of Baghdad, teaching English. Eventually she learns Arabic and becomes an Iraqi citizen.

During the early 1980s, Hassan becomes the assistant director of studies at the British Council, later becoming director. Meanwhile, her husband works as an economist. She remains in Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War, although the British Council suspends operations in Iraq, and she is left jobless at the end of it.

Hassan joins humanitarian relief organisation CARE International in 1991. Sanitation, health, and nutrition become major concerns in the sanctioned Iraq. She is crucially involved in bringing leukemia medicine to child cancer victims in Iraq in 1998. She becomes a vocal critic of the United Nations restrictions. She is opposed to the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, arguing that the Iraqis are already “living through a terrible emergency. They do not have the resources to withstand an additional crisis brought about by military action.”

By 2004, Hassan is head of Iraqi operations for CARE. Well known in many of Baghdad’s slums and other cities, she is especially interested in Iraq’s young people, whom she calls “the lost generation.” Her presence draws large crowds of locals.

Hassan is kidnapped in Baghdad on October 19, 2004, and is killed some weeks later on November 8. In a video released of her in captivity she pleads for help and begs British Prime Minister Tony Blair to remove British troops from Iraq. She adds that she does not “want to die like Mr. Bigley,” a reference to Kenneth Bigley, who had been executed in Iraq only weeks earlier.

Patients of an Iraqi hospital take to the streets in protest against the hostage takers’ actions. On October 25, between 100 and 200 Iraqis protest outside CARE’s offices in Baghdad, demanding her release. Prominent elements of the Iraqi insurgency and Iraqi political figures condemn the kidnapping and call for her release. On November 2, Al Jazeera reports that the kidnappers threatened to hand her over to the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and who is responsible for the execution of Bigley. On November 6, a statement purportedly from al-Zarqawi appears on an Islamist website calling for the release of Hassan unless the kidnappers have information she is aligned with the invading coalition. The statement cannot be authenticated and Hassan’s whereabouts in the video are unknown.

On 15 November, U.S. Marines in Fallujah uncover the body of an unidentified blonde- or grey-haired woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit. The body cannot be immediately identified, but is thought unlikely to be Hassan, who has brown hair. There is one other western woman known missing in Iraq at the time the body is discovered, Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a Polish-born long-time Iraqi resident. Khalifa is released by her hostage takers on November 20.

On November 16, CNN reports that CARE has issued a statement indicating that the organisation is aware of a videotape showing Hassan’s execution. Al-Jazeera reports that it has received a tape showing Hassan’s murder but is unable to confirm its authenticity. The video shows Hassan being shot with a handgun by a masked man. It is not known who is responsible for Hassan’s abduction and murder. The group holding her never identifies itself in the hostage videos.

She remains a Roman Catholic throughout her life and never converts to Islam as is widely reported after her death. A Requiem Mass is held for her, after her death is confirmed, at Westminster Cathedral by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor.

CARE International suspends operations in Iraq because of Hassan’s kidnapping. At least eight other women kidnapped by insurgents during the conflict are released unharmed by their captors. It is unclear why Hassan, who was opposed to the war, lived in Iraq for many years, held Iraqi citizenship, was married to an Arab Muslim and spoke fluent Arabic was killed.

On May 1, 2005, three men are questioned by Iraqi police in connection with the murder. On June 5, 2006, news reports emerge that an Iraqi man by the name of Mustafa Salman al-Jubouri has been sentenced to life imprisonment for “aiding and abetting the kidnappers” but two other men are acquitted. Al-Jubouri appeals this sentence and is given a shorter imprisonment.

An Iraqi man named Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi, also known as Abu Rasha, an architect from Baghdad, is arrested by Iraqi and U.S. forces in 2008 after contacting the British Embassy in Baghdad and attempting to extort 1 million dollars in return for disclosing the location of Hassan’s body. Though Jassar signs statements confessing to the charges, he pleads not guilty, stating he was forced to sign them after receiving beatings and electrical shocks during questioning.

On June 2, 2009, the Press Association reports that Jassar is given a life sentence by Baghdad’s Central Criminal Court for being involved in Hassan’s abduction and murder, and for attempting to blackmail the British Embassy. Hassan’s family welcomes the court’s decision but pleads with Jassar to tell them where her body is so they can return her to Britain for burial. On July 14, 2010, a day before Jassar is due to appear in court for retrial, it is reported that he could not be located in the prison facility where he was being held. He had been missing for a month.


by Leave a comment

Death of Chaim Herzog, Irish-born 6th President of Israel

Chaim Herzog, Israeli politician, general, lawyer, and author who serves as the sixth President of Israel between 1983 and 1993, dies in Tel Aviv, Israel on April 17, 1997.

Herzog is born in Cliftonpark Avenue in Belfast on September 17, 1918. He is raised predominantly in Dublin, the son of Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog and his wife Sara. Herzog’s father, a fluent speaker of the Irish language, is known as “the Sinn Féin Rabbi” for his support of the First Dáil and the Irish Republican cause during the Irish War of Independence. Herzog studies at Wesley College, Dublin, and is involved with the Federation of Zionist Youth and Habonim Dror, the Labour-Zionist movement, during his teenage years.

The family emigrates to Mandatory Palestine in 1935 and Herzog serves in the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt. He goes on to earn a degree in law at University College London, and then qualifies as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn.

Herzog joins the British Army during World War II, operating primarily in Germany as a tank commander in the Armoured Corps. There, he is given his lifelong nickname of “Vivian” because the British could not pronounce the name, “Chaim.” A Jewish soldier had volunteered that “Vivian” is the English equivalent of “Chaim.”

Herzog returns to Palestine after the war and, following the end of the British Mandate and Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948, operates in the Battles of Latrun during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He retires from the Israel Defence Forces in 1962 with the rank of Major-General.

After leaving the army, Herzog opens a private law practice. He returns to public life when the Six-Day War breaks out in 1967, serving as a military commentator for Kol Yisrael radio news. Following the capture of the West Bank, he is appointed Military Governor of East Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria.

In 1972 Herzog is a co-founder of Herzog, Fox & Ne’eman, which becomes one of Israel’s largest law firms. Between 1975 and 1978 he serves as Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, in which capacity he repudiates UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, the “Zionism is Racism” resolution, and symbolically tears it up before the assembly.

Herzog enters politics in the 1981 elections, winning a Knesset seat as a member of the Alignment. Two years later, in March 1983, he is elected to the largely ceremonial role of President. He serves two five-year terms before retiring in 1993. He dies on April 17, 1997, and is buried on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. His son, Isaac Herzog, leads the Israeli Labour Party and the parliamentary Opposition in the Knesset from 2013 to 2018.


by Leave a comment

Abbey Theatre Premiere of “The Shadow of a Gunman”

The Shadow Of A Gunman, a 1923 tragicomedy play by Seán O’Casey, premieres at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on April 12, 1923.

The play is the first in O’Casey’s “Dublin Trilogy” – the other two being Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926). It is set in Dublin in May 1920 during the Irish War of Independence and centres on the mistaken identity of a building tenant who is thought to be an Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassin. Each act takes place in Seumus Shield’s room in a tenement in Hilljoy Square.

Donal Davoren is a poet who has come to room with Seumus Shields in a poor, Dublin tenement slum. Many of the residents of the tenement mistake Donal for an IRA gunman on the run. Donal does not refute this notoriety, especially when it wins him the affection of Minnie Powell, an attractive young woman in the tenement. Meanwhile, Seumus’ business partner, Mr. Maguire, drops a bag off at Seumus’ apartment before participating in an ambush in which he is killed. Seumus believes the bag to contain household items for re-sale. The city is put under curfew as a result of the ambush. The Black and Tans raid the tenement and, at that point, Donal and Seumus discover the bag is full of Mills bombs. Minnie Powell takes the bag and hides it in her own room. The Black and Tans find nothing of note in Seumus’ room, but arrest Minnie Powell, who is later shot and killed trying to escape.

The first performance of The Shadow of a Gunman in England is given in 1958 at the Progress Theatre in Reading, Berkshire.

A 1972 televised version of The Shadow of a Gunman stars Frank Converse and Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss. In 1973, Alvin Rakoff directs a televised version for BBC Two starring Stephen Rea, Sinéad Cusack and Donal McCann. In 1992 Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Rea and Bronagh Gallagher star in an adaption as part of the 1992 BBC Two Performance series.

In the music video for Northern Irish rock/pop band The Adventures song “Send My Heart” (1984), the lead character is seen trying out for a version of the play.


by Leave a comment

Richard Donovan, First Person to Run Marathon at North & South Pole

richard-donovan

Richard Donovan, runner, commercial race organizer, and sports administrator, becomes the first person in history to run a marathon at both the North and South Pole, completing his North Pole run on April 5, 2002.

Donovan is born in Galway in 1966. He organises and is first to complete the inaugural South Pole Marathon in January 2002, then completes the first marathon-length run at the North Pole in April of that year in a time of 3:48:12. He uses the publicity from this to launch his North Pole Marathon venture, offering runners an adventure tourism experience, with the 2018 event costing €16,000.

Between January 30 and February 5, 2009, Donovan claims a world’s best for running seven marathons, on seven different continents, in fewer than seven days. Starting February 1, 2012 he improves on this by completing the 7 on 7 in under 120 hours.

Donovan also completes transcontinental runs across North America in 2015 and Europe in 2016, adding South America in 2017. In addition to the North Pole Marathon, he organizes a number of other commercial events.


by Leave a comment

Death of Brian O’Nolan, Novelist & Playwright

Brian O’Nolan, Irish novelist, playwright and satirist considered a major figure in twentieth century Irish literature, dies of a heart attack in Dublin on April 1, 1966. He is better known by his pen name Flann O’Brien.

O’Nolan is born in Strabane, County Tyrone on October 5, 1911. He attends Blackrock College where he is taught English by President of the College, and future Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid. He also spends part of his schooling years in Synge Street Christian Brothers School. His novel The Hard Life is a semi-autobiographical depiction of his experience with the Christian Brothers.

O’Nolan writes prodigiously during his years as a student at University College, Dublin (UCD), where he is an active, and controversial, member of the well-known Literary and Historical Society. He contributes to the student magazine Comhthrom Féinne (Fair Play) under various guises, in particular the pseudonym Brother Barnabas. Significantly, he composes a story during this same period titled “Scenes in a Novel (probably posthumous) by Brother Barnabas”, which anticipates many of the ideas and themes later to be found in his novel At Swim-Two-Birds.

In 1934 O’Nolan and his student friends found a short-lived magazine called Blather. The writing here, though clearly bearing the marks of youthful bravado, again somewhat anticipates O’Nolan’s later work, in this case his Cruiskeen Lawn column as Myles na gCopaleen. Having studied the German language in Dublin, he may have spent at least parts of 1933 and 1934 in Germany, namely in Cologne and Bonn, although details are uncertain and contested.

A key feature of O’Nolan’s personal situation is his status as an Irish government civil servant, who, as a result of his father’s relatively early death, is obliged to support ten siblings, including an elder brother who is an unsuccessful writer. Given the desperate poverty of Ireland in the 1930s to 1960s, a job as a civil servant is considered prestigious, being both secure and pensionable with a reliable cash income in a largely agrarian economy. The Irish civil service is fairly strictly apolitical, prohibiting Civil Servants above the level of clerical officer from publicly expressing political views. This fact alone contributes to his use of pseudonyms, though he had started to create character-authors even in his pre-civil service writings. He rises to be quite senior, serving as private secretary to Seán T. O’Kelly and Seán McEntee.

Although O’Nolan is a well-known character in Dublin during his lifetime, relatively little is known about his personal life. On December 2, 1948, he marries Evelyn McDonnell, a typist in the Department of Local Government. On his marriage he moves from his parental home in Blackrock to nearby Merrion Street, living at several further locations in South Dublin before his death. The couple has no children.

O’Nolan is an alcoholic for much of his life and suffers from ill health in his later years. He suffers from throat cancer and dies from a heart attack in Dublin on the morning of April 1, 1966. He is buried in Deans Grange Cemetery in Dublin.


by Leave a comment

Bus Éireann Strike Over Cost-Reduction Measures

Tens of thousands of people have to make alternative travel arrangements on March 24, 2017 due to a strike at Bus Éireann over the company’s implementation of cost-reduction measures without union agreement. The bus and coach operator warns that the strike will worsen the company’s financial situation, which it describes as perilous.

Iarnród Éireann, the operator of the national railway network, says some Intercity services are affected by the dispute due to picketing. It says there is significant disruption, with some services cancelled and others curtailed. But Iarnród Éireann says special late-night trains for football fans returning from the Republic of Ireland vs. Wales match will operate to Cork, Limerick and Galway.

The Minister for Transport Shane Ross says that he will “categorically” not be intervening during the strike and calls on both sides to get back to the talks. He says an industrial relations dispute is not a matter for the minister and that both parties should go to the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court for talks. He adds that the only reason people are calling on him to intervene is to pay taxpayers’ money and he says he will not be doing that. He says the company needs to reform and that can be done maturely through talks by the two sides.

Dublin Bus services operate as normal. GO-BE, the joint venture company between Bus Éireann and Go-Bus, suspends its services between Cork and Dublin and the Dublin Airport. While it is not meant to be affected by the dispute, it is understood there are issues at its base in Cork and the service is suspended. Aircoach, which has a sizable part of the market for the Cork to Dublin route, contracts ten buses from a private bus operator to meet the additional demand.

The general manager of the Irish Citylink private bus service says the company has increased their departures by 25% on the Dublin to Galway route and other services around the country to meet demands. Irish Citylink usually has 100 daily departures on services that include 14 different towns on the “off motorway route” to Dublin from Galway, but has around 25 additional buses out to meet demands.

The Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) issues a number of steps to its members to assist in ending the strike by Bus Éireann workers. Earlier, a SIPTU official says the blame for the strike must be laid at the door of management and the Minister for Transport Shane Ross.

Divisional Organiser Willie Noone says staff had “no other choice” but to strike in an attempt to protect their livelihoods, but acknowledges that it is unfortunate for commuters. He says that the unions had worked hard to keep staff at work to this point given the anger at company proposals to cut pay.

National Bus and Rail Union General Secretary Dermot O’Leary says disputes such as that at Bus Éireann are solved by discussions sitting around a table behind closed doors and that is where his union would like to be. He acknowledges the strike will exacerbate financial problems at Bus Éireann, but says his members have demanded for many weeks this action be taken in response to what the company has done since January.

Stephen Kent, Chief Commercial Officer with Bus Éireann, apologises to customers for the “highly regrettable” inconvenience caused by the strike. He says the company has run out of time and absolutely needs to implement the cost-cutting measures it has put forward. He adds that the company is doing everything it can to minimise all non-payroll costs and has eliminated all discretionary spending and that the issues at Bus Éireann can only be resolved through discussion with the workforce but they need to deliver work practice changes that will deliver urgently needed savings.

The strike represents a serious escalation of the Bus Éireann row, which could push the company over the edge. It lost €9.4m in 2016 and a further €50,000 a day in January 2017. But each strike day will cost another half a million, which the company insists is unsustainable. Management says that it had to proceed with unilateral implementation of cuts due to the financial crisis, and because unions would not agree to any reductions in take-home pay or unnecessary overtime. However, the unions have accused the company of seeking to introduce so-called yellow-pack terms and conditions in a race to the bottom, to groom the company for privatisation.

The strike affects businesses as well as disrupts the travel plans of 110,000 passengers each day, though not all are stranded. The National Transport Authority reminds passengers that there are alternative private operators on many routes. If Bus Éireann passengers defect to them, they may never return, further damaging revenue at the State-owned company. No further talks are planned as of this date.


by Leave a comment

Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Steps Down

Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, unexpectedly announces on March 19, 2001, that she will not seek a second term in the post. The former President of Ireland says that she believes she can achieve more outside the “constraints” of the UN.

Robinson describes the resources available to her office as inadequate and says there was a striking contrast between the fine words used at the annual United Nations Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva and the realities on the ground.

Robinson’s announcement comes as a surprise to senior staff and diplomats who had believed she might follow the example of other UN chiefs and seek a second term. Only the second person to serve in the post, she is scheduled to step down in September at the conclusion of her four-year term.

“I will continue to work wholeheartedly for human rights in the way that I know best, as an advocate,” Robinson says. “I believe that I can, at this stage, achieve more outside of the constraints that a multilateral organisation inevitably imposes.”

Robinson tells the 53-member nation commission at the start of its six-week session, “I know some will feel that I should have sought to continue working from within the United Nations and I ask them to respect my decision.”

“Racism and xenophobia, manifesting themselves through discrimination and all forms of intolerance, are the wellspring of many of the world’s conflicts,” Robinson says in her address to the commission.

The 2001 forum in Geneva focuses on alleged human rights abuses in hotspots including China, the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Robinson has been a high-profile and outspoken UN commissioner, on occasion angering governments with criticism of their human rights record. She says Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, had advised her to “stay an outsider” while working within the organisation in as far as she could. And this, she says, had at times made her “an awkward voice,” both for colleagues in the UN and governments. “I make no apology for this,” she adds.

Robinson’s mandate expires after the World Conference against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 7, 2001.

(From: “Sideswipe as UN envoy steps down,” BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk), March 19, 2001)


by Leave a comment

Death of Hugh Coveney, Former Lord Mayor of Cork

Hugh Coveney, politician and former Lord Mayor of Cork, falls to his death from a headland near Roberts Cove, County Cork on March 14, 1998.

Coveney is born into one of Cork‘s prosperous “merchant prince” families on July 20, 1935. He is educated at Christian Brothers College, Cork, Clongowes Wood College and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He works as a chartered quantity surveyor before entering politics.

Coveney is interested in yachting throughout most of his adult life. His yacht Golden Apple of The Sun, designed by Cork-based designer Ron Holland, is a successful competitor in the Admiral’s Cup in the 1970s. A later 50-foot yacht, Golden Apple, is used by the family for the “Sail Chernobyl” project. The family sails around the world to raise €650,000 for Chernobyl Children’s Project International, a charity which offers assistance to children affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Coveney is Lord Mayor of Cork from 1982 to 1983. He is first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael Teachta Dála (TD) for Cork South–Central constituency at the 1981 general election. He loses his seat in the first general election of 1982 but regains it in the second election in the same year. He loses his seat again in the 1987 general election and does not contest the 1992 general election. He is elected to the Dáil again in 1994 in a by-election.

Coveney is first appointed to the Cabinet in 1994 under John Bruton. He is appointed Minister for Defence and Minister for the Marine. However, he is demoted to a junior ministry the following year after allegations of improper contact with businessmen.

In March 1998 it becomes publicly known that the Moriarty Tribunal has questioned Coveney about whether he had a secret offshore account with Ansbacher Bank, a bank which had become notorious for facilitating tax evasion. Ten days later, on March 13, 1998, Coveney visits his solicitor to change his will. The following day, he dies in a fall from a seaside cliff while out walking alone. His son, Simon Coveney, insists that his father had never held an Ansbacher account. It later emerges that Hugh Coveney had $175,000 on deposit in the secret Cayman Islands-based bank. The account was closed in 1979.

The funeral of Hugh Coveney takes place at St. Michael’s Church in Blackrock, Cork on March 18, 1998. Simon Coveney is later elected to succeed his father in the resulting by-election on November 3, 1998.