seamus dubhghaill

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

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


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Birth of Ciarán Cannon, Former Fine Gael Politician

Ciarán Cannon, former Fine Gael politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Galway East constituency from 2011 to 2024, is born on September 19, 1965, in Galway, County Galway. He previously serves as a Senator for the Progressive Democrats and is the last elected leader of that party. He serves as a Minister of State from 2011 to 2014 and again from 2017 to 2020. He serves as a Senator from 2007 to 2011, after being nominated by the Taoiseach.

Before entering politics, Cannon is a planning official for Galway City Council and Dublin City Council, as well as CEO and secretary of the Irish Pilgrimage Trust. In 2002, he is honoured as one of the Galway People of the Year.

As a member of the Progressive Democrats, Cannon is elected to Galway County Council in the 2004 Irish local elections, to represent the Loughrea local electoral area, with 1,307 first preferences. He is an unsuccessful candidate at the 2007 Irish general election in Galway East. He is nominated by the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to the 23rd Seanad in 2007.

Cannon is elected as Leader of the Progressive Democrats in April 2008. He is the first leader of the party to sit as a Senator while serving as leader. At his first press conference as party leader, he states that he believes “there was passion, commitment, talent and knowledge within the PDs’ ranks to stage a big comeback.”

However, after speculation increases that Noel Grealish, one of the two Progressive Democrat TDs, intends to leave the party, Cannon announces in September 2008 that a party conference will be held on November 8, 2008, at which he will recommend that the party disband. The delegates present at the conference vote 201–161 to agree with this recommendation.

On March 24, 2009, Cannon announces his decision to resign the leadership of the Progressive Democrats and joins Fine Gael the same day. At the 2011 Irish general election, he is one of two Fine Gael TDs elected in Galway East.

On March 10, 2011, Cannon is appointed by the coalition government led by Enda Kenny as Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills with responsibility for Training and Skills. He is dropped as a minister in a reshuffle on July 15, 2014. At the 2016 Irish general election, he is elected to the third seat in Galway East.

On June 20, 2017, Cannon is appointed by the minority government led by Leo Varadkar as Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with responsibility for the Diaspora and International Development. He calls for a “No” vote in the 2018 referendum to allow legislation on abortion.

In 2019, in recognition of his work in education, Cannon is appointed as a UNICEF global champion for education. He is one of seven Generation Unlimited Champions who advocates worldwide for the development of UNICEF’s Gen U programme.

At the 2020 Irish general election, Cannon is elected to the second seat in Galway East. He continues to serve as a minister of state until the formation of a new government on June 27, 2020.

On March 19, 2024, Cannon announces that he will not contest the next general election, blaming a “toxicity in politics.”

Cannon is a musician and songwriter, and recently collaborated with Irish folk singer Seán Keane and others on songwriting projects. One of his co-compositions, “Nature’s Little Symphony,” is performed in Dublin by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as part of the national Cruinniú celebrations on Easter Monday 2017. Both “Nature’s Little Symphony” and another of his compositions, “Gratitude,” are featured on the album Gratitude recorded by Keane and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in 2018. On the August 10, 2018, Cannon plays piano with Keane and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as part of a sold-out performance at the National Concert Hall. In 2019, he composes “An Túr,” a short piano instrumental to celebrate the birthday of W. B. Yeats.

In 2021 Cannon is commissioned to compose the soundtrack to a poem by Emily Cullen as part of the national commemoration of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921.

In March 2024, Cannon begins presenting The Grey Lake Cafe, a radio show on Loughrea Community Radio featuring his own musical choices, and interviews with public figures who have a passion for music.

Cannon is also an avid cyclist and cycling safety advocate. He specialises in endurance cycling challenges and on June 19, 2021, he cycles Ireland end to end, a distance of 575 km, in 23 hours and 23 minutes, to raise money for charity.

On July 2, 2021, Cannon is involved in a road traffic collision and suffers serious injuries. On July 2, 2022 he marks the first anniversary of the incident by cycling 500 km around the border of County Galway. Marking the same date in 2023, he cycles 935 km (581 mi) in 56 hours, covering all 32 counties of the island of Ireland while fundraising for Hand In Hand, a charity that supports families challenged by childhood cancer.


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Death of R. M. “Bertie” Smyllie, Editor of “The Irish Times”

Robert Maire Smyllie, known as Bertie Smyllie, editor of The Irish Times for twenty years, dies on September 11, 1954.

Smyllie is born on March 20, 1893, at Hill Street, Shettleston, Glasgow, Scotland. He is the eldest of four sons and one daughter of Robert Smyllie, a Presbyterian printer originally from Scotland who is working in Sligo, County Sligo, at the time, and Elisabeth Follis, originally from Cork, County Cork. His father marries in Sligo on July 20, 1892, and later becomes proprietor and editor of the unionist Sligo Times. Smyllie attends Sligo Grammar School in 1906 and enrolls at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1911.

After two years at TCD, Smyllie’s desire for adventure leads him to leave university in 1913. Working as a vacation tutor to an American boy in Germany at the start of World War I, he is detained in Ruhleben internment camp, near Berlin, during the war. As an internee, he is involved in drama productions with other internees. Following his release at the end of the war, he witnesses the German revolution of 1918–1919. During this period, he encounters revolutionary sailors from Kiel who temporarily make him a representative of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council, and he observes key events including the looting of the Kaiser’s Palace and violent clashes between rival factions in Berlin. It is also during this period that he secures a personal interview with David Lloyd George at the Paris Convention of 1919. This helps Smyllie gain a permanent position with The Irish Times in 1920, where he quickly earns the confidence of editor John Healy. Together, they take part in secret but unsuccessful attempts to resolve the Irish War of Independence.

Smyllie contributes to the Irishman’s Diary column of the paper from 1927. In 1927, he publishes an exclusive report outlining a draft government including both Labour Party and Fianna Fáil TDs, signaling the volatile politics of the early state years.

Smyllie’s knowledge of languages (particularly the German he had learned during his internment) led to numerous foreign assignments. His reports on the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany are notably prescient and instill in him a lasting antipathy towards the movement.

When Healy dies in 1934, Smyllie becomes editor of The Irish Times and also takes on the role of Irish correspondent for The Times (London), a position that brings significant additional income. Under Healy’s leadership, The Irish Times shifted from representing the Anglo-Irish ascendancy to becoming an organ of liberal, southern unionism, and eventually becomes a critical legitimising force in the Irish Free State. Smyllie enthusiastically supports this change. He establishes a non-partisan profile and a modern Irish character for the erstwhile ascendancy paper. For example, he drops “Kingstown Harbour” for “Dún Laoghaire.” He also introduces the paper’s first-ever Irish-language columnist. He is assisted by Alec Newman and Lionel Fleming, recruits Patrick Campbell and enlists Flann O’Brien to write his thrice-weekly column “Cruiskeen Lawn” as Myles na gCopaleen. As editor, he introduces a more Bohemian and informal style, establishing a semi-permanent salon in Fleet Street’s Palace Bar. This becomes a hub for journalists and literary figures and a source of material for his weekly column, Nichevo.

One of Smyllie’s early political challenges as editor concerns the Spanish Civil War. At a time when Irish Catholic opinion is strongly pro-Franco, he ensures The Irish Times coverage is balanced and fair, though advertiser pressure eventually forces the withdrawal of the paper’s young reporter, Lionel Fleming, from the conflict. His awareness of the looming European crisis earns him the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. However, during World War II, he clashes with Ireland’s censorship authorities, especially under Minister Frank Aiken. He challenges their views both publicly and privately, though his relationship with the editor of the Irish Independent, Frank Geary, is cold, reducing the effectiveness of their joint opposition to censorship.

During the 1943 Irish general election, Smyllie uses the paper to promote the idea of a national government that could represent Ireland with authority in the postwar world. He praises Fine Gael’s proposal for such a government and criticises Éamon de Valera for dismissing it as unrealistic. This leads to a public exchange between de Valera and Smyllie, with the latter defending The Irish Times’s role as a constructive voice for Ireland’s future rather than a partisan interest.

Following the war, Smyllie’s editorial stance shifts toward defending Ireland’s neutrality and diplomatic position. When Winston Churchill accuses de Valera of fraternising with Axis powers, Smyllie counters by revealing Ireland’s covert collaboration with the Allies, such as military and intelligence cooperation, despite official neutrality. In the same period, he continues to oppose censorship, particularly the frequent banning of Irish writers by the Censorship of Publications Board. This opposition features prominently in a controversy on The Irish Times letters page in 1950, later published as the liberal ethic. The paper also adopts a critical stance toward the Catholic Church, notably during the 1951 resignation of Minister for Health Noël Browne amid opposition from bishops and doctors to a national Mother and Child Scheme. His editorials suggest the Catholic Church is effectively the government of Ireland, though he maintains a cordial relationship with Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who invites him annually for dinner.

Smyllie is also wary of American foreign policy, showing hostility particularly during the Korean War. American diplomats in Dublin allege that Smyllie is “pro-communist“. Despite growing readership among an educated Catholic middle class, The Irish Times’s circulation in 1950 remains under 50,000, far below the Irish Independent and the Fianna Fáil-aligned The Irish Press.

In later years, Smyllie’s health declines, prompting a quieter lifestyle. He moves from his large house in Pembroke Park, Dublin, to Delgany, County Wicklow. As he does not drive, he becomes less present in the newspaper office in D’Olier Street, contributing to a decline in the paper’s dynamism. His health deteriorates further, resulting in frequent absences from his editorial duties, though he retains his position despite management attempts to limit his authority, especially over finances. He dies of heart failure on September 11, 1954.

In 1925, Smyllie marries Kathlyn Reid, eldest daughter of a County Meath landowner. They have no children.

Smyllie is an eccentric: he hits his tee shots with a nine iron, speaks in a curious mix of Latin phrases and everyday Dublin slang, and weighs 22 stone (308 lbs.; 140 kg) yet still cycles to work wearing a green sombrero.


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Death of Sybil le Brocquy, Playwright & Conservationist

Sybil le Brocquy, Irish playwright, patron of the arts and conservationist, dies in Dublin on September 4, 1973. Two of her three children are involved with the arts: a son is the painter Louis le Brocquy and her daughter is the sculptor Melanie le Brocquy.

She is born Helen Mary Sybil Staunton on December 21, 1892, in Herbert Street, Dublin, to Dorothy Eleanor Redington and Peter Maurice Staunton. Her father is a barrister who later becomes a solicitor. Though he moves to Aram Lodge, Castlerea, County Roscommon where he practises law, she grows up in Dublin and Howth, going to secondary school in Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham, and later at Loreto Convent, St. Stephen’s Green. She goes on to study German and singing in Koblenz. She marries Albert le Brocquy on December 30, 1915, and settles in Dublin. They have three children, Louis, Noel and Melanie.

Le Brocquy becomes involved in various women’s movements, helping to organise the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in July 1926. She is involved with the League of Nations Association as well as helps to establish Irish Civil Rights, PEN International, and Amnesty International in Ireland. She is an active member of Old Dublin Society and for a time president of the Irish Women Writers’ Society. She acts with the Drama League appearing as Helen Staunton. She writes plays and dramatic pieces which are staged by the Drama League at the Abbey Theatre and broadcast by Radio Éireann.

Her writings and work are often historically investigative, finding W. B. Yeats’s birthplace and arguing that Jonathan Swift had a child by Vanessa. She is involved in the Swift Tercentenary celebrations with Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh. As a result of her work, including with Trinity College Dublin Library and representing the Library on the Royal Irish Academy’s National Committee for Anglo-Irish Literature, she is co-opted to the Cultural Committee of the Department of External Affairs and appointed a Trustee of the National Library of Ireland. She is an excellent organiser and fundraiser and is heavily responsible for securing money for the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in 1970. She also initiates the literary prize, the Book of the Year award.

Le Brocquy becomes ill with an undiagnosed illness and dies on September 4, 1973, at the Meath Hospital, Dublin.


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Death of Johnny Hayes, Member of the Irish American Athletic Club

John Joseph Hayes, an American athlete and a member of the Irish American Athletic Club, dies on August 25, 1965, in Englewood, New Jersey. He is the winner of the men’s marathon race at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. His Olympic victory contributes to the early growth of long-distance running and marathoning in the United States.

Born in New York City on April 10, 1886, to a family of Irish emigrants from Nenagh, County Tipperary, Hayes is probably best known for winning the controversial marathon race at the London Olympics. He is one of only three male American athletes to win the Olympic Marathon, the other two being Thomas Hicks in 1904 and  Frank Shorter in 1972.

In 1905, Hayes joins Bloomingdale Brothers as an assistant to the manager of the sporting goods department. At night, he trains on a cinder track on the roof of the Bloomingdale’s building in New York. He is promoted to manager of the department after returning from his Olympic victory.

Hayes starts his athletics career with a fifth-place finish at the 1906 Boston Marathon, running for the St. Bartholemew Athletic Club in a time of 2:55:38. He improves on that the following year by finishing third in Boston with a time of 2:30:38 and winning the inaugural Yonkers Marathon. In 1908, he finishes second, 21 seconds behind Thomas Morrissey in the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:26:04 and thus qualifies for the Olympic Games held in London that same year.

The British Olympic Association wants to start the race in front of Windsor Castle and finish in front of the royal reviewing stand at the White City Stadium. As a result, the distance is 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 km). It takes until 1921 for the IAAF to codify that distance as the official length of the marathon. Prior to this, races are usually about 25 miles (40 km).

At the race itself, Dorando Pietri from Italy is the first to enter the stadium. But Pietri has depleted himself to open a more than 10 minute lead over the field and is suffering extreme fatigue and dehydration. When he enters the stadium, he takes the wrong path, and when umpires redirect him, he falls down for the first time. He gets up with their help in front of 75,000 spectators.

Pietri falls four more times, and each time, the umpires help him up. He manages to finish the race first, with a time of 2 hours, 54 minutes, 46 seconds. During all these stumbles and the direct aid from the officials, Hayes has now entered the stadium, finishing the race second, with a time of 2 hours, 55 minutes, 18 seconds.

Pietri is disqualified after the U.S. officials file a protest. Despite the official result, Pietri achieves much more fame than Hayes when Queen Alexandra awards him a special silver cup.

All of the Olympic officials are British, and the Pietri incident joins a list of other controversial calls in the 1908 Olympics, prompting the International Olympic Committee to start appointing judges from a wide variety of countries instead of only the host country.

After the dramatic Olympic battle between Pietri and Hayes, public interest is such that a match race is organized by professional promoters in November 1908 at Madison Square Garden. Pietri wins the race by 75 yards. A second match race is held on March 15, 1909, and again Pietri wins. Both Pietri and Hayes turn professional after the Olympics and achieve great fame.

Hayes is a trainer for the U.S. team for the 1912 Summer Olympics. He later teaches physical education and is a food broker. Hayes dies on August 25, 1965, in Englewood, New Jersey.

The Shore Athletic Club of New Jersey (Shore AC) holds the Johnny Hayes collection as lifetime trustees. Included in the collection are numerous trophies, as well as the 1908 Olympic gold medal for the marathon. This represents the first Olympic gold medal to be won at the modern marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards.

Hayes is a guest on the television show I’ve Got a Secret as one of five former Olympic champions, which airs on October 13, 1954.

In 2002, three statues honoring Olympic champions with links to Nenagh, Matt McGrath, Johnny Hayes and Bob Tisdall, are unveiled in front of the Nenagh Courthouse.


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Birth of Peter Farrell, Irish Footballer

Peter Desmond Farrell, Irish footballer who plays as a right-half for, among others, Shamrock Rovers, Everton and Tranmere Rovers, is born in Dalkey, County Dublin, on August 16, 1922. As an international, he also plays for both Ireland teams – the FAI XI and the IFA XI. His playing career follows a similar path to that of Tommy Eglington. As well as teaming up at international level, they also play together at three clubs.

Farrell is born and raised in the Convent Road area of Dalkey and is educated at Harold Boy’s National School and the Christian Brothers in Dún Laoghaire, from which he wins a scholarship. He is playing football with Cabinteely Schoolboys when spotted by a Shamrock Rovers scout and subsequently joins Rovers on his 17th birthday in August 1939. Among his early teammates is the veteran Jimmy Dunne. With a team that also includes Jimmy Kelly, Tommy Eglington, Jimmy McAlinden and Paddy Coad, he later helps Rovers reach three successive FAI Cup finals. They win the competition in 1944 and 1945 and finish as runners up in 1946.

In July 1946, together with Tommy Eglington, Farrell signs for Everton. In eleven seasons with the club, he plays 421 league games and scores 14 goals. He also plays a further 31 games in the FA Cup and scores an additional four goals. In 1951 he is appointed Everton captain and during the 1953–54 season leads them to the runners up place in the Second Division, thus gaining promotion to the First Division. During his time with the club his teammates, apart from Eglington, also include Alex Stevenson, Peter Corr, Harry Catterick, Wally Fielding, Tommy E. Jones, Brian Labone and Dave Hickson. He is never sent off during his time at Goodison Park.

Farrell leaves Everton in October 1957 and follows Tommy Eglington to Tranmere Rovers where he becomes player-manager. He plays 114 league games for Tranmere, before leaving in December 1960. After a time as manager at Sligo Rovers, he becomes manager of Holyhead Town and, helped by a number of former Everton and Tranmere players, guides them to the Welsh Football League (North) title.

In September 1967, Farrell signs a one-year contract to manage St. Patrick’s Athletic F.C. He manages the Pats in their 1967–68 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup ties against FC Girondins de Bordeaux but resigns in March 1968.

When Farrell begins his international career in 1946 there are, in effect, two Ireland teams, chosen by two rival associations. Both associations, the Northern Ireland–based IFA and the Ireland–based FAI claim jurisdiction over the whole of Ireland and select players from the entire island. As a result, several notable Irish players from this era, including Farrell, play for both teams.

Farrell makes 28 appearances and scores three goals for the FAI XI. While still at Shamrock Rovers, he captains the FAI XI on his international debut on June 16, 1946, against Portugal. On September 21, 1949, together with Johnny Carey and Con Martin, he is a member of the FAI XI that defeats England 2–0 at Goodison Park, becoming the first non-UK team to beat England at home. After Martin puts the FAI XI ahead with a penalty in the 33rd minute, Farrell makes victory certain in the 85th minute. Tommy O’Connor slips the ball to Farrell and as the English goalkeeper Bert Williams advances, he lofts the ball into the unguarded net. He scores his second goal for the FAI XI on October 9, 1949, a in 1–1 draw with Finland, a qualifier for the 1950 FIFA World Cup. His third goal comes on May 30, 1951, as Farrell scores the opening goal in a 3–2 win against Norway.

Farrell also makes seven appearances for the IFA XI between 1946 and 1949. On November 27, 1946, he makes his debut for the IFA XI in a 0–0 draw with Scotland. Together with Johnny Carey, Con Martin, Bill Gorman, Tommy Eglington, Alex Stevenson and Davy Walsh, he is one of seven players born in the Irish Free State to play for the IFA XI on that day. The draw helps the team finish as runners-up in the 1946-47 British Home Championship. He also helps the IFA XI gain some other respectable results, including a 2–0 win against Scotland on October 4, 1947, and a 2–2 draw with England at Goodison Park on November 5, 1947.

After returning to Ireland following his retirement, Farrell settles in Dublin and follows his father into the insurance business. He dies on March 16, 1999, following a long illness. He is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery in Deansgrange, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, County Dublin.


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The Copley Street Riot

The Copley Street riot occurs on August 13, 1934, at the Copley Street Repository, Cork, County Cork, after Blueshirts opposed to the collection of annuities from auctioned cattle ram a truck through the gate of an ongoing cattle auction. The Broy Harriers open fire and one man, 22 year old Michael Lynch, is killed and several others injured.

Following the Irish War of Independence (1919–21), Britain relinquishes its control over much of Ireland. However, aspects of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which had marked the end of the war, lead to the Irish Civil War (1922–23). The aftermath leaves Ireland with damaged infrastructure and hinders its early development.

Éamon de Valera, who had voted against the Anglo-Irish treaty and headed the Anti-Treaty movement during the civil war, comes to power following the 1932 Irish general election and is re-elected in 1933. While the treaty stipulates that the Irish Free State should pay £3.1 million in land annuities to Great Britain, and despite advice that an economic war with Britain could have catastrophic consequences for Ireland (as 96% of exports are to Britain), de Valera’s new Irish government refuses to pay these annuities – though they continue to collect and retain them in the Irish exchequer.

This refusal leads to the Anglo-Irish trade war (also known as the “Economic War”), which persists until 1935, when a new treaty, the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, is negotiated in 1938. During this period, a 20% duty is imposed on animals and agricultural goods, resulting in significant losses for Ireland. Specifically, poultry trade declines by 80%, butter trade by 50% and cattle prices drop by 50%. Some farmers are forced to kill and bury animals because they cannot afford to maintain them.

In 1933, Fine Gael emerges as a political party—a merger of Cumann na nGaedheal and the National Centre Party. Fine Gael garners substantial support from rural farmers who are particularly affected by the Economic War. They strongly object to the collection of land annuities by the Fianna Fáil government. The Blueshirts, a paramilitary organisation founded as the Army Comrades Association in 1932 and led by former Garda Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy, transforms into an agrarian protest organisation, mobilising against seizures, cattle auctions, and those tasked with collecting annuities.

O’Duffy, a key figure in Irish politics, encourages farmers to withhold payment of land annuities to the government. Arising from this stance, Gardaí start to seize animals and farm equipment, auctioning them to recover the outstanding funds. While seized cattle are auctioned, local farmers rarely participate. Instead, Northern Ireland dealers, often associated with the name O’Neill, are the primary buyers. These auctions are protected by the Broy Harriers, an armed auxiliary group linked to the police.

By 1934, tensions escalate, and a series of anti-establishment incidents are attributed to the Blueshirts. These incidents range from minor acts of violence, such as breaking windows, to more serious offenses like assault and shootings.

On August 13, 1934, an auction takes place at Marsh’s Yard on Copley Street in Cork, featuring cattle seized from farms in Bishopstown and Ballincollig. The police establish a cordon by 10:00 a.m., with 300 officers on duty. Lorries arrived at 11:00 a.m.

Around noon, three thousand protestors assemble. Within twenty-five minutes, an attempt is made to breach the yard gate by ramming it with a truck. According to Oireachtas records, there are approximately 20 men in the truck which they run against the gate. The Minister for Justice P. J. Ruttledge, says that the truck “with those people in it charged through those cordons of Guards; that several Guards jumped on to the lorry and tried to divert the driver by catching hold of the steering wheel and trying to twist it.” Some contemporary news sources suggest that the ramming truck knocked down the surrounding police cordon “like ninepins and crush[ed] a police inspector against a gate.” Later sources suggest that the senior officer (a superintendent) was injured in a fall, while attempting to avoid being struck, rather than being hit directly by the truck.

A man named Michael Lynch, wearing the distinctive blue shirt, and approximately 20 others reportedly manage to enter the yard. As soon as they enter the yard they are fired upon by armed “special branch” police detectives who are in the yard. Lynch later succumbs to his injuries at the South Infirmary. Thirty-six others are wounded. Despite the violence, the auction proceeds after a one-hour delay.

Following the shooting, a riot ensues, but when news of Lynch’s death reaches the participants, they cease rioting, kneel, and recited a Rosary.

The funeral of Michael Lynch occurs on August 15, 1934. The funeral procession is planned to depart from Saints Peter and Paul’s Church, Cork at 2:30 PM.

The occasion allows for a significant show of force for Eoin O’Duffy and the Blueshirts, and features Roman salutes and military drills. Farmers in Munster reportedly stop work for an hour, and Blueshirt members ask shopkeepers to close their businesses, as a show of respect for the “martyr.” Lynch is afforded a “full Blueshirt burial,” and the coffin is adorned with the flag of the Blueshirts (the Army Comrades Association).

According to the  Minister for Justice, at the funeral W. T. Cosgrave stands beside O’Duffy as the Blueshirt leader gives an oration saying, “We are going to carry on until our mission is accomplished […] those 20 brave men, whose deed will live for ever, not only in Cork but in every county in Ireland, broke through in the lorry […] all Blueshirts should try to emulate his bravery and nobleness. Every Blueshirt is prepared to go the way of Michael for his principles.”

The court grants the family £300 in 1935. This is appealed to the High Court, followed by the Supreme Court, which dismisses the case. In the Supreme Court, Henry Hanna describes the Broy Harriers as “an excrescence” upon the Garda Síochána.

When the matter is discussed in the Seanad in September 1934, and before a vote is taken to “[condemn] the action of the members of the special branch of the Gárda Síochána […] on Monday, the 13th August 1934,” the senators who support Éamon de Valera’s government walk out.

In August 1940, a memorial is unveiled on the tomb of Lynch in Dunbulloge Cemetery in Carrignavar, County Cork, consisting of a limestone Celtic cross and pedestal. The pedestal is engraved with a quote from the American orator, William Jennings Bryan: “The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armour of a righteous cause is stronger than all the hosts of error.”

(Pictured: Aftermath of the ramming of Marsh’s Yard, Copley Street, that leads to the death of Michael Lynch and the Copley Street Riot on August 13, 1934)


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Death of Liam Ó Briain, Irish Language Expert & Political Activist

Liam Ó Briain, Irish language expert and political activist, dies on August 12, 1974, in Cabinteely, County Dublin.

Christened as William O’Brien, Ó Briain is born at 10 Church Street, North Wall, Dublin, on September 16, 1888, the seventh child of Arthur O’Brien, clerk, and Mary O’Brien (née Christie), who is from County Meath. He takes an interest in the Irish language from an early age and begins learning Irish by himself from a grammar book, as it is not encouraged by his teachers at the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School nor spoken by his parents. While still at the O’Connell School, he starts using the Irish version of his name. He also attends meetings of the Gaelic League, then attends University College Dublin (UCD) on a scholarship, where he studies French, English and Irish, receiving a BA (1909) and an MA (1910).

UCD decides to start awarding one annual scholarship for overseas travel in 1911, and Ó Briain wins the first one, using it to visit Germany and study under Kuno Meyer and Rudolf Thurneysen. After three years, he returns home, where he rejoins the Gaelic League and begins teaching French at UCD. He also joins the Irish Volunteers then, the following year, Seán T. O’Kelly convinces him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Ó Briain sees action with the Irish Citizen Army. He comes into conflict with his commander, Michael Mallin, as he wants to pursue a strategy without the Dublin brigade being “cooped up in the city.” However, Mallin overrules him and insists they should focus on taking Dublin Castle. He spends two months in Wandsworth Prison in London and six months in Frongoch internment camp in Wales before being released to discover that he has been fired from his job. However, he quickly obtains a professorship in Romance languages at University College Galway (UCG).

Around this time, Ó Briain joins Sinn Féin, and he stands unsuccessfully for the party in Mid Armagh at the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, taking 5,689 votes. His campaign leads, indirectly, to his arrest and three months in jail in Belfast. In 1920, following his release, he is appointed a judge in the then-illegal republican court system in Galway, and visits both France and Italy to try to source weapons for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In November 1920, he is arrested in the UCG dining room by Black and Tans, and is imprisoned for thirteen months, first in Galway and then in the Curragh camp in County Kildare, thereby missing the conclusion of the Irish War of Independence. By the time he is released, the Anglo-Irish Treaty has been signed. He supports the treaty and takes no further part in militant activity.

In the newly independent Ireland, Ó Briain remains a professor at Galway. He also stands in the 1925 Seanad election, although he is not successful. He is the founding secretary of the Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe theatre, also acting in many of its productions, and spends much time translating works from English and the Romance languages into Irish. He stands to become president of UCG in 1945, but is not elected, and in the 1940s and 1950s is best known for his many appearances on television and radio.

From his retirement in 1959, Ó Briain lives in Dublin. In 1974, the National University of Ireland (NUI) confers an honorary doctorate on him. He dies on August 12, 1974, at St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Cabinteely, County Dublin. His funeral to Glasnevin Cemetery is almost a state occasion, with a huge attendance of public figures, and a military firing party at the graveside, where the oration is given by Micheál Mac Líammóir and a lesson is read by Siobhán McKenna. For days after his death, the newspapers carry tributes to his many-sided career and personality. On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and Art Ó Beoláin write commemorative articles in Feasta.

On September 1, 1921, Ó Briain marries Helen Lawlor, of Dublin, who dies two years before him. The couple’s only child is Eibhlín Ní Bhriain, who is a journalist for The Irish Times and other periodicals.


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Death of Wilhelmina Geddes, Stained Glass Artist

Wilhelmina Geddes, Irish stained glass artist who is an important figure within the Irish Arts and Crafts movement and also the twentieth-century British stained glass revival, dies in London, England, on August 10, 1955. Her notable works include windows at St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church (Ottawa, Canada), St. Peter’s Church (Lampeter, Wales), and the King Albert Memorial Window, St. Martin’s Cathedral (Ypres, Belgium).

Geddes is born on her maternal grandparent’s farm at Drumreilly Cottage in Leitrim, County Leitrim, on May 25, 1887. She is the eldest of four children, three girls and a boy, of William Geddes and his wife Eliza Jane Stafford. The family, who migrates to Ireland from Scotland, has mainly been farmers. Her father, a Methodist, who is born near his father’s farm at Tandragee, County Armagh, emigrates to the United States as a young man, working as a labourer for the railway construction business. This serves a useful purpose as he had worked as a site engineer at the Cavan, Leitrim and Roscommon Railway Company. When she is still an infant her parents move to their native home in Belfast, so her father can set up in business as a building contractor.

Geddes begins drawing subjects from life and nature from the age of four. She learns first how to draw from the school mistress in Ayrshire, where her father occasionally goes shooting. She begins her studies at Methodist College Belfast along with her three younger sisters. She later moves to the Belfast School of Art. She is encouraged by Rosamond Praeger, a sculptor from County Down, to continue with her studies. She is accepted as a student to study at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University. This is where she adapts and improves her style and is introduced to a professional standard of art work.

While still studying at the Belfast School of Art, Geddes takes part in the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland‘s fourth exhibition. For this exhibition, she contributes a glowingly coloured illustration of the book Cinderella Dressing the Ugly Sister (Dublin City Gallery), which she had created. It is at this exhibition that her work is spotted by Sarah Purser, a well established painter seeking newly trained students to introduce to stained glass artistry. Purser, who goes on to be her lifelong mentor, invites the young Geddes to join her in Dublin, working under the established stained glass artist William Orpen.

Geddes contributes a watercolour illustration of a Ballad Seller with the Belfast Art Society in 1907. She is elected as an Associate of the Belfast Art Society’s successor, the Ulster Academy of Arts, in 1933 before promotion to Honorary Academician in 1935. She shows five illustrations in the 1911 Oireachtas Exhibition. It is some twenty-one years before she returns to the Oireachtas when she exhibits three cartoons and three sketches for stained glass in 1932.

Geddes joins Purser at the acclaimed stained glass workshop called An Túr Gloine in 1910. The workshop is held in Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art. It is here that she discovers her passion for the craftsmanship of stained glass artistry and creates her most important works.

During her early years at An Túr Gloine, Geddes’s originality shines, and important commissions come from St. Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin and the Presbyterian church in Rathgar. Dogged by illness, she returns to Belfast before 1916 and lives between there and Dublin until moving in 1925, as she has long wanted, to work in London at The Glass House, Fulham. While working at The Glass House, she instructs the Irish painter and stained glass artist Evie Hone.

Geddes’s work is considered pioneering and represents a rejection of the Late Victorian approach. She creates a new view of men in stained glass windows, portraying them with close-shaven crew cuts. The muscularity and tension of her portraiture is matched by the radical design of her constructions. Ambitious large-scale projects, as at the cathedral in Ypres, are equalled by the drama of smaller-scale work at Wallasey (Lancashire) and Wallsend (Northumberland), or war memorial windows in obscure country churches.

Despite the hardships of living in London during World War II, poverty, and ill health, Geddes designs seventeen full-scale stained glass masterpieces, sixteen of which she completes.

Geddes dies on August 10, 1955 in London of a pulmonary embolism. She is buried in Carnmoney Cemetery, County Antrim, along with her mother and sister Ethel. Even after moving to London, she claims that her native identity never wavered as she says she was always “a Belfast woman.”


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The IRA “Supergrass” Trial Ends in Belfast

The “supergrass” trial of thirty-eight alleged members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ends in Belfast on August 5, 1983. The defendants face various charges including murder and attempted murder. Eighteen later have their convictions quashed. The trial has lasted 120 days with most of the evidence being offered by IRA supergrass Christopher Black. The judge jails twenty-two of the accused to sentences totaling more that 4,000 years. Four people are acquitted and others receive suspended sentences. In 1986, eighteen of the twenty-two who received prison sentences have their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Kevin Malgrew, who faces the most charges, eighty-four, is sentenced to jail terms totaling 963 years. When sentencing him, the judge, Justice Basil Kelly, says, “You are a ruthless terrorist. I do not expect any words of mine will ever raise in you a twinge of remorse.” 

In spite of the long sentences, none of those convicted is expected to spend more than twenty years in prison as the judge orders the terms should be served concurrently.

The IRA members are convicted largely on the evidence of a police informant, the so-called “supergrass” Christopher Black. He is granted immunity from prosecution and is believed to be abroad at the time the trial ends. A police spokesman says they believe Black is being hunted by the IRA.

Justice Kelly wears a bulletproof vest throughout the trial. Like all judges in such cases, he will receive police protection for the rest of his life.

But in spite of some of the long sentences he hands down, Justice Kelly also shows compassion to some of those on trial. He sets thirteen people free with suspended sentences or discharges saying he realises the “enormous pressure” placed upon them within their community to help extremists.

Postman Francis Murphy receives a suspended sentence for allowing an IRA man to wear his uniform so he could carry out a murder. And Justice Kelly gives Murphy’s mother an absolute discharge for having later burned the uniform. “Very many other mothers would have done the same,” he says.

(From: “1983: IRA members jailed for 4,000 years,” by BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk | Pictured: IRA volunteer Kevin Malgrew)


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Death of Malachi Martin, Irish American Catholic Priest

Malachi Brendan Martin, also known under the pseudonym of Michael Serafian, Irish-born American Traditionalist Catholic priest, biblical archaeologist, exorcist, palaeographer, professor, and writer on the Catholic Church, dies in New York City on July 27, 1999.

Martin is born on July 23, 1921, in Ballylongford, County Kerry, to a middle-class family in which the children are raised speaking Irish at the dinner table. His parents, Conor and Katherine Fitzmaurice Martin, have five sons and five daughters. Four of the five sons become priests, including his younger brother, Francis Xavier Martin.

Martin attends Belvedere College in Dublin, then studies philosophy for three years at University College Dublin (UCD). On September 6, 1939, he becomes a novice with the Society of Jesus. He teaches for three years, spending four years at Milltown Park, Dublin, and is ordained in August 1954.

Upon completion of his degree course in Dublin, Martin is sent to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where he takes a doctorate in archaeology, Oriental history, and Semitic languages. He starts postgraduate studies at both the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Oxford. He specializes in intertestamentary studies, Jesus in Jewish and Islamic sources, Ancient Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts. He undertakes additional study in rational psychology, experimental psychology, physics, and anthropology.

Martin participates in the research on the Dead Sea Scrolls and publishes 24 articles on Semitic palaeography. He does archaeological research and works extensively on the Byblos syllabary in Byblos, in Tyre, and in the Sinai Peninsula. He assists in his first exorcism while working in Egypt for archaeological research. In 1958, he publishes a work in two volumes, The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Martin’s years in Rome coincide with the beginning of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which is to transform the Catholic Church in a way that the initially liberal Martin begins to find distressing. He becomes friends with Monsignor George Gilmary Higgins and Father John Courtney Murray.

In Rome, Martin becomes a professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, where he teaches Aramaic, Hebrew, palaeography, and Sacred Scripture. He also teaches theology, part-time, at Loyola University Chicago‘s John Felice Rome Center. He works as a translator for the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Ancient Oriental Churches Division of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity under Bea. He becomes acquainted with Jewish leaders, such as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in 1961 and 1962. He accompanies Pope Paul VI on a trip to Jordan in January 1964. He resigned his position at the Pontifical Institute in June 1964.

In 1964, Martin requests a release from his vows and from the Jesuit Order. He receives a provisional release in May 1965 and a dispensation from his vows of poverty and obedience on June 30, 1965. Even if dispensed from his religious vow of chastity, he remains under the obligation of chastity if still an ordained secular priest. He maintains that he remains a priest, saying that he had received a dispensation from Paul VI to that effect.

Martin moves to New York City in 1966, working as a dishwasher, a waiter, and taxi driver, while continuing to write. He co-founds an antiques firm and is active in communications and media for the rest of his life.

In 1967, Martin receives his first Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1970, he publishes the book The Encounter: Religion in Crisis, winning the Choice Book Award of the American Library Association. He then publishes Three Popes and the Cardinal: The Church of Pius, John and Paul in its Encounter with Human History (1972) and Jesus Now (1973). In 1970, he becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen.

In 1969, Martin receives a second Guggenheim Fellowship, allowing him to write his first of four bestsellers, Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Living Americans (1976). In the book, he calls himself an exorcist, claiming he assisted in several exorcisms. According to McManus Darraugh, William Peter Blatty “wrote a tirade against Malachi, saying his 1976 book was a fantasy, and he was just trying to cash in.” Darraugh also says that Martin became “an iconic person in the paranormal world.”

Martin serves as religious editor for the National Review from 1972 to 1978. He is interviewed twice by William F. Buckley, Jr. for Firing Line on PBS. He is an editor for the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Martin is a periodic guest on Art Bell‘s radio program, Coast to Coast AM, between 1996 and 1998. The show continues to play tapes of his interviews on Halloween.

Martin’s The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West is published in 1990. It is followed in 1996 by Windswept House: A Vatican Novel.

The Vatican restores Martin’s faculty to celebrate Mass in 1989, at his request. He is strongly supported by some Traditionalist Catholic sources and severely criticized by other sources, such as the National Catholic Reporter. He serves as a guest commentator for CNN during the live coverage of the visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States in October 1995.

On July 27, 1999, Martin dies in Manhattan of an intracerebral haemorrhage, four days after his 78th birthday. It is caused by a fall in his Manhattan apartment. The documentary Hostage to the Devil claims that Martin says he was pushed from a stool by a demonic force.

Martin’s funeral takes place in St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in West Orange, New Jersey, before burial at Gate of Heaven Cemetery, in Hawthorne, New York.