Healy is born in Bantry, County Cork, the second son of Maurice Healy, clerk of the Bantry Poor Law Union, and Eliza Healy (née Sullivan). His father is transferred in 1862 to a similar position in Lismore, County Waterford. Timothy is educated at the Christian Brothers school in Fermoy, and is otherwise largely self-educated, in 1869, at the age of fourteen, he goes to live with his uncle Timothy Daniel Sullivan in Dublin.
Healy then moves to England in 1871, working first as a railway clerk and then from 1878 in London as parliamentary correspondent of The Nation, writing numerous articles in support of Charles Stewart Parnell, the newly emergent and more militant home rule leader, and his policy of parliamentary obstructionism. Healy takes part in Irish politics and becomes associated with Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary Party. After being arrested for intimidation in connection with the Irish National Land League, he is promptly elected as member of Parliament for Wexford Borough in 1880.
In Parliament, Healy becomes an authority on the Irish land question. The “Healy Clause” of the Land Act of 1881, which protects tenant farmers’ agrarian improvements from rent increases imposed by landlords, not only makes him popular throughout nationalist Ireland but also wins his cause seats in Protestant Ulster. He breaks with Parnell in 1886 and generally remains at odds with subsequent leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party, though he is a strong supporter of proposals for Irish Home Rule. Meanwhile, he is called to the Irish bar in 1884 and becomes a queen’s counsel in 1899.
Healy believes that he has been awarded the Governor-Generalship for life. However, the Executive Council of the Irish Free State decides in 1927 that the term of office of Governors-General will be five years. As a result, he retires from the office and public life in January 1928 and publishes his extensive two volume memoirs later in that year. Throughout his life he is formidable because he is ferociously quick-witted, because he is unworried by social or political convention, and because he knows no party discipline. Towards the end of his life, he becomes more mellowed and otherwise more diplomatic.
Healy dies on March 26, 1931, at the age of 75, in Chapelizod, County Dublin. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
For the first time in the 230-year history of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade, members of an LGBT group, the Irish Lesbian & Gay Organisation, are allowed to march in the parade on March 16, 1991.
New York Mayor David N. Dinkins gives up the traditional lead-off position in the parade and instead marches with the Irish gay group more than two hours later. It marks the first time in memory that a New York City mayor has declined to lead a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
On March 14, Dinkins agrees to march with the gay group “for reasons we all understand” as part of a compromise to get the group into the parade. The mayor and the 135-member gay group are guests of Division 7 of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the midtown Manhattan chapter of the fraternal order that sponsors and organizes the parade.
Normally, politicians jockey for high-profile spots in the parade, which is billed as the world’s largest civilian parade. No mayor has ever been in the difficult spot of trying to resolve such a public dispute between Irish American groups, which have long been political powers in New York City, and gay groups, which have gained strength and are an important part of the coalition that helped bring Dinkins to office.
Police officials have 3,100 officers along the parade route to provide security for the estimated one million spectators and 150,000 people marching in the parade. The parade costs the city more than $500,000 in overtime for police, sanitation, traffic, and other employees.
Dinkins is booed for nearly 40 blocks, briefly showered with beer, and dodges two thrown beer cans as he and other elected officials march up Fifth Avenue with the gay Irish group.
Governor Mario M. Cuomo also gives up a place at the front of the parade, marching with a group of handicapped children in wheelchairs that had been denied a place among the bands and bagpipes until they threatened to sue the parade organizers.
As in previous years, some marchers wear green sashes reading, “Free Joe Doherty,” referring to the Irish Republican Army soldier jailed in New York City. Others wear yellow ribbons to honor soldiers returning home from the Persian Gulf war. But the dispute about the homosexuals is the focus for much of the march.
After the parade, Dinkins says although he expected to draw protests for marching with the lesbian and gay group, he is surprised by the depth of anger directed against him and the homosexual marchers. “It was like marching in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights movement,” he said. “I knew there would be deep emotions, but I did not anticipate the cowards in the crowd. There was far, far too much negative comment.”
Irish patriot Roger Casement‘s body is returned to Ireland from the United Kingdom on February 23, 1965, forty-nine years after his execution for treason.
In October 1914, Roger Casement sails for Germany where he spends most of his time seeking to recruit an Irish Brigade from among more than 2,000 Irish prisoners-of-war taken in the early months of World War I and held in the prison camp of Limburg an der Lahn. His plan is that they will be trained to fight against Britain in the cause of Irish independence.
In April 1916, Germany offers the Irish 20,000 Mosin–Nagant 1891 rifles, ten machine guns and accompanying ammunition, but no German officers. It is a fraction of the quantity of arms that Casement has hoped. Casement does not learn of the Easter Rising until after the plan is fully developed. The German weapons never land in Ireland as the Royal Navy intercepts the ship transporting them.
In the early hours of April 21, 1916, three days before the beginning of the rising, Casement is taken by a German submarine and is put ashore at Banna Strand in Tralee Bay, County Kerry. Suffering from a recurrence of malaria and too weak to travel, he is discovered at McKenna’s Fort in Rathoneen, Ardfert, and arrested on charges of treason, sabotage, and espionage against the Crown. He is imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Casement’s trial for treason is highly publicized and he is ultimately convicted and sentenced to be hanged. He unsuccessfully appeals the conviction and death sentence. Among the many people who plead for clemency are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, W. B. Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw.
On the day of his execution, Casement is again received into the Catholic Church at his request. He is attended by two Irish Catholic priests, Dean Timothy Ring and Father James Carey, from the East London parish of St. Mary and St. Michael’s. Casement is hanged at Pentonville Prison in London on August 3, 1916. His body is buried in quicklime in the prison cemetery at the rear of the prison.
During the decades after his execution, many formal requests for repatriation of Casement’s remains are refused by the U.K. government. Finally, February 23, 1965, Casement’s remains are repatriated to the Republic of Ireland. Casement’s last wish, to be buried at Murlough Bay on the North Antrim coast, in what is now Northern Ireland, may never be satisfied as U.K. Prime Minister Harold Wilson‘s government releases the remains only on condition that they cannot be brought into Northern Ireland, as “the government feared that a reburial there could provoke Catholic celebrations and Protestant reactions.”
Casement’s remains lay in state at Arbour Hill in Dublin for five days, during which time an estimated half a million people file past his coffin. After a state funeral on March 1, the remains are buried with full military honours in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, with other militant republican heroes. The President of the Republic of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, who is in his mid-eighties and the last surviving leader of the Easter Rising, defies the advice of his doctors and attends the ceremony, along with an estimated 30,000 others.
An Garda Síochána na h-Eireann (Guardians of the Peace of Ireland), the police force of Ireland more commonly referred to as the Gardaí or “the guards,” is formed on February 21, 1922. The service, originally named the Civic Guard and headquartered in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, is headed by the Garda Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish government.
The Garda Síochána (Temporary Provisions) Act 1923, enacted after the creation of the Irish Free State on August 8, 1923, provides for the creation of “a force of police to be called and known as ‘The Garda Síochána.'” Under section 22, the Civic Guard are deemed to have been established under and are to be governed by the Act. The law therefore effectively renames the existing force.
While most recruits to the Garda come from the ranks of the Irish Republican Army, which had fought against the RIC, about one hundred ex-RIC men become part of the new force. Problems become apparent when some recruits do not conceal their dislike of the ex-RIC instructors and refused to salute them. On May 15, 1922, over 1,200 recruits break ranks during Morning Parade, seize the armoury, and take over the Kildare Depot. Negotiations between the mutineers and the Provisional Government of Ireland over control of the force lasts seven weeks, during which time the Irish Civil War has begun. Commissioner Michael Staines resigns in September and is replaced by Eoin O’Duffy.
During the Irish Civil War, the new Free State sets up the Criminal Investigation Department as an armed, plain-clothed, counter-insurgency unit. It is disbanded after the end of the war in October 1923 and elements of it are absorbed into the Dublin Metropolitan Police, which was founded in 1836.
In Dublin, policing remains the responsibility of the Dublin Metropolitan Police until it merges with the Garda Síochána in 1925. Since then the Garda has been the only civil police force in the state now known as Ireland. Other police forces with limited powers are the Military Police within the Irish Defence Forces, the Airport Police Service, and Dublin Port and Dún Laoghaire Harbour police forces.
The Garda medal of honour, the Scott Medal, An Garda Síochána’s highest honour, is named after Colonel Walter Scott, the American philanthropist that endowed the fund for the original medals.
John Doyle, Irish sportsperson and politician, hailed as one of the best defenders in hurling and his county’s most iconic player upon his death, is born in Holycross, County Tipperary, on February 12, 1930.
Doyle first excels at hurling while at school in Thurles CBS. Regarded as too good for CBS Primary School team, he is drafted into the secondary school’s under-15 Croke Cup team in 1942. Doyle plays at wing-forward as Thurles CBS wins the championship that year.
Doyle arrives on the inter-county scene at the age of sixteen when he first links up with the Tipperary minor team. He makes his senior debut in the 1947-48 National League. A 5-6 to 4-2 defeat of Cork in the provincial decider gives him his first Munster medal. Tipperary retains their provincial crown in 1947, with Doyle collecting a second Munster medal following a 2-4 to 1-2 defeat of Waterford. Doyle goes on to play a key role for Tipperary during a hugely successful era for the team, winning eight All-Ireland medals, ten Munster medals, and ten National Hurling League medals.
On June 26, 1949, Doyle makes his senior championship debut in a Munster quarter-final replay against Cork. As a member of the Munster inter-provincial team for fifteen years, Doyle wins six Railway Cup medals. At club level he wins three championship medals with Holycross-Ballycahill.
After surrendering their provincial crown in 1966, Tipperary bounces back the following year, with Doyle winning a record tenth Munster medal following a 4-12 to 2-6 defeat of Clare. On September 3, 1967, Tipperary faces Kilkenny in the All-Ireland decider, a game which presents Doyle win the opportunity of making history by winning a record-breaking ninth All-Ireland medal. Despite leading at halftime 2-6 to 1-3, Kilkenny goalkeeper Ollie Walsh makes a series of spectacular saves in the second half and Kilkenny is victorious 3-8 to 2-7 and lays to rest a bogey that Tipperary has had over the team since 1922. The defeat brings the curtain down on Doyle’s inter-county career.
For almost fifty years Doyle, together with Christy Ring, hold a unique record as the only players to win eight All-Ireland medals on the field of play. This record is subsequently surpassed by Henry Shefflin on September 30, 2012. His record of National League medals has yet to be equalled. Throughout his career, Doyle makes 54 championship appearances, a Tipperary record which stands until August 9, 2009 when it is surpassed by Brendan Cummins.
In retirement from inter-county hurling, Doyle continues to work on his farm in Holycross. In later years he enters politics. He stands unsuccessfully as a Fianna Fáil candidate at the 1969 general election for the Tipperary North constituency, but is subsequently elected to Seanad Éireann on the Agricultural Panel. He serves until 1973 when he loses his seat.
Doyle is widely regarded as one of the greatest hurlers in the history of the game. During his playing days he wins two Cú Chulainn awards, and is named Texaco Hurler of the Year in 1964. He is repeatedly voted onto teams made up of the sport’s greats, including as left corner-back on the Hurling Team of the Century in 1984 and the Hurling Team of the Millennium in 2000.
John Doyle dies on December 29, 2010. Taoiseach Brian Cowen is among those who pay tribute saying “He was an immense hurler and an incredibly decent man, his love of the GAA was matched by his concern for his country and his own community, he was a Tipperary legend and a proud Irishman.” Doyle is buried at Holy Cross Abbey outside Thurles on December 31, 2010.
The Ballycotton lifeboat Mary Stanford returns to its home port in East Cork on February 11, 1936, following what is likely the most famous sea rescue in Irish maritime history.
Riding at anchor, the Daunt rock lightshipComet, with a crew of eight, breaks from her mooring off Roberts Head on the southern coast of Ireland on the morning of February 8, 1936, during a three-day gale. The seas are so mountainous that spray is flying over the lantern of the 196-foot-tall lighthouse.
In one of the most exhausting and gallant services in the history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI), Patrick “Patsy” Sliney, Coxswain of the Mary Stanford, and a crew of six take to the sea in response to an SOS call from the Comet.
The Mary Stanford makes several attempts to get a steel cable aboard the Comet, but on every attempt, a terrible wave crashes the ships further apart and the cable snaps. When darkness falls, the Mary Stanford heads for Cobh to get stronger cables. Early the following morning, the Mary Stanford returns to Daunt rock. The sea is just as stormy and a thick fog has set in, making it impossible to affect a rescue. The Mary Stanford remains in the storm all day and all night.
That evening, as the storm increases, the Comet drifts dangerously close to Daunt rock. When she is just 60 yards from the rock, Sliney decides the only option, albeit a dangerous one, is to try and get alongside the Comet so the crew can jump for the lifeboat. On the first attempt, one man jumps to safety aboard the Mary Stanford. No one is able to jump on the second attempt but on the third attempt five men are successfully rescued. A fourth and fifth attempt are unsuccessful as no one is able to jump to the Mary Stanford. Two men remain on board the Comet, clinging to the rails and too exhausted to jump. As the Mary Stanford comes alongside on the sixth attempt, the two are seized by the lifeboat crew and dragged aboard.
The Mary Stanford is away from its Ballycotton station for 79 hours and at sea for 49 hours. The crew has no food for 25 hours and they only have three hours sleep. All suffer from colds, saltwater burns, and hunger.
A Gold Medal is awarded by the RNLI to Sliney, Silver Medals to Second Coxswain John Lane Walsh and Motor Mechanic Thomas Sliney, and Bronze Medals to Crew Members Michael Coffey Walsh, John Shea Sliney, William Sliney, and Thomas Walsh for their service.
Of Irish descent, Donovan is born in Buffalo, New York, to first generation immigrants Anna Letitia “Tish” Donovan (née Lennon) of Ulster and Timothy P. Donovan of County Cork. His grandfather, Timothy O’Donovan, Sr., is from the town of Skibbereen, and marries Mary Mahoney, who belongs to a propertied family of substantial means who disapprove of him. They move first to Canada and then to New York, where their son Timothy, Jr., Donovan’s father, attempts to engage in a political career but with little success.
William attend St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute and Niagara University before starring on the football team at Columbia University, where he earns the nickname “Wild Bill”, which remains with him for the rest of his life. He graduates from Columbia in 1905. He then attends and graduates from Columbia Law School, after which he becomes an influential Wall Street lawyer.
In 1912, Donovan forms and leads a troop of cavalry of the New York National Guard, which is mobilized in 1916 and serves on the U.S.-Mexico border during the American government’s campaign against Pancho Villa.
During World War I, Major Donovan organizes and leads the 1st battalion of the 165th Regiment of the 42nd Division. For his service near Landres-et-St. Georges, France, on October 14-15, 1918, he receives the Medal of Honor. By the end of the war, he receives a promotion to colonel, as well as the Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart.
Donovan serves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York from 1922 to 1924. Due to his energetic enforcement of Prohibition in the United States, there are a number of threats to assassinate him and to dynamite his home, but he is not deterred. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge names Donovan to the United States Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division as a deputy assistant to Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. Donovan runs unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor of New York (1922) and for Governor of New York (1932) as a Republican.
During the years between the world wars, Donovan earns the attention and friendship of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although the two men were from opposing political parties, they were very similar in personality. In 1940 and 1941, Donovan traveled as an informal emissary to Britain, where he is urged by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Roosevelt to gauge Britain’s ability to withstand Germany’s aggression. During these trips Donovan meets with key officials in the British war effort, including Winston Churchill and the directors of Britain’s intelligence services. Donovan returns to the U.S. confident of Britain’s chances and enamored of the possibility of founding an American intelligence service modeled on that of the British.
On July 11, 1941, Donovan is named Coordinator of Information (COI) where he is to oversee America’s foreign intelligence organizations which, at the time are fragmented and isolated from each other. He is plagued over the course of the next year with jurisdictional battles as few of the leaders in the intelligence community are willing to part with any of their power. Nevertheless, Donovan begins to lay the groundwork for a centralized intelligence program.
In 1942, the COI becomes the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Donovan is returned to active duty in the U.S. Army. He is promoted to brigadier general in March 1943 and to major general in November 1944. Under his leadership the OSS eventually conducts successful espionage and sabotage operations in Europe and parts of Asia. By 1943, relations with the British are becoming increasingly strained, partly due to British concerns that OSS operations are sometimes regarded as ill-disciplined and irresponsibly managed. MI6 chief Stewart Menzies is extremely hostile towards the idea of OSS operations anywhere in the British Empire and categorically forbids them to operate within the U.K.
After the end of World War II and the death of President Roosevelt in early April 1945, Donovan’s political position is substantially weakened as he finds himself opposed by President Harry S. Truman, J. Edgar Hoover, and others. Truman disbands the OSS in September 1945 and Donovan returns to civilian life. Several departments of the OSS survive the dissolution and, less than two years later, the Central Intelligence Agency is founded.
Donovan does not have an official role in the newly formed CIA, but he is instrumental in its formation. His opinions meet strong opposition from the State, War, and Navy Departments, as well as J. Edgar Hoover. President Truman is also unenthusiastic about some of Donovan’s arguments, but he prevails, and they are reflected in the National Security Act of 1947 and the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949.
After the end of the war ended, Donovan returns to his lifelong role as a lawyer and serves as special assistant to chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in Germany. On August 3, 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower appoints Donovan Ambassador to Thailand, and he serves in that capacity from September 4, 1953, until his resignation on August 21, 1954.
Donovan dies from complications of vascular dementia on February 8, 1959, at the age of 76, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery. President Eisenhower remarks, “What a man! We have lost the last hero.”
On January 29, 2002, at a public hearing at the Gresham Hotel, rock superstars U2 battle to save their recording studios at Hanover Quay in the Grand Canal Dock area of Ringsend, a southside inner suburb of Dublin, from being pulled to the ground.
The Dublin Docklands Development Authority wants to clear the way for a major new leisure development on a Hanover Quay site which contains a number of buildings including the band’s one-story recording studio. Talks between the band and the Dublin Docklands Development Authority fail to result in a compromise.
Citing the multi-million-pound records sales and musical heritage that have resulted from their use of the Hanover Street site since 1994, the band members submit to An Bord Pleanála (Irish Planning Appeals Board) a formal, nine page objection to the proposed plan. The band recorded their All That You Can’t Leave Behind album and a portion of their Pop album at the studio.
In addition to U2’s complaint, three other parties raise formal objections, including businessman Harrie Crosbie, millionaire businessman and Point Depot owner, who also owns small business premises at the Hanover Quay site.
In a statement released in the evening, the band says that while they love the docklands and are very happy with their present studio, they “appreciate that change is inevitable and often for the best.” They disclose that they are continuing discussions with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority but would consider moving to another location in the vicinity should a suitable property be offered.
The hearing continues into a second day.
Ultimately, on June 17, 2002, U2 loses the battle to save the Hanover Quay recording studio from demolition when An Bord Pleanála gives the go-ahead for the redevelopment of the Hanover Quay site. The band later reaches an agreement with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority for a replacement studio building which allows them to remain in the docklands area.
Lily Kempson, aged 99, the last surviving participant in the 1916 Easter Rising, dies in Seattle, Washington, on January 22, 1996. Born into the ranks of Dublin’s poor, Elizabeth Ann `Lily’ Kempson shares two rooms with her 92-year-old grandmother, her parents, and eight siblings.
Early on the morning of April 24, 1916, Lily dresses quietly so as to not disturb the other family members. Leaving undetected, Lily never returns home.
When Lily arrives at Liberty Hall, preparations for the Rising are already well underway. Weeks earlier Constance Markievicz and other women members of the Citizens Army, perhaps Lily amongst them, had stacked grenades and ammunition in the basement. Now this weaponry, already dispersed throughout the city, is to be used to defend the proclamation of an Irish Republic.
The initial plan for women to primarily take care of the wounded is scrapped. Attached to the Red Cross unit, Lily Kempson and her female comrades are swiftly incorporated within the main body of the fight. Lily is armed with a revolver. A handful of women, who have already played a key role in securing access to St. Stephens Green, set about evacuating civilians and guarding the gates. The insurgents dig in but they were unable to secure surrounding buildings because of a chronic shortage of personnel.
As dawn breaks on Tuesday morning, Lily is awakened by the rattle of machine gun fire. The British have occupied the Shelbourne, a hotel overlooking the park. The insurgents hold the Green for less than twenty hours. Throughout the week-long siege of Dublin, Kempson acts as a courier for Patrick Pearse and the other men inside the General Post Office (GPO).
The superior firepower of the British and the strategic advantage of the Shelbourne make evacuation of the park as inevitable as it is urgent. A line of retreat has been secured. In an advance party of three men and three women, Lily Kempson accompanies Constance Markievicz and Mary Hyland to seize the College of Surgeons, a sturdy building overlooking the north of the Green. It is here the Green’s contingent makes their heroic last stand, holding the ground for five days. They surrendered only after receiving a dispatch directly from the General Post Office. As their contingent prepares to surrender, Lily is chosen to carry the garrison’s last dispatches to addresses throughout the city.
In the immediate aftermath of The Rising, the Kempsons’ Dublin home is raided by the British army, but Lily is not to be found. Lily makes the decision to leave Ireland when her name appears on a British list of wanted suspects. Using her sister’s passport, she travels to England and boards a ship to New York. From New York, she then sails on to Seattle where she meets and marries a fellow Irishman, Matt McAlerney. They have seven children, 34 grandchildren, and 116 great-grandchildren by the time Lily passes away.
In her final years she attracts the attention of the local American press. Each Easter she briefly becomes a celebrity as her story of being the last survivor is retold.
Unknown to many, Fitzgerald is also a patriot. In 1916 he is a member of the Irish Volunteers and is prepared to fight in the Easter Rising on Easter Sunday when the orders are countermanded. On Easter Monday the revolution is on again, and Shields goes to the Abbey Theatre and retrieves his rifle from under the stage. He goes around the corner to Liberty Hall and joins with James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army.
Fitzgerald goes to Hollywood to star in another O’Casey work, The Plough and the Stars (1936), directed by John Ford. He has a successful Hollywood career in such films as The Long Voyage Home (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), And Then There Were None (1945), The Naked City (1948), and The Quiet Man (1952). Fitzgerald achieves a feat unmatched in the history of the Academy Awards. He is nominated for both the Best Actor Oscar and the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the same performance, as Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way (1944). He wins the Best Supporting Actor Award. This feat will likely never be matched as the Academy Award rules have since been changed to prevent this. During World War II, Oscar statues are made of plaster rather than gold due to wartime metal shortages. Being an avid golfer, Fitzgerald later breaks the head off his Oscar statue while practicing his golf swing.
Fitzgerald has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for films located at 6220 Hollywood Blvd. and one for television located at 7001 Hollywood Blvd.
Fitzgerald returns to live in Dublin in 1959. He dies of heart failure on January 14, 1961, and is buried at Deansgrange Cemetery in Dublin.
seamus dubhghaill 