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


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Birth of Valentine Browne Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry

Valentine Browne Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry, Irish peer, politician and landowner, is born in Merrion Square in Dublin on August 19, 1773.

Lawless is the only surviving son of Nicholas Lawless, wool merchant, brewer, and banker, who becomes 1st Baron Cloncurry in 1789, and Margaret Lawless (née Browne), only daughter and heiress of Valentine Browne of Mount Browne, County Limerick. He is educated privately at Portarlington, Queen’s County (now County Laois), and at Blackrock, County Dublin. He enters Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1789, graduating BA in 1792. After completing a tour of Europe (1792–95) he returns to Ireland, where he joins the Society of United Irishmen and the loyalist yeomanry. Pressurized by his father, he decides to study law, and is at Middle Temple from 1795 to 1798. He later claims that at a dinner party in the spring of 1797 he hears the prime minister, William Pitt, discuss his plans for a legislative union with Ireland, prompting him to write an anti-union pamphlet in response. Like many of the claims in his published recollections, the story is unreliable.

During 1797 Lawless helps Arthur O’Connor form his United Irishman newspaper The Press, and Leonard McNally informs Dublin Castle that Lawless is its principal shareholder. In October 1797 Lawless attends a meeting of the executive directory of the United Irishmen, of which he is elected a member. Throughout this period and after his return to London he is carefully watched by the British secret service. His friendship with O’Connor, and the fact that he provides funds for Fr. James Coigly, arouse deep suspicion. After the outbreak of open rebellion in Ireland he is arrested at his lodgings in Pall Mall on May 31, 1798, on suspicion of high treason, and imprisoned for six weeks in the Tower of London. Arabella Jefferyes, sister of the Earl of Clare, apparently tries to extort money from Lawless in return for pleading his case to the Duke of Portland. He refuses the offer. On his release he tours England on horseback but is rearrested on April 14, 1799, and held until March 1801. His father votes for the Act of Union, hoping to secure his son’s release, and dies on August 28, 1799. Lawless succeeds him as 2nd Baron Cloncurry. His grandfather and his fiancée, Mary Ryal, also die while he is imprisoned.

Embittered by his experience, Lawless tours the Continent from 1801 to 1805 before returning to his family estate at Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare. Throwing himself into improving his estates and into local concerns, he founds the County Kildare Farming Society in 1814. He is also involved in canal developments and agricultural improvements in the country. Opposed to the rural constabulary bill of 1822, he supports Catholic emancipation and the attempts of Daniel O’Connell to repeal the Act of Union. He breaks with O’Connell in the 1830s when his friend, Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, is viceroy, because he believes repeal can now be achieved through official means. The rift is never healed.

In 1831, Lawless is admitted to the Privy Council of Ireland (PC) and an English peer but rarely attends the House of Lords. Involved in anti-tithe campaigns, he retires from politics in 1840. Travelling on the Continent in 1841 and 1842, he returns to defend O’Connell’s planned Clontarf meeting in the privy council but refuses to attend any further meetings after his advice on dealing with the Great Famine is ignored in 1846. In 1849 he publishes his personal reminiscences, which appear to have been ghost-written.

Lawless’s health begins to fail in 1851. He dies at the older family home, Maretimo House, Blackrock, on October 28, 1853, and is buried in the family vault at Lyons Hill.

Lawless first marries Elizabeth Georgiana, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Morgan, at Rome on April 16, 1803. They have one son and one daughter. The marriage ends in divorce in 1811 after her adultery with Sir John Piers. In 1811, he then marries Emily, daughter of Archibald Douglas of England, and widow of Joseph Leeson. They have two sons and a daughter. The elder son, Edward, succeeds as 3rd Baron Cloncurry. He commits suicide in 1869 by throwing himself out of a third-floor window at Lyons Hill. The younger, Cecil-John, is an MP, but catches a chill at his father’s funeral and dies on November 5, 1853.

(From: “Lawless, Valentine Browne” by Patrick M. Geoghegan, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Lyons House, Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare)


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Birth of Irish Republican Colm Murphy

Colm Murphy, Irish republican who is the first person to be convicted in connection with the Omagh bombing, but whose conviction is overturned on appeal, is born on August 18, 1952, in Belleeks, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Murphy is an active Irish republican paramilitary from his late teens. In March 1972, he is arrested in Dundalk regarding an assault and is sentenced to two years in prison after the Garda Síochána find a loaded revolver in his car. He is imprisoned in the Curragh Camp but escapes in October 1972 and is not recaptured until May 1973. In June 1976, he is imprisoned again, receiving a three-year sentence for firearms offences and a one-year sentence for Provisional Irish Republican Army membership, both sentences to run concurrently. In July 1983, he is arrested in the United States after attempting to buy a consignment of M60 machine guns to be shipped to Ireland for use by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He receives a five-year prison sentence but returns to Ireland in December 1985 after being released early.

In the late 1980s, Murphy begins investing in property and forms a company named Emerald Enterprises in 1990. He purchases the Emerald Bar public house in Dundalk for IR£100,000, and it later becomes a meeting place for dissident republicans. Other investments included 30 acres of land in Drogheda bought for IR£52,000 in 1995, and his company wins contracts for an IR£11 million development at Dublin City University (DCU) and the multi-million-pound International Financial Services Centre in the Dublin Docklands.

Murphy is arrested by the Gardaí on February 21, 1999, for questioning under anti-terrorist legislation. On February 24, he becomes the first person to be charged in connection with the Omagh bombing, when he appears before Dublin‘s Special Criminal Court and is charged with conspiring to cause an explosion under the terms of Ireland’s Offences Against the State Act, between August 13-16, 1998. He is also charged with membership in an illegal organisation, the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA).

On October 10, 2000, the BBC television show Panorama names Murphy as one of four people connected with the Omagh bombing, along with Seamus Daly and Liam Campbell. In 2001, he undertakes legal action against the BBC and Daily Mail publishers Associated Newspapers for contempt of court. The action against Associated Newspapers is settled on July 31, 2001, and the newspaper releases a statement saying Murphy is entitled to be presumed innocent of the charges against him until proven guilty.

Murphy’s trial begins at Special Criminal Court in Dublin on October 12, 2001. The court hears that Murphy had supplied two mobile phones which were used during the bombing. One witness, Murphy’s second cousin, retracts his evidence and the judge calls the conduct of two detectives outrageous, saying they had persistently lied under cross-examination. Despite this, on January 22, 2002, he is convicted of conspiring to cause the Omagh bombing, and on January 25 is sentenced to 14 years imprisonment with the judge describing him as a long-time republican extremist.

On January 21, 2005, Murphy’s conviction is overturned and a new trial ordered, due to the invasion of Murphy’s presumption of innocence, and alteration of Gardaí interview notes and evidence presented by two officers. A week later, his legal case against the BBC is resolved, with the BBC issuing a statement that Murphy “was fully entitled to maintain his innocence of the charges against him and to test the evidence against him at his trial.”

On October 23, 2006, two Gardaí officers are found not guilty of perjuring themselves during Murphy’s trial. On May 23, 2007, it is announced that Murphy is suffering from short-term memory loss resulting from a car accident in 1988. His lawyers attempt to prevent a retrial taking place, on the grounds that his condition interferes with his right to a fair hearing. The Court of Criminal Appeal is scheduled to hear his case again in October 2008. Following a retrial held in January 2010, he is acquitted on February 24, 2010.

In 2009, Murphy is one of four men found by a civil court to be liable for the Omagh bombing in a case taken by relatives of the victims. On July 7, 2011, in Belfast High Court, Lord Justice Malachy Higgins directs a retrial of the civil claims against Murphy. He questions evidence surrounding emails from U.S. undercover agent David Rupert while overturning the judgment on Murphy. The paucity of the email evidence, the lack of consistency in the emails or at least ambiguity, the possibility of initials referring to someone other than Murphy and the fact that they refer on occasions to double hearsay considerably weaken the emails as evidence, he says. Following a civil retrial on March 20, 2013, Murphy and Seamus Daly are found liable for involvement in the bombing.

Murphy dies peacefully of degenerative lung disease at the age of 70 on April 18, 2023, at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, County Louth.


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Death of Brian Dillon, Republican Leader & IRB Member

Brian Dillon, Irish republican leader and a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), dies at his home in Cork, County Cork, on August 17, 1872. He is a central figure in the Cork Fenian movement.

Dillon is born in Glanmire, County Cork, in 1830. As a child, he is injured in a heavy fall which results in curvature of the spine and general ill health. His family moves to a house near the corner of Old Youghal Road and Ballyhooly Road. He attends the School of Art for several years and becomes quite talented with brush and pencil. He lives through the Great Famine and becomes an ardent nationalist.

Dillon is appointed a Fenian leader in Cork by James Stephens, the head of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Under his supervision the Fenian recruits drill on the Fair Field and at Rathpeacon and are hoping for a rebellion in 1865 when the Fenians are at their strongest. He often associates with other Cork Fenians such as John J. Geary, James Mountaine and John Lynch. He chairs the Fenian meetings at Geary’s pub.

In September 1865, police arrest Fenian leaders James Stephens and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in Dublin, and Dillon in Cork. The police search his home and find a pair of field glasses, some drawings and some incriminating letters sewn into the mattress of his bed. He is remanded in Cork City Gaol until his trial.

On December 18, Dillon and another Cork Fenian, John Lynch, are tried together in the dock in Cork Courthouse by Judge Keogh. The charges are primarily based on information provided by an informer named John Warner, an ex-military pensioner. Isaac Butt and Mr. Waters represent the defendants. The charges are “in one indictment with having conspired to depose the Queen, &c., and with illegally drilling and being drilled in furtherance of that design.” Both are found guilty, based primarily on the testimony of informants, although John Warner’s account is very weak and unsatisfactory under cross-examination. The defendants are sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude.

Dillon is brought under armed guard by train from Cork to Dublin and then thrown into Mountjoy Gaol. He spends nearly a month there and suffers from lack of sleep. In January 1866, he and John Sarsfield Casey are handcuffed together on the tough and rough sea crossing between Kingstown and Holyhead. On arrival at Holyhead, they are then taken by train to Pentonville Prison. This is a very cold prison, and he becomes seriously ill in May 1866. He is transferred to the hospital wing of Woking Convict Invalid Prison, and this is to be his home for the next four-and-a-half years. Here he becomes Convict Number 2658.

In 1870, after five years imprisonment, a commission is set up to investigate the Fenian prisoners, and on account of his bad health, this commission recommends that Dillon be allowed home to Cork. In January 1871 he is transferred to Millbank Prison London and is set free two weeks later on February 8. The following day he arrives in Dublin and after a few days’ rest, he returns to Cork by train. All along the route thousands of people wait on the platforms to greet him and read special addresses of welcome. The train reaches Cork at 8:00 p.m. and even though a carriage and pair are waiting, he is glad to seek refuge in the first covered car he can find, so dense is the crowd all around him wanting to shake his hand. The triumphal procession from the station to his home then begins and the hills all along the route are lighted with tar barrels.

Amid emotional scenes Dillon meets his family and afterwards appears at one of the windows of the house and thanks the people of Ireland for the great reception he has received everywhere on his journey home to Cork. He is now in very poor health and his mother begins the task of nursing him back to health. Everything that loving care and money could do is done, and from New York comes a cheque for £50 from the generous-hearted O’Donovan Rossa. Other friends also contribute, but all to no avail. On Saturday, August 17, 1872, he dies at his home surrounded by his sorrowing relatives.

Dillon’s funeral is one of the biggest ever seen in Cork. The cortege is headed by the Barrack Street Band, and at least ten other bands take part. All have their instruments dressed in sombre black. On Monday, August 18, his remains are privately borne to St. Joseph’s cemetery, to a temporary resting place, as it has been decided to build a vault in the family burial ground in Rathcooney which will not be ready for a few days. Later the funeral route travels from Turners Cross along Anglesea Street, South Mall, Grand Parade, Patrick Street, McCurtain Street and St. Luke’s. The funeral procession stops outside his home and prayers are recited for the repose of his soul. The procession then moves on toward Ballyvolane and up the steep hill toward the graveyard at Rathcooney. On arrival at the newly built tomb, so dense is the crowd milling around the hearse that considerable difficulty is experienced in getting the coffin to the grave. The priests then read the burial service, and, in a hushed silence, Canon Freeman asks the entire assembly to kneel and recite the Lord’s Prayer aloud. He blesses the grave, and the mortal remains of Brian Dillon are lowered to rest. The coffin is then covered, and after Colonel Ricard O’Sullivan Burke‘s oration, the crowd quietly disperses.

Today Dillon’s name is inscribed in the National Monument on the Grand Parade and in street names like Dillon’s Cross, Brian Dillon Park and Brian Dillon Crescent. The Brian Dillons GAA club in the same area of Cork city is also named after him.

(Pictured: A mug shot of Brian Dillon)


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Death of Éamonn Mac Thomáis, Irish Republican Author & Historian

Éamonn Mac Thomáis, author, broadcaster, historian, Irish Republican, advocate of the Irish language and lecturer, dies on August 16, 2002. He presents his own series on Dublin on RTÉ during the 1970s and is well known for guided tours and lectures of his beloved Dublin.

Mac Thomáis comes from a staunch Republican family. He is born Edward Patrick Thomas in the Dublin suburb of Rathmines on January 13, 1927. His father, a fire-brigade officer, dies when he is five years old and his family moves to Goldenbridge, Inchicore. He leaves school at thirteen to work as delivery boy for White Heather Laundry, learning Dublin neighbourhoods with great thoroughness. He says he found work to help his mother pay the rent. He later works as a clerk and is appointed credit controller for an engineering firm.

Mac Thomáis joins the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Republican Army as a young man and is active in the preparations for and prosecution of the 1956-62 border campaign. He is interned in Curragh Camp during the campaign and in December 1961 is sentenced to four months imprisonment under the Offences Against the State Act.

At the November 1959 Ardfheis Mac Thomáis is elected to the Ardchomhairle of Sinn Féin and edits and contributes to the Sinn Féin newspaper United Irishman. He is a close friend of Tomás Mac Giolla and is deeply affected by the 1970 split in Sinn Féin. He takes the Provisional side, opposing Mac Giolla.

Mac Thomáis takes over as editor of An Phoblacht in 1972. In July 1973, he is arrested and charged with IRA membership at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. He refuses to recognise the court, but he gives a lengthy address from the dock. The following month he is sentenced to 15-months imprisonment. Within two months of completing his sentence he is again before the court on the same charge and again receives a 15-month sentence. Editors of six left-wing and Irish-language journals call for his release, as do a number of writers, and hundreds attend protest meetings – to no avail. He serves his full sentence.

Tim Pat Coogan, editor of The Irish Press, claims the charges against Mac Thomáis are politically motivated to a large degree as his activities are confined strictly to the newspaper An Phoblacht. Under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, due to his membership in Sinn Féin in the 1970s he is removed from his position in making some of the RTÉ historical programmes. As a historian he makes numerous contributions to various historical publications such as the Dublin Historical Review.

From 1974 Mac Thomáis writes a number of books on old Dublin. They sell well and remain in print for over 20 years. He also starts a number of walking tours of Dublin, which prove very popular.

Mac Thomáis dies in Dublin on August 16, 2002. He is buried in the republican plot in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery, next to Frank Ryan.

Mac Thomáis’s son Shane, also a historian, runs similar walking tours and is resident historian at Glasnevin Cemetery before his death in 2014.


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Great Famine Monument Dedicated at Grosse Île, Quebec

On August 15, 1909, the Ancient Order of Hibernians dedicate a monument to victims of the Great Famine at Grosse Île, Quebec, Canada.

Grosse Île, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, acts as a quarantine station for Irish people fleeing the Great Famine between 1845 and 1849. It is believed that over 3,000 Irish people died on the island and over 5,000 are buried in the cemetery there.

In 1847, 100,000 Irish people travel to Grosse Île to escape starvation, unaware of the hardships they would encounter upon arrival. The first coffin ship – named for their crowded and deadly conditions – arrives on May 17, 1847, the ice still an inch thick on the river. Of that ship’s 241 passengers, 84 are stricken with fever and 9 have died on board. With the hospital only equipped for 150 cases of fever, the situation quickly spins out of control. More and more ships arrive at Grosse Île each day, sometimes lining up for miles down the St. Lawrence River throughout the summer. On these coffin ships the number of passengers stricken by fever increases exponentially.

Between 1832 and 1937, Grosse Île’s term of operation, the official register lists 7,480 burials on the island. In 1847 alone, 5,424 burials take place, the majority being Irish immigrants. In that same year, over 5,000 Irish people on ships bound for Canada are listed as having been buried at sea.

When the monument is unveiled in 1909, more than 60 years have passed since the more than 5,000 Irish men, women, and children were buried on the island, but the ancestors and relatives of those victims have not forgotten them. Through the hard work of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, thousands of dollars are collected to erect a fitting memorial to those innocent victims of man’s inhumanity to man. The symbol they choose to use is a Celtic cross. Designed by Jeremiah Gallagher, a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Quebec, the cross is carved from granite and stands 48 feet high atop its pedestal.

The monument bears an inscription in Irish commemorating the victims of the epidemic and condemning colonial rule. In English, it reads: “Children of the Gael died in their thousands on this island having fled from the laws of foreign tyrants and an artificial famine in the years 1847-48. God’s blessing on them. Let this monument be a token and honor from the Gaels of America. God Save Ireland.”

To ensure that no one traveling up or down the St. Lawrence River fails to see the monument, it is placed on Telegraph Hill, the highest point on the island. The monument is unveiled by the Papal Legate before a crowd of 9,000, including several hundred French Canadians, some perhaps from families that had adopted one or more of the over 600 Irish orphans whose parents were left behind on Gross Île. The cross stands as a beacon to those who pass up and down the busy waterway, reminding them not only of the tragedy that once happened on that island but also of the ultimate triumph of those who survived.

Today, the island is a National Historic Site that serves as a Famine memorial. It is dedicated in 1996 after a four-year-long campaign to protect the mass gravesite.


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Death of William Archer, Naturalist, Librarian & Microscopist

William Archer, naturalist, librarian and microscopist especially interested in protozoa and desmids, dies in Dublin on August 14, 1897.

Archer is born in Magherahamlet, County Down, on May 6, 1827 (some sources say 1830), the eldest son of Rev. Richard Archer, vicar of Clonduff, and his wife, Jane Matilda (née Campbell). Nothing is known of his education, although his two younger brothers attend Trinity College Dublin (TCD). He apparently becomes estranged from his family, as he is not mentioned by H. B. Swanzy, who does mention his brothers as second and third sons in Richard Archer’s family.

Archer moves to Dublin around 1846, where for many years he pursues a business career. He achieves fame as a naturalist, founding in 1849 with eleven others, the Dublin Microscopical Club, of which he is the secretary and moving spirit for many years. Between 1858 and 1885 he writes over 230 scientific papers in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, the vast majority being short notes on desmids collected in Ireland.

Archer is a member of the Dublin University Zoological Association. He is elected Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA) on January 10, 1870 and Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1875, on which occasion it is stated that he has “a knowledge of the minute freshwater organisms unparalleled among British naturalists and perhaps not surpassed for any other country.”

Archer begins a new career when he becomes librarian of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in January 1877. The bulk of the Society’s library is being taken over by the state to form the National Library of Ireland. He becomes the chief librarian of the new institution and has the task of overseeing the changes. Most of the ideas put forward in his pamphlet, Suggestions as to public library buildings . . . with especial reference to the National Library of Ireland (Dublin, 1881), are used by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane in his design for tthe new building, which opens in August 1890. His adoption of the Dewey system of classification and the inception of a dictionary catalogue, both novel in his day, are to prove of lasting value to users of the library.

In poor health, Archer retires in 1895. He dies, unmarried, at his home, 52 Lower Mount Street, Dublin, on August 14, 1897. Archer is a shy, modest man, who declines professorships at the Royal College of Science for Ireland and at TCD, and who is nominated for membership of the Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Society without his knowledge.


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Birth of Dehra Parker, MP in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland

The Rt Hon. Dame Dehra S. Parker, GBE, PC (NI), the longest serving female MP in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, is born in a military hospital in Dehradun, north of Delhi, India, on August 13, 1882.

Parker is born Dehra Kerr-Fisher, the only child of James Kerr-Fisher and his wife Annie. Her father, a native of Kilrea, County Londonderry, is a successful financier. She is educated in the United States, where her father holds extensive property holdings, and in Germany. The surname has been spelled, alternatively, as Ker-Fisher or Ker Fisher.

Parker is married twice. Her first husband is Lieutenant Colonel Robert Peel Dawson Spencer Chichester, MP, with whom she has one son and one daughter, Robert James Spencer Chichester (1902–1920) and Marion Caroline Dehra Chichester (1904–1976). She is predeceased by her son. On June 4, 1928, she marries her second husband, Admiral Henry Wise Parker (CB, CMG).

Parker is first elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Londonderry, as Dehra Chichester, as she is known prior to her second marriage in 1928, in the 1921 Northern Ireland general election. She stands down at the 1929 election just before her second marriage but is elected unopposed as Dehra Parker in the March 15, 1933 by-election for the South Londonderry constituency following the death of her son-in-law James Lenox-Conyngham Chichester-Clark. She serves until her resignation on June 15, 1960. Her grandson, James Chichester-Clark, is elected unopposed at the subsequent by-election. He later serves as the fifth Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1971.

From her re-election in 1933 until her retirement in 1960, Parker faces opposition only once. During the 1949 Northern Ireland general election, with anti-partition agitation a common theme across the region, she is opposed in South Londonderry by a Nationalist Party candidate, T. B. Agnew, whom she defeats. She is a Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education from December 1, 1937, to March 15, 1944. She is also Chair of the Northern Ireland General Health Services Board from 1948 to 1949. She serves as Minister of Health and Local Government from August 26, 1949, to March 13, 1957, and becomes a member of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland in 1949. She is elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1949 Birthday Honours “for public services,” having previously been appointed as an OBE, and is advanced to be a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in 1957.

Parker’s promotion to the Cabinet at the age of 67 under Sir Basil Brooke (later created the 1st Viscount Brookeborough) is part of his so-called “reforming” premiership, his predecessor, J. M. Andrews, having been criticised for appointing elderly members to Cabinet. She is the first woman to serve in the Northern Ireland Cabinet.

Outside of parliamentary activities, Parker is a long-serving local councilor on Magherafelt District Council, president of both the Northern Ireland Physical Training Association and the Girls’ Training Corps, and chairman of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Committee. In 1944, she is appointed senior vice-chairman of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA NI), and in 1949 she succeeds Sir David Lindsay Keir as President for CEMA, a position she holds until 1960. She is made an honorary member of the Ulster Society of Women Artists in 1958.

Parker dies at her home, Shanemullagh House, Castledawson, in the south of County Londonderry, on November 28, 1963, at age 81. She is interred two days later in the grounds of Christ Church, Castledawson.


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Birth of James Whiteside, Politician & Judge

James Whiteside, Irish politician and judge, is born at Delgany, County Wicklow, on August 12, 1804.

Whiteside is the son of William Whiteside, a clergyman of the Church of Ireland. His father is transferred to the parish of Rathmines but dies when his son is only two years old, leaving his widow in straitened circumstances. She schools her son personally in his early years. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin, enters the Middle Temple, and is called to the Irish bar in 1830.

Whiteside very rapidly acquires a large practice, and after taking silk in 1842 he gains a reputation for forensic oratory surpassing that of all his contemporaries and rivalling that of his most famous predecessors of the 18th century. He defends Daniel O’Connell in the state trial of 1843, and William Smith O’Brien in 1848. His greatest triumph is in the Yelverton case in 1861. He is elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Enniskillen in 1851, and in 1859 becomes an MP for Dublin University. In Parliament, he is no less successful as a speaker than at the bar, and in 1852 is appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland in the first administration of Prime Minister Edward Smith-Stanley, becoming Attorney-General for Ireland in 1858, and again in 1866. In the same year he is appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, having previously turned down offers of a junior judgeship. His reputation as a judge does not equal his reputation as an advocate, although he retains his great popularity. In 1848, after a visit to Italy, he publishes Italy in the Nineteenth Century. In 1870 he collects and republishes some papers contributed many years before to periodicals, under the title Early Sketches of Eminent Persons.

In July 1833, Whiteside marries Rosetta, daughter of William and Rosetta Napier, and sister of Sir Joseph Napier, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Like his brother-in-law, Joseph, he is devoted to the Church of Ireland and strongly opposes its disestablishment.

Whiteside is universally well-liked, being noted for charm, erudition and a sense of humour. Barristers who practise before him say that his charm, courtesy and constant flow of jokes make appearing in his Court a delightful experience.

Whiteside’s last years on the bench ware affected by ill health. He dies on November 25, 1876, at Brighton, Sussex, England. His brother-in-law, from whom he is estranged in later years, is overcome with grief at his death and collapses at the funeral. He is buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.

(Pictured: Statue of James Whiteside by Albert Bruce-Joy on display in St. Patrick’s Cathedral)


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The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) is Established

The Electricity Supply Board (ESB; Irish: Bord Soláthair an Leictreachais), a state-owned electricity company operating in the Republic of Ireland, is established on August 11, 1927, by the fledgling Irish Free State government under the Electricity (Supply) Act 1927, to manage Ireland’s electricity supply after the successful Shannon hydroelectric scheme at Ardnacrusha and take over all existing projects for the electrification of Ireland. While historically a monopoly, the ESB now operates as a commercial semi-state concern in a “liberalised” and competitive market. It is a statutory corporation whose members are appointed by the government of Ireland.

The Shannon hydroelectric scheme at Ardnacrusha is Ireland’s first large-scale electricity plant and, at the time, it provides 80% of the total energy demands of Ireland. To give an idea of the growth in demand, the output of Ardnacrusha is now approximately two per cent of national peak demand for power.

By 1937, plans are being finalised for the construction of several more hydroelectric plants. The plans called for stations at Poulaphouca, Golden Falls, Leixlip (all in Leinster), Clady, Cliff and Cathaleen’s Fall (between Belleek and Ballyshannon in County Donegal), Carrigadrohid and Inniscarra (in County Cork). All these new plants are completed by 1949 and together harness approximately 75% of Ireland’s inland waterpower potential. Many of these plants are still in operation, however, as can be expected with continuing growth in demand, their combined capacity falls far short of Ireland’s modern needs.

With Ireland’s towns and cities benefiting from electricity, the new government pushes the idea of Rural Electrification. Between 1946 and 1979, the ESB connects in excess of 420,000 customers in rural Ireland. The Rural Electrification Scheme is described as “the Quiet Revolution” because of the major socio-economic change it brings about. The process is greatly helped in 1955 by the Electricity Supply Amendment Act, 1955.

In 1947, the ESB, needing ever more generation capacity, builds the North Wall station on a 7.5-acre site in Dublin‘s industrial port area on the north side of the River Liffey on the site of an old oil refinery. The original station consists of one 12.5 MW steam turbine that is originally purchased for a power station at Portarlington but instead used at North Wall. Other power stations built around this time include the peat fired stations at Portarlington, County Laois, and Allenwood, County Kildare.

Because of the risks of becoming dependent on imported fuel sources and the potential for harvesting and utilising indigenous peat, the ESB – in partnership with Bord na Móna – establishes those stations and ESB also builds Lanesboro power station in 1958. Located in County Longford, the plant burns peat, cut by Bord na Móna in the bogs of the Irish midlands. In 1965, the Shannonbridge station, located in County Offaly, is commissioned. The two stations have been replaced by new peat-fired stations near the same locations, and peat is also used to power the independent Edenderry Power Station in County Offaly.

As in most countries, energy consumption is low at night and high during the day. Aware of the substantial waste of night-time capacity, the ESB commissions the Turlough Hill pumped-storage hydroelectric station in 1968. This station, located in County Wicklow, pumps water uphill at night with the excess energy created by other stations, and releases it downhill during the day to turn turbines. The plant can generate up to 292 MW of power, but output is limited in terms of hours because of the storage capacity of the reservoir.

The 1970s bring about a continued increase in Ireland’s industrialisation and with it, a greater demand for energy. This new demand is to be met by the construction of the country’s two largest power stations – Poolbeg Generating Station in 1971 and Moneypoint Power Station in 1979. The latter, in County Clare, remains Ireland’s only coal-burning plant and can produce 915 MW, just shy of the 1015 MW capacity of Poolbeg. In 2002 and 2003, new independent stations, Huntstown Power (north Dublin) and Dublin Bay Power (Ringsend, Dublin), are constructed.

In 1991, the ESB establishes the ESB Archive to store historical documents relating to the company and its impact on Irish life.

On September 8, 2003, two of the last remaining places in Ireland unconnected to the national grid – Turbot Island and Inishturk Island (off the coast of County Galway)- are finally connected to the main supply. Some islands are still powered by small diesel-run power stations.

Sixty wind farms are currently connected to the power system and have the capacity to generate 590 MW of power, depending on wind conditions. These wind farms are mainly owned by independent companies and landowners.

On March 16, 2005, the ESB announces that it is to sell its ShopElectric (ESB Retail) chain of shops, with the exception of the Dublin Fleet Street and Cork Academy Street outlets, to Bank of Scotland (Ireland), converting them into main street banks. Existing staff are offered positions as bank tellers.

On March 27, 2008, the ESB announces a €22bn capital investment programme in renewable energy technology, with the aim to halve its carbon emissions within 12 years and achieve carbon net-zero by 2035.


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Death of John Francis Larchet, Composer & Teacher

John Francis Larchet, Irish composer and teacher, dies in Dublin on August 10, 1967.

Larchet is born on July 13, 1884, at Sandymount, Dublin, the son of John Edward Larchet, manager of a wine business, and his wife Isabella Emily (née Farmar). Educated at the Catholic University School in Leeson Street, Dublin, he subsequently commences study under Michele Esposito at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) in Dublin, winning many prizes for composition, theory, harmony, and counterpoint from 1903 to 1912. As a student at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), he obtains his Bachelor of Music in 1915 and Doctor of Music in 1917 and comes to dominate the music profession in Dublin over the next forty years, moulding the composers, teachers, and conductors of the next generation, while developing an Irish school of music based on folk tradition but writing in the modern idiom. A senior professor at the RIAM by 1920, the following year he is appointed professor of music at University College Dublin (UCD), where he remains until 1958, successfully establishing music as a serious discipline within the university. He is director of music examinations for Irish secondary schools (1907–34) and succeeds in raising standards of teaching, particularly with regard to rectifying weakness in the teaching of the theory of music.

Along with Aloys Fleischmann and composer Frederick May, Larchet keeps discourse on music in the public domain during the 1930s and 1940s, frequently addressing the need for a national school of music and a system of music education that would raise standards of musical appreciation and nurture a school of Irish composers.

Appointed music director at the Abbey Theatre in 1907, he is closely associated with Lady Gregory and W. B. Yeats, establishing a tradition of music at the theatre that delights critics. A popular myth at the time is that there are some who leave the theatre during the acts and return to enjoy Larchet’s music during the intervals. Appointed musical adviser to the army in 1923, he introduces a new philharmonic pitch, and serves as president of the Dublin Grand Opera Society for many years.

A fellow of the RIAM, Larchet also conducts the Dublin Amateur Orchestra Society, is choir master of the Jesuit church in Gardiner Street, Dublin, and organises annual orchestral concerts at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS). He is also involved in preparing a report for the commission on vocational organisation on behalf of the Musical Association of Ireland. The products of his own creative endeavour are mostly orchestral and choral works including An Ardglass Boat Song, Pádraic the Fiddler, and Diarmuid’s Lament.

Perhaps the main challenge facing Larchet in the 1920–50 period is the divide between “colonial” and “native” which has characterised the history of music in Ireland. A gentle-mannered, kindly man who is acutely aware of the lack of a national policy for music, he is a persuasive advocate of the European aesthetic and his main aim is said to have been “a reconciliation between the cultural chauvinism of Ireland as an emergent nation state and the central value (artistic as well as educational) of music as a vital dynamic in Irish cultural affairs.”

Although it can be argued that Larchet is not possessed of a uniquely original voice, with his authority coming rather from his enormous workload and his essential contribution as a teacher, it is no exaggeration to claim that the majority of Irish composers who emerge in the decades after the 1940s are influenced by his guidance, including Frank Llewellyn Harrison, Frederick May, Joan Trimble and Brian Boydell.

In addition to receiving an honorary Doctor of Music from the National University of Ireland (NUI) in 1953, Larchet is made a Commendatore of the Italian Republic.

Larchet dies in Dublin on August 10, 1967. He is survived by his wife, Madeleine Moore, a well-known musician, and their two daughters and son, also musicians. His daughter, Sheila Larchet Cuthbert, is an Irish harpist and author. She publishes The Irish Harp Book: A Tutor and Companion (Dublin, 1975).

(From: “Larchet, John Francis” by Diarmaid Ferriter, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)