seamus dubhghaill

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


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Founding of the Irish Women’s Franchise League

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The Irish Women’s Franchise League (IWFL), an organisation for women’s suffrage, is established in Dublin on November 4, 1908. Its founder members include Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and James H. Cousins. Thomas MacDonagh is also a member. The IWFL has 1,000 members by 1912 but only about fifty of these are active.

In the early 20th century, the Irish Parliamentary Party under John Redmond and his deputy John Dillon is opposed to votes for women, as is the British prime minister, H. H. Asquith.

In June 1912, after a meeting of a number of women’s organisations, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins with six other members of the IWFL smash government windows in the General Post Office (GPO) and other government buildings. They are arrested, charged, and jailed. The following month Asquith makes a visit to Dublin to address a meeting in the Theatre Royal. Frank Sheehy-Skeffington manages to gain entrance and demands votes for women before being thrown out. Meanwhile Asquith’s carriage is attacked by British suffragists Mary Leigh and Gladys Evans. In that attack John Redmond is injured. Leigh and Evans go on hunger strike in Mountjoy Gaol, and are joined by the imprisoned Irish IWFL members in solidarity.

In March 1913 a bust of John Redmond in the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is defaced by a suffragist protesting against the failure of the Irish Parliamentary Party to support a Women’s Franchise Bill in the House of Commons. In contrast, as a mark of solidarity with the women, James Connolly travels from Belfast to Dublin to speak at one of the IWFL’s weekly meetings which is held in the Phoenix Park, and members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) provide protection and offer escorts to women as they leave the meetings.

Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington loses her teaching job in 1913 when she is arrested and put in prison for three months after throwing stones at Dublin Castle. While in jail she starts a hunger strike but is released under the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge of Ill Health) Act 1913 and is soon rearrested.

The league keeps a neutral stance on Home Rule, but is opposed to World War I. After the killing of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington by a British officer in 1916, it supports Sinn Féin.

The Irish Women’s Franchise League publishes a paper, The Irish Citizen, from 1912 to 1920. The paper is edited originally by James H. Cousins.


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Birth of Conor Cruise O’Brien, Politician, Writer & Historian

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Conor Cruise O’Brien, politician, writer, historian and academic often nicknamed “The Cruiser,” is born in Rathmines, Dublin on November 3, 1917. He serves as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1973 to 1977, a Senator for University of Dublin from 1977 to 1979, a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-East constituency from 1969 to 1977 and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from January 1973 to March 1973.

Cruise O’Brien follows his cousin Owen into Sandford Park School, which has a predominantly Protestant ethos despite objections from Catholic clergy. He subsequently attends Trinity College Dublin before joining the Irish diplomatic corps.

Although he is a fierce advocate of his homeland, Cruise O’Brien is a strong critic of Irish Republican Army violence and of what he considers the romanticized desire for reunification with Northern Ireland. His collection of essays Maria Cross: Imaginative Patterns in a Group of Modern Catholic Writers (1952; written under the pseudonym Donat O’Donnell) impresses UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, who in 1961 appoints him UN special representative in the Congo, later the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He orders UN peacekeeping forces into the breakaway Katanga province, and the resulting scandal forces him out of office. Despite UN objections, he writes To Katanga and Back (1963) to explain his actions.

After serving as vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana (1962–65) and Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at New York University (1965–69), Cruise O’Brien enters Irish politics. He holds a Labour Party seat in Dáil Éireann from 1969 to 1977 and then in the Senate from 1977 to 1979, representing Trinity College, of which he is pro-chancellor (1973–2008).

In 1979 Cruise O’Brien is named editor in chief of the British Sunday newspaper The Observer, but he leaves after three tumultuous years. He remains an active newspaper columnist, especially for the Irish Independent until 2007. His books include States of Ireland (1972) and On the Eve of the Millennium (1995), as well as perceptive studies of Charles Stewart Parnell, Edmund Burke, and Thomas Jefferson.

Conor Cruise O’Brien dies at the age of 91 on December 18, 2008, in Howth, Dublin.


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Commuter Aircraft Overshoots Sligo Airport Runway

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A Euroceltic Airways commuter aircraft with 40 passengers on board, including the Irish rock band Aslan, overshoots the runway at Sligo Airport on November 2, 2002 and ends up with its nose in the sea.

Nobody is injured in the incident, which happens as the aircraft attempts to land during heavy rain. A member of the rock band Aslan, who are among the passengers on the Euroceltic Airways flight from Dublin, describes it as a “very, very frightening experience.”

Although the Fokker 27 Friendship aircraft also faces high winds as it makes the landing, the major problem seems to be due to the amount of rainwater on the runway, which is located on a coastal spit at Strandhill. According to a Euroceltic spokesman, “The pilot touched down and hit the brakes, but it aquaplaned, basically, and kept going.”

The plane crosses a short, rocky beach at the end of the runway, bursting three of its tires, before coming to a stop with its nose in the sea. The 36 passengers and four crew are safely evacuated and the plane is removed after crash inspectors examine the scene. An inquiry by the Department of Transport takes place.

Euroceltic, a Luton-based airline owned by a group from Waterford, began operating the Dublin-Sligo and Dublin-Donegal routes in the summer of 2002. The two Fokker 27 planes in use are scheduled for replacement by Fokker 50s, bought from Aer Lingus, in the weeks following the accident. However, according to the spokesman, the age of the planes, built in 1984, is not a factor in the incident. He says the pilot and co-pilot on the Sligo flight are both “very experienced.”

Aslan goes ahead with their concert in Sligo the following Saturday night despite the shock. Guitarist Billy McGuinness describes his fear as he watched the plane’s tires burst, “When I saw the sea, I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re in trouble here’.” Band members had earlier joked about the tradition of rock groups being involved in air crashes, he added.

Euroceltic flight schedules return to normal on November 4. At the time of the accident, the company also flies from Waterford to Luton and Liverpool.

(From: “Investigation under way after plane skids off Sligo runway” by Frank McNally, The Irish Times, November 4, 2002)


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Birth of Sir Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh

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Sir Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland who was the last victim of the Popish Plot, is born on November 1, 1625, in Loughcrew, County Meath, to parents of Hiberno-Norman ancestors.

Until his sixteenth year, Plunkett’s education is entrusted to his cousin Patrick Plunkett, Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, and brother of Luke Plunket, 1st Earl of Fingall, who later becomes successively Bishop of Ardagh and of Meath. As an aspirant to the priesthood, he sets out for Rome in 1647.

Plunkett is admitted to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome and proves to be an able pupil. He is ordained a priest in 1654 and deputed by the Irish bishops to act as their representative in Rome. Meanwhile, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) has defeated the Roman Catholic cause in Ireland. As a result, it is impossible for Plunkett to return to Ireland for many years, so he petitions to remain in Rome. At the Congregation of Propaganda Fide on July 9, 1669, he is appointed Archbishop of Armagh and is consecrated on November 30 at Ghent. He returns to Ireland on March 7, 1670, as the English Restoration of 1660 has begun on a basis of toleration.

Plunkett sets about reorganising the ravaged Roman Church and builds schools both for the young and for clergy. The Penal Laws have been relaxed in line with the Declaration of Breda in 1660 and he is able to establish a Jesuit College in Drogheda in 1670, which becomes the first Catholic-Protestant integrated school in Ireland.

On the enactment of the Test Act in 1673, to which Plunkett does not agree for doctrinal reasons, the college is closed and demolished. Plunkett goes into hiding, travelling only in disguise, and refuses a government edict to register at a seaport to await passage into exile.

In 1678 the so-called Popish Plot, concocted in England by clergyman Titus Oates, leads to further anti-Roman Catholic action. Archbishop Peter Talbot of Dublin is arrested, and Plunkett again goes into hiding. Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, Plunkett refuses to leave his flock.

Plunkett is arrested in Dublin in December 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin Castle. He is tried at Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. The trial soon collapses as the prosecution witnesses are themselves wanted men and afraid to appear in court. Plunkett is moved to Newgate Prison in London in order to face trial at Westminster Hall. The first grand jury finds no true bill, but he is not released. The second trial is generally regarded as a serious miscarriage of justice as Plunkett is denied defending counsel.

Archbishop Plunkett is found guilty of high treason in June 1681 “for promoting the Roman faith,” and is condemned to death. Plunkett is hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on July 1, 1681, the last Roman Catholic martyr to die in England. His body is initially buried in two tin boxes in the courtyard of St. Giles in the Fields church. The remains are exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at Lamspringe, near Hildesheim in Germany. His head is brought to Rome, and from there to Armagh, and eventually to Drogheda where it has rested in St. Peter’s Church since June 29, 1921. Most of the body is brought to Downside Abbey, England, where the major part is located today, with some parts remaining at Lamspringe.

Sir Oliver Plunkett is canonised in Rome by Pope Paul VI on October 12, 1975, the first new Irish saint in almost seven hundred years, and the first of the Irish martyrs to be beatified. For the canonisation, the customary second miracle is waived.


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Birth of William Francis Butler, Army Officer & Writer

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William Francis Butler, 19th-century British Army officer, writer, and adventurer, is born on October 31, 1838, at Ballyslatteen, Golden, County Tipperary.

Butler is the son of Richard and Ellen Butler. The great famine of 1847 and scenes of suffering and eviction are amongst his earliest recollections. He is educated chiefly by the Jesuits at Tullabeg College.

Butler enters the army as an ensign of the 69th Regiment of Foot at Fermoy Barracks in 1858, becoming captain in 1872 and major in 1874. He takes part with distinction in the Red River expedition (1870–71) and the Ashanti operations of 1873–1874 under Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley and receives the Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1874.

On June 11, 1877, Butler marries Elizabeth Thompson, an accomplished painter of battle scenes, notably The Roll Call (1874), Quatre Bras (1875), Rorke’s Drift (1881), The Camel Corps (1891), and The Dawn of Waterloo (1895). They have six children. His daughter, Elizabeth Butler, marries Lt.-Col. Randolph Albert Fitzhardinge Kingscote (1867-1940) on July 24, 1903.

Butler again serves with General Wolseley in the Anglo-Zulu War, the Battle of Tell El Kebir (after which he is made an aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria) and the Sudan in 1884–1886, being employed as colonel on the staff in 1885 and brigadier general in 1885–1886. In the latter year, he is made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. He serves as brigadier general on the staff in Egypt until 1892 when he is promoted to major general and stationed at Aldershot, subsequent to which he is given command of the South-Eastern District in March 1896.

In 1898 Butler succeeds General William Howley Goodenough as commander-in-chief in South Africa, with the local rank of lieutenant general. For a short period (December 1898 – February 1899), during the absence of Sir Alfred Milner in England, he acts as high commissioner, and as such, and subsequently in his military capacity, he expresses views on the subject of the probabilities of war which are not approved by the home government. He is consequently ordered home to command the Western District and holds this post until 1905. He also holds the Aldershot Command for a brief period from 1900 to 1901. He is promoted to lieutenant general in 1900 and continues to serve, finally leaving the King‘s service in 1905.

In October 1905, having reached the age limit of sixty-seven, Butler is placed on the retired list. The few years of life which remain to him he spends at Bansha Castle in Ireland, devoted chiefly to the cause of education. He is a frequent lecturer both in Dublin and the provinces on historical, social, and economic questions. He is known as a Home Ruler and an admirer of Charles Stewart Parnell. He is a member of the Senate of the National University of Ireland, and a commissioner of the Board of National Education. In June 1906, he is appointed Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and in 1909 he is made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland.

William Butler dies at Bansha Castle in Bansha, County Tipperary, on June 10, 1910, and is buried at the cemetery of Killaldriffe, a few miles distant and not far from his ancestral home.

Butler had long been known as a descriptive writer, since his publication of The Great Lone Land (1872) and other works and he was the biographer (1899) of Sir George Pomeroy Colley. He had started work on his autobiography a few years before his death but died before it was completed. His youngest daughter, Eileen, Viscountess Gormanston, completes the work and has it published in 1911.

(Pictured: William Francis Butler, Source: Archives of Manitoba, Personalities – Butler, W. F. 1, N10492)


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Birth of Sir Richard Quain, Physician to Queen Victoria

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Sir Richard Quain, physician to Queen Victoria, is born in Mallow, County Cork on October 30, 1816.

Quain is the eldest child of John Quain of Carraig Dhúin (Carrigoon), Cork and Mary, daughter of Michael Burke of Mallow, Cork. He is sent to the Diocesan School at Cloyne for his early education and then, at age 15, apprentices to the surgeon-apothecary Fraser in Limerick for five years. In 1837 he enrolls in medicine at the University College London, where his cousins, Jones Quain (1796–1865), the anatomist, and Richard Quain, FRCS, hold teaching posts. He graduates M.B. with honours in 1840.

In 1842, Quain receives the gold medal for achievements in physiology and comparative anatomy, and later he becomes successively house surgeon and house physician at the University College Hospital and commences practice in London, being in particular a protégé of Professor Charles James Blasius Williams (1805–1889). He soon has a busy practice, numbering an important clientele, with contacts to the most highly recognised persons.

Quain is chosen in 1846 to be an assistant-physician to the Brompton Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. He retains his connection with that institution until his death, first as full physician (1855), and subsequently as consulting physician (1875). He holds the same rank at the Seamen’s Hospital, Greenwich, and the Royal Hospital for Consumption in Ventnor.

Also in 1846, Quain becomes a member of the Royal College of Physicians and a fellow in 1851. In 1850, he vacates the Chair of Anatomy at the University College London and is succeeded by George Viner Ellis. He is an early member of the Pathological Society of London in 1862, being elected its president in 1869. He is also a fellow and vice-president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society and the Medical Society of London, as well as President of the Harveian Society of London (1853) and fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1871.

In 1881, Quain is asked by Queen Victoria to attend prime minister Benjamin Disraeli during his last few days. In 1890, he becomes physician-extraordinary to the Queen and is created a baronet of Harley Street in the County of London and of Carrigoon in Mallow in the County of Cork, in the following year.

Quain is the author of several memoirs, dealing for the most part with disorders of the heart, but his name will be best remembered by the Dictionary of Medicine, the preparation of which occupies him from 1875 to 1882 (2nd edition, 1894; 3rd, 1902).

Sir Richard Quain dies at the age of 81 on March 13, 1898.


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Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Clair” Reaches No. 1 in UK Singles Chart

claire-gilbert-o-sullivanIrish-English singer-songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan reaches No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart on October 29, 1972 with “Clair,” one of his biggest selling singles, from the album Back to Front. The song is written by O’Sullivan and produced by Gordon Mills.

“Clair” is the love song of a close family friend who babysits a young girl (actually the artist’s manager’s daughter), though for the first part of the song, the ambiguous text leads one to think that it is from one adult to another. The brief instrumental introduction is the sound of O’Sullivan whistling, before he comes in. The real Clair is the three-year-old daughter of O’Sullivan’s producer-manager, Gordon Mills and his wife, the model Jo Waring. The little girl’s giggling is heard at the end of the song. The “Uncle Ray” mentioned in the song is O’Sullivan himself, a reference to his real name of Raymond O’Sullivan. The instrumental break in the middle section is done half a step up from A to B-Flat, before going back to A.

“Clair” is the number one single in the UK Singles Chart for two weeks and number one in Canada on the RPM 100 national singles chart. In late December, it peaks at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, behind both “Me and Mrs. Jones” by Billy Paul and “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon. “Clair” is also O’Sullivan’s second and last number one hit on the United States Easy Listening chart, after “Alone Again (Naturally).”


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Birth of Figurative Painter Francis Bacon

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Francis Bacon, Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, emotionally charged and raw imagery, is born in Dublin on October 28, 1909.

Bacon is best known for his depictions of popes, crucifixions and portraits of close friends. His abstracted figures are typically isolated in geometrical cage like spaces, set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. Bacon says that he sees images “in series,” and his work typically focuses on a single subject for sustained periods, often in triptych or diptych formats. His output can be broadly described as sequences or variations on a single motif, beginning with the 1930s Pablo Picasso-informed Furies, moving on to the 1940s male heads isolated in rooms or geometric structures, the 1950s screaming popes, and the mid-to-late 1950s animals and lone figures, the 1960s portraits of friends, the nihilistic 1970s self-portraits, and the cooler more technical 1980s late works.

Bacon takes up painting in his late 30s, having drifted as an interior decorator, bon vivant and gambler. He says that his artistic career was delayed because he spent too long looking for subject matter that could sustain his interest. His breakthrough comes with the 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, which seals his reputation as a uniquely bleak chronicler of the human condition. From the mid-1960s he mainly produces portraits of friends and drinking companions, either as single or triptych panels. Following the 1971 suicide of his lover, George Dyer, his art becomes more sombre, inward-looking and preoccupied with the passage of time and death. The climax of this later period is marked by masterpieces, including Study for Self-Portrait (1982) and Study for a Self-Portrait—Triptych, 1985–86.

Despite his bleak existentialist outlook, solidified in the public mind through his articulate and vivid series of interviews with David Sylvester, Bacon in person is highly engaging and charismatic, articulate, well-read and unapologetically gay. He is a prolific artist, but nonetheless spends many of the evenings of his middle age eating, drinking and gambling in London‘s Soho with like-minded friends such as Lucian Freud, John Deakin, Muriel Belcher, Henrietta Moraes, Daniel Farson, Tom Baker, and Jeffrey Bernard.

After Dyer’s suicide he largely distances himself from this circle, and while his social life is still active and his passion for gambling and drinking continues, he settles into a platonic and somewhat fatherly relationship with his eventual heir, John Edwards. The art critic Robert Hughes describes him as “the most implacable, lyric artist in late 20th-century England, perhaps in all the world” and along with Willem de Kooning as “the most important painter of the disquieting human figure in the 50’s of the 20th century.” Bacon is the subject of two Tate retrospectives and a major showing in 1971 at the Grand Palais.

While on holiday in Madrid in 1992, Francis Bacon is admitted to the Handmaids of Maria, a private clinic, where he is cared for by Sister Mercedes. His chronic asthma, which has plagued him all his life, has developed into a respiratory condition and he is unable to talk or breathe very well. He dies of a heart attack on April 28, 1992, after attempts to resuscitate him fail.

Bacon bequeaths his estate, then valued at £11 million, to John Edwards and Brian Clark, executors. In 1998 the director of the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin secures the donation of the contents of Bacon’s chaotic studio at 7 Reece Mews, South Kensington. The contents of his studio are moved and reconstructed in the gallery. Most of his works remain in the Hugh Lane in Dublin today.

Since his death his reputation and market value have grown steadily, and his work is among the most acclaimed, expensive and sought-after. In the late 1990s a number of major works, previously assumed destroyed, including early 1950s popes and 1960s portraits, reemerge to set record prices at auction. In 2013 his Three Studies of Lucian Freud sets the world record as the most expensive piece of art sold at auction.


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The End of the Siege of Limerick

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An alliance of Irish Confederate Catholics and English Royalists led by Hugh Dubh O’Neill surrender to Henry Ireton on October 27, 1651 after a protracted and bitter siege of Limerick during the Irish Confederate Wars.

By 1650, The Irish Confederates and their English Royalist allies have been driven out of eastern Ireland by the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. They occupy a defensive position behind the River Shannon, of which Limerick is the southern stronghold. Oliver Cromwell himself had left Ireland in May 1650, delegating his command of the English Parliamentarian forces to Henry Ireton. Ireton moves his forces north from Munster to besiege Limerick in October 1650. The weather, however, is increasingly wet and cold and Ireton is forced to abandon the siege before the onset of winter.

Ireton returns the following June with 8,000 men, 28 siege artillery pieces and four mortars. He then summons Hugh Dubh O’Neill, the Irish commander of Limerick, to surrender but is refused. The siege is on.

Limerick in 1651 is split into two sections, English town and Irish town, which are separated by the Abbey River. English town, which contained the citadel of King John’s Castle, is encircled by water and known as King’s Island. Thomond bridge is the only entrance onto the island and is fortified with bastioned earthworks. Irish town is more vulnerable, but is also more heavily fortified. Its medieval walls have been buttressed by 20 feet of earth. In addition, Irish town has a series of bastions along its walls, mounted with cannon covering its approaches. The biggest of these bastions are at St. John’s Gate and Mungret gate.

Due to Limerick’s fortification, Ireton does not risk an assault on its walls. Instead he secures the approaches to the city, cuts off its supplies and builds artillery earthworks to bombard the defenders. His troops take the fort at Thomond bridge, but the Irish destroy the bridge itself, denying the Parliamentarians land access to English town. Ireton then tries an amphibious attack on the city, which is initially successful, but O’Neill’s men counterattack and beat them off. After this failed attack, Ireton resolves to starve the city into submission and builds two forts on nearby Singland Hill. An Irish attempt to relieve the city from the south is routed at the battle of Knocknaclashy. O’Neill’s only hope is to hold out until bad weather and hunger force Ireton to lift the siege. O’Neill tries to send the town’s old men, women and children out of the city so that his supplies will last a little longer. However, Ireton’s men kill 40 of these civilians and send the rest back into Limerick.

O’Neill comes under pressure from the town’s mayor and civilian population to surrender. The town’s garrison and civilians suffer terribly from hunger and disease. Ireton finds a weak point in the defenses of Irish town and knocks a breach in them, opening the prospect of an all out assault. Eventually, in October 1651, six months after the siege had started, part of Limerick’s garrison mutiny and turn some cannon inwards, threatening to fire on O’Neill’s men unless they surrender. Hugh Dubh O’Neill surrenders Limerick on October 27. The inhabitants lives and property are respected, but they are warned that they could be evicted in the future.

The garrison is allowed to march to Galway, which is still holding out, but has to leave their weapons behind. However, the lives of the civilian and military leaders of Limerick are excepted from the terms of surrender. Catholic Bishop Terence Albert O’Brien, an Alderman and the English Royalist officer Colonel Fennell are hanged. O’Neill is also sentenced to death, but is reprieved by the Parliamentarian commander Edmund Ludlow and imprisoned instead in London. Former mayor Dominic Fanning is drawn, quartered, and decapitated, with his head mounted over St. John’s Gate.

(Pictured: King John’s Castle on King John’s Island, Limerick)


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Death of Margaret Brown, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”

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Margaret Brown (née Tobin), an American socialite and philanthropist posthumously known as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”, dies in New York City on October 26, 1932. She is best remembered for unsuccessfully encouraging the crew in Lifeboat No. 6 to return to the debris field of the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic to look for survivors. During her lifetime, her friends called her “Maggie”, but even by her death, obituaries refer to her as the “Unsinkable Mrs. Brown.” The reference is further reinforced by a 1960 Broadway musical based on her life and its 1964 film adaptation which are both entitled The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Tobin is born in a hospital near the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri, on what is now known as Denkler’s alley. Her parents are Irish Catholic immigrants. At age 18, she relocates to Leadville, Colorado, with her siblings Daniel Tobin, Mary Ann Collins Landrigan and Mary Ann’s husband John Landrigan. Margaret and her brother Daniel share a two-room log cabin and she finds a job in a department store.

In Leadville, she meets and marries James Joseph “J.J.” Brown (1854–1922), an enterprising, self-educated man, in Leadville’s Annunciation Church on September 1, 1886. They have two children.

The Brown family acquires great wealth when in 1893 J.J.’s mining engineering efforts prove instrumental in the production of a substantial ore seam at the Little Jonny Mine of his employers, Ibex Mining Company, and he is awarded 12,500 shares of stock and a seat on the board. In Leadville, Margaret helps by working in soup kitchens to assist miners’ families.

In 1894, the Browns purchase a $30,000 Victorian mansion in Denver and in 1897 they build a summer house, Avoca Lodge in Southwest Denver near Bear Creek, which gives the family more social opportunities. Margaret becomes a charter member of the Denver Woman’s Club, whose mission is the improvement of women’s lives by continuing education and philanthropy. After 23 years of marriage, Margaret and J.J. privately sign a separation agreement in 1909. Although they never reconcile, they continue to communicate and care for each other throughout their lives.

Brown spends the first months of 1912 traveling in Egypt as part of the John Jacob Astor IV party, until she receives word from Denver that her eldest grandchild, Lawrence Palmer Brown Jr., is seriously ill. She immediately books passage on the first available liner leaving for New York, the RMS Titanic. Originally her daughter Helen is supposed to accompany her, but she decides to stay on in Paris, where she is studying at the Sorbonne.

The RMS Titanic sinks in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg. Brown helps others board the lifeboats but is finally persuaded to leave the ship in Lifeboat No. 6. Brown is later called “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” by authors because she helps in the ship’s evacuation, taking an oar herself in her lifeboat and urging that the lifeboat go back and save more people. After several attempts to urge Quartermaster Robert Hichens to turn back, she threatens to throw him overboard. Sources vary as to whether the boat goes back and if they find anyone alive. Brown’s efforts seal her place in history, regardless.

Upon being rescued by the RMS Carpathia, Brown proceeds to organize a survivors’ committee with other first-class survivors. The committee works to secure basic necessities for the second- and third-class survivors and even provides informal counseling.

Brown runs for the United States Senate in 1914 but ends her campaign to return to France to work with the American Committee for Devastated France during World War I.

During the last years of her life, Brown is an actress. She dies in her sleep on October 26, 1932, at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City, New York. Subsequent autopsy reveals a brain tumor. She is buried on October 31 alongside her husband in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, New York, following a small ceremony attended only by family members. There is no eulogy.