seamus dubhghaill

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


by Leave a comment

Birth of Pat Rabbitte, Labour Party Politician

pat-rabbitte

Patrick Brendan Rabbitte, former Labour Party politician, is born near Claremorris, County Mayo on May 18, 1949. He serves as Minister of State for Commerce, Science and Technology from 1994 to 1997, Leader of the Labour Party from 2002 to 2007 and Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources from 2011 to 2014. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South-West constituency from 1989 to 2016.

Rabbitte is raised in Woodstock, Ballindine, County Mayo. He is educated locally at St. Colman’s College, Claremorris before emigrating to Britain to find employment. He returns shortly afterward to attend University College Galway (UCG) where he studies Arts and Law.

Rabbitte becomes involved in electoral politics for the first time in late 1982, when he unsuccessfully contests Dublin South-West for the Workers’ Party (WP) at the November general election. He is elected to Dublin County Council in 1985. He enters Dáil Éireann as a Workers’ Party Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin South-West at the 1989 election. He retains his seat at every election until 2016.

After Tomás Mac Giolla‘s retirement as President of the Workers’ Party in 1988, Rabbitte is seen as one of those who wants to move the party away from its hard left position. In 1992, he plays a prominent role with Proinsias De Rossa in an attempt to jettison some of the party’s harder left positions. This eventually splits the Workers’ Party.

In 1994, a new ‘Rainbow Coalition’ government of Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Democratic Left comes to power. Rabbitte is a member of the junior ministerial team, serving as Minister of State to the Government, as well as Minister for State at the Department of Enterprise and Employment with responsibility for Commerce, Science and Technology.

Following the 1997 general election the Rainbow Coalition loses power. The following year sees a merger between the Labour Party and Democratic Left, with Rabbitte participating in the negotiations. In October 2002 he succeeds Ruairi Quinn as the new leader of the Labour Party. Under his leadership the party makes some gains in the local elections of 2004.

The Labour Party agrees to enter a pre-election pact, commonly known as ‘The Mullingar Accord,’ with Fine Gael in an attempt to offer the electorate an alternative coalition government at the 2007 general election. This move causes some tension in the parliamentary party, as some members prefer not to be aligned with any party in advance of an election.

Following the disappointing result in the election for Labour, Rabbitte announces he is stepping down as leader on August 23, 2007. He is succeeded as party leader by Eamon Gilmore. Rabbitte is re-elected on the first count in the 2011 general election. His running mate Eamonn Maloney is also elected. On March 9, 2011, he is appointed as Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

In July 2014, Rabbitte is replaced by Alex White as part of a reshuffle of the cabinet. He does not contest the 2016 general election.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Andrea Corr, Musician & Songwriter

andrea-jane-corr

Andrea Jane Corr MBE, Irish musician, songwriter, and actress, is born in Dundalk, County Louth on May 17, 1974.

Corr, the youngest of four children, is born to Gerry Corr, a manager of the payroll department of the Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB), and his wife, Jean, a housewife. Gerry and Jean have their own band, Sound Affair, which plays songs by ABBA and the Eagles in local pubs in Dundalk where they would often bring along their children.

With the encouragement of her parents, Corr takes up the tin whistle and is taught the piano by her father. Throughout their teenage years, she and her siblings often practise in her brother Jim‘s bedroom at a house he had rented. She sings lead vocals; her sister Sharon plays the violin and sister Caroline and Jim both play keyboards. She takes part in school plays at her school, Dundalk’s Dún Lughaidh Convent.

Corr debuts in 1990 as the lead singer of the Celtic folk rock and pop rock group The Corrs along with her three siblings. Aside from singing lead vocals she plays the tin whistle, the ukulele, and the piano.

With the others, Corr releases six studio albums, two compilation albums, one remix album and two live albums. She also pursues a solo career, releasing her debut album, Ten Feet High, in 2007. The album moves away from the sound of the Corrs and features a dance-pop sound. Her next album, released on May 30, 2011, is entirely made up of covers of songs that were important to her when younger.

Corr is involved in charitable activities. She plays charity concerts to raise money for the Pavarotti & Friends Liberian Children’s Village, Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the victims of the Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland and The Prince’s Trust in 2004. She is an ambassador for Nelson Mandela‘s “46664” campaign, raising awareness towards AIDS in Africa. During the Edinburgh Live 8 on July 2, 2005, The Corrs perform “When the Stars Go Blue” alongside Bono to promote the Make Poverty History campaign. Along with her siblings, she is appointed an honorary MBE in 2005 by Queen Elizabeth II for her contribution to music and charity.


by Leave a comment

Real IRA Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization

real-irish-republican-army

On May 16, 2001, the United States Department of State designates the Real Irish Republican Army, a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) charged with killing 29 people in the August 1998 Omagh bombing, as a “foreign terrorist organisation,” a legal term that brings financial and other sanctions. Under U.S. law, any assets the Real IRA has in the United States are frozen, it is illegal to support the organization, and Real IRA members are not eligible for U.S. visas.

The Real IRA broke off from the main Irish Republican Army and its political wing Sinn Féin in 1998 to oppose the decision by Sinn Féin to support the Northern Ireland peace process and work to end 30 years of fighting in Northern Ireland.

As a result of the FTO designation many activities, including fund-raising, of the Real IRA or its two so-called “front groups” or “political pressure groups” — the “32 County Sovereignty Movement” and the “Irish Republican Prisoner Welfare Association” — are now illegal.

A senior State Department official notes that this is the first time a group with “heavy ties” to the United States, with sympathizers and supporters coming from the United States, has been designated as a terrorist organization. But, in the words of this official, the “British and Irish government publicly asked us to look into this.” The “rigorous” review, begun in the fall of 2000, included volumes of evidence and was an inner-agency process that required the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State.

A second State Department official points out that Irish nationalists have typically received the most support from South Boston, New York City and Chicago, where there are heavy concentrations of Irish Americans.

According to the State Department Patterns of Global Terrorism report in 2000, the Real IRA was formed in February-March 1998, has between 150-200 hard-line members and is dedicated to removing British forces from Northern Ireland and unifying Ireland.

The State Department report goes on to accuse the Real IRA of carrying out the bombing of Hammersmith Bridge and a rocket attack against Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) headquarters in London in 2000.

State Department officials say they absolutely anticipate the Real IRA to challenge the FTO designation in court. The designation comes as the Irish Republic prepares to prosecute Michael McKevitt, the Real IRA’s alleged leader.

Other designated FTOs include 29 organizations: the Abu Nidal Organization, the Abu Sayyaf group, the Palestinian Liberation Front, Al-Qaeda and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, to name a few.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Proinsias De Rossa, Labour Party Politician

File source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Proinsias_De_Rossa.jpg

Proinsias De Rossa, former Irish Labour Party politician, is born in Dublin on May 15, 1940. He serves as Minister for Social Welfare from 1994 to 1997, leader of Democratic Left from 1992 to 1999 and leader of the Workers’ Party from 1988 to 1992. He serves as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency from 1989 to 1992 and 1999 to 2012. He is a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency from 1989 to 2002.

Born as Francis Ross, he is educated at Marlborough Street National School and Dublin Institute of Technology. He joins Fianna Éireann at age 12. Soon after his sixteenth birthday he joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and is politically active in Sinn Féin from an early age. During the IRA Border Campaign, he is arrested while training other IRA members in Glencree in May 1956. He serves seven months in Mountjoy Prison and is then interned at the Curragh Camp.

De Rossa takes the Official Sinn Féin side in the 1970 split. In 1977, he contests his first general election for the party. He is successful on his third attempt and is elected at the February 1982 general election as a Sinn Féin TD for the Dublin North-West constituency. He retains his seat until the 2002 general election when he stands down in order to devote more time to his work in the European Parliament.

In 1988, De Rossa succeeds Tomás Mac Giolla as president of the Workers’ Party. The party had been growing steadily in the 1980s and has its best-ever electoral performance in the general and European elections held in 1989. The party wins 7 Dáil seats with 5% of the vote. De Rossa himself is elected to the European Parliament for the Dublin constituency, where he tops the poll, and the party almost succeeds in replacing Fine Gael as the capital’s second-largest party. However, the campaign results in a serious build-up of financial debt by the Workers’ Party, which threatens to greatly inhibit the party’s ability to ensure it will hold on to its gains.

Long-standing tensions within the Workers’ Party come to a head in 1992. Disagreements on policy issues are exacerbated by the desire of the reformers to ditch the democratic centralist nature of the party structures, and to remove any remaining questions about alleged party links with the Official IRA. De Rossa calls a special Ardfheis to debate changes to the constitution. The motion fails to get the required two-thirds majority, and subsequently he leads the majority of the parliamentary group and councillors out of a meeting of the party’s Central Executive Committee the following Saturday, splitting the party.

De Rossa and the other former Workers’ Party members then establish a new political party, provisionally called New Agenda. At its founding conference in March 1992, it is named Democratic Left and De Rossa is elected party leader. Later that year he resigns his European Parliament seat, in favour of Democratic Left general secretary Des Geraghty.

Following the collapse of the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party coalition government in 1994, Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left negotiate a government programme for the remaining life of the 27th Dáil, which becomes known as the “Rainbow Coalition.” De Rossa becomes Minister for Social Welfare, initiating Ireland’s first national anti-poverty strategy, a commission on the family, and a commission to examine national pension policy.

The 1997 general election results in the defeat of the outgoing coalition. At this point, Democratic Left, having accumulated significant, merges with the Labour Party. Labour leader Ruairi Quinn becomes leader of the unified party. De Rossa takes up the symbolic post of party president, which he holds until 2002.

In 1999, De Rossa is elected at the European Parliament election for the Dublin constituency. He is re-elected at the 2004 European Parliament election. He does not contest his Dáil seat at the 2002 general election.

As a member of the European Parliament, De Rossa takes a strong pro-integration approach from a distinctly social democratic perspective, as well as a keen interest in foreign policy and social policy. He is a member of the European Convention which produces the July 2003 draft European constitution. He is chair of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council, a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Conference of Delegation Chairs, and a substitute member of the Committee on Development and the delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.

On January 16, 2012, De Rossa announces his decision to resign as an MEP and steps down on February 1.


by Leave a comment

Charles II Proclaimed King of Ireland

charles-ii

King Charles II is proclaimed king in Dublin on May 14, 1660, six days after London, thus ending Oliver Cromwell’s reign as Lord Protector and beginning a brief and limited Catholic Restoration.

The Restoration of the monarchy begins in 1660. The Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland (1649–60) result from the Wars of the Three Kingdoms but collapse in 1659. Politicians such as General George Monck try to ensure a peaceful transition of government from the “Commonwealth” republic back to monarchy. From May 1, 1660 the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies are all restored under King Charles II. The term Restoration may apply both to the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and to the period immediately before and after the event.

With the collapse of The Protectorate in England during May 1659 the republic which had been forced upon Ireland by Oliver Cromwell quickly begins to unravel.

Royalists plan an uprising in Ireland and seek to turn Henry Cromwell and Lord Broghill, who is in contact with the King’s court in the summer of 1659, towards the cause but the plan comes to aught. Henry Cromwell leaves Ireland in June 1659. Broghill shows reluctance to declare for the King, but nevertheless republicans are suspicious of him following George Booth‘s revolt in England in 1659.

Sir Theophilus Jones, a former soldier under Charles I of Ireland and governor of Dublin during the republic, seizes Dublin Castle with a group of officers and declares for Parliament. Acting in Charles II’s interest, Sir Charles Coote seizes Galway while Lord Broghill holds firm in Munster. On January 9, 1660 a council of officers declare Edmund Ludlow a traitor and he flees to England. The regicide Hardress Waller re-takes Dublin Castle in February 1660 but with little support he surrenders to Sir Charles Coote. Waller along with fellow regicide John Cook is arrested and sent to England. The officers in Dublin support General Monck.

The army is purged of radicals and a Convention Parliament is called. Coote seeks to move the Convention Parliament towards restoration, but his rival Broghill does not openly declare for the King until May 1660.

In February 1660 Coote sends a representative to King Charles II in the Netherlands and invites him to make an attempt on Ireland, but the King regards it as inexpedient to try to reclaim Ireland before England. At the same time Broghill sends his brother to invite the King to land at Cork. In March 1660 a document is published asking for the King’s return, “begged for his forgiveness, but stipulated for a general indemnity and the payment of army arrears.”

Following events in England, Charles is proclaimed King of Ireland in Dublin on May 14 without any dissent. The Irish Royal Army is reestablished.

After 1660, the commonwealth parliamentary union is treated as null and void. As in England the republic is deemed constitutionally never to have occurred. The Convention Parliament is dissolved by Charles II in January 1661, and he summons his first parliament in Ireland in May 1661.

(Pictured: Charles II in Garter robes by John Michael Wright or studio, c. 1660–1665)


by Leave a comment

Death of Broadcaster Derek Davis

derek-davis

Irish broadcaster Derek Davis dies in Dublin on May 13, 2015. On television, he co-hosts Live at 3, presents Davis at Large and Out of the Blue and wins Celebrity Bainisteoir.

Davis is born on April 26, 1948, in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland to a Protestant father and a Roman Catholic mother. He attends St. MacNissi’s College, a Catholic boarding school in County Antrim and describes his early childhood life as ecumenical. During his childhood he acquires a love of boats which later provide the inspiration for the TV series Out of the Blue.

Davis starts as a news reporter with the American network ABC and BBC Northern Ireland before spending 11 years in the newsroom at RTÉ. In the early 1980s he becomes a newsreader for The Six-o-clock News and begins to become well-known due to his sometimes-off-the-cuff comments on news stories.

Davis impersonates Big Tom on the RTÉ satirical programme Hall’s Pictorial Weekly and, as a result, is offered a part in a showband in Cork. After a ballroom tour, he joins RTÉ proper in 1975, initially to work as a television news reporter, eventually becoming newsreader on the nine o’clock news. In the mid-1980s, he hosts his own talk show, Davis at Large. It is on this show, which is screened live, that he is attacked and hurled across the studio by a guest female body builder. In addition to this he has an interactive summer current affairs show, simply called Davis. In 1986, he begins co-hosting (with Thelma Mansfield) RTÉ 1’s afternoon programme Live at 3, a role he fills for eleven years.

Davis presents the Rose of Tralee twice in 1995 and 1996, the first of these when Gay Byrne is taken ill at short notice. He memorably thanks the providers of the air conditioning while wiping sweat from his brow. Live at 3 comes to an end in 1997. Davis returns to the screen in the late 1990s with a marine programme devoted to boats and the waters around Ireland called Out of the Blue, which runs for four series, the last of which is broadcast in 2001.

In 2000, Davis presents a radio quiz show called A Question of Food. During the summer season he takes over RTÉ Radio 1‘s mid-morning slot usually occupied by Today with Pat Kenny, and he also hosts the radio phone-in show, Liveline, when regular presenter Joe Duffy is on holiday. Later, he presents Sunday Magazine with Davis on 4 on 4fm.

In 2005, Davis hosts a show called Time on Their Hands, a travel series for older people. One of his last television appearances is on the second season of Celebrity Bainisteoir in 2009, in which he and seven other Irish celebrities manage an intermediate Gaelic football club team from their home county in an official GAA tournament. Davis’s team wins the tournament.

During the 2010s, Davis makes frequent guest appearances on TV3‘s Tonight with Vincent Browne, where he and another guest preview the following morning’s papers.

After a short illness Derek Davis dies on May 13, 2015, at the age of 67. His funeral takes place in the Victorian Chapel, Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium in Harold’s Cross, Dublin.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Gabriel Byrne, Actor, Director & Producer

gabriel-james-byrne

Gabriel James Byrne, internationally acclaimed actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator, is born in Dublin on May 12, 1950.

Byrne is the first of six children. His father is a cooper and his mother a hospital worker. He is raised Catholic and educated by the Irish Christian Brothers. He spends five years of his childhood in a seminary training to be a Catholic priest. He later says, “I spent five years in the seminary, and I suppose it was assumed that you had a vocation. I have realized subsequently that I didn’t have one at all. I don’t believe in God. But I did believe at the time in this notion that you were being called.” He attends University College Dublin (UCD), where he studies archeology and linguistics, and becomes proficient in the Irish language. He plays football in Dublin with the Stella Maris Football Club.

Byrne works in archeology after he leaves UCD but maintains his love of his language, writing Draíocht (Magic), the first drama in Irish on Ireland’s national Irish television station, TG4, in 1996.

He discovers his acting ability as a young adult. Before that he works at several occupations which include being an archaeologist, a cook, a bullfighter, and a Spanish schoolteacher. He begins acting when he is 29 years old. He begins on stage at the Focus Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, later joining the Royal Court Theatre and the Royal National Theatre in London.

Byrne comes to prominence on the final season of the Irish television show The Riordans, later starring in the spin-off series, Bracken. He makes his film début in 1981 as Lord Uther Pendragon in John Boorman‘s King Arthur epic, Excalibur.

Byrne does not visit the United States until he is 37 years old. In 1988, he married actress Ellen Barkin with whom he has two children. The couple separates amicably in 1993 and divorce in 1999.

In November 2004, Byrne is appointed a UNICEF Ireland Ambassador. In 2007 he is presented with the first of the newly created Volta awards at the 5th Jameson Dublin International Film Festival for his lifetime achievement in acting. He also receives the Honorary Patronage of the University Philosophical Society, of Trinity College Dublin on February 20, 2007. He is awarded an honorary degree in late 2007 by the National University of Ireland, Galway, in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to Irish and international film.”

Byrne is featured as therapist Dr. Paul Weston in the critically acclaimed HBO series In Treatment (2008). In his return to theater in 2008, Byrne appears as King Arthur in Alan Lerner and Frederick Loewe‘s Camelot with the New York Philharmonic which is featured in a PBS broadcast in the Live From Lincoln Center series in May of 2008.

Byrne currently resides in Manhattan, New York.

(From IMDb Mini Biography by Bernie Corrigan)


by Leave a comment

Caroline Casey Completes 4-month Elephant Ride Across India

caroline-caseyVisually-impaired Irish adventurer, activist and management consultant Caroline Casey arrives back in Dublin on May 11, 2001 after a four-month elephant ride across India during which she raises €250k for charity.

Casey, born in 1971, is diagnosed with ocular albinism as a child but is not personally informed until her 17th birthday. She graduates from University College Dublin with BA, DBS and MBS degrees. She works at a couple of jobs including as a management consultant for Accenture.

In 2000, at the age of 28, Casey leaves her job at Accenture to launch the Aisling Foundation, with an aim to improve how disability is treated. In early 2001, she begins her solo trek across India on elephant back. She travels approximately 1,000 km and raises €250k for The National Council for the Blind of Ireland and Sightsavers. She becomes the first female mahout from the west. The journey is the subject of a National Geographic documentary Elephant Vision and a TED Talk.

Then, as founding CEO of Kanchi in Dublin, Casey develops a set of best practices for businesses, to help them see “disabled” workers as an asset, as opposed to a liability. Hundreds of companies have adopted these standards, changing their policies and attitudes. In 2004, she starts the Ability Awards, sponsored by O2, to recognize Irish businesses for their inclusion of people with disabilities, as employees, suppliers, customers and members of the community. The initiative receives great international praise and, in 2010, a parallel program is launched in Spain, backed by Telefónica.

In 2015 Casey founds business inclusion company Binc which, in August 2017, launches #valuable – a worldwide call to action for business to recognise the value and potential of the 1 billion people living with a disability and position disability equally on the global business agenda. To start the conversation and build momentum, Casey embarks on a 1,000km horse adventure through Colombia, ending with a keynote address at “One Young World Summit 2017” in Bogotá.


by Leave a comment

Birth of James Shields, U.S. Politician & Army Officer

james-shields

James Shields, Irish American Democratic politician and United States Army officer, is born in Altmore, County Tyrone, in what is now Northern Ireland, on May 10, 1806. He is the only person in U.S. history to serve as a Senator for three different states. He represents Illinois from 1849 to 1855, in the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd Congresses, Minnesota from 1858 to 1859, in the 35th Congress, and Missouri in 1879, in the 45th Congress.

Born and initially educated in Ireland, Shields emigrates to the United States in 1826. He is briefly a sailor and spends time in Quebec before settling in Kaskaskia, Illinois, where he studies and practices law. In 1836, he is elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, and later as State Auditor. His work as auditor is criticized by a young Abraham Lincoln, who with his then fiancée, Mary Todd, publishes a series of inflammatory pseudonymous letters in a local paper. Shields challenges Lincoln to a duel, and the two nearly fight on September 22, 1842, before making peace and eventually becoming friends.

In 1845, Shields is appointed to the Supreme Court of Illinois, from which he resigns to become Commissioner of the U.S. General Land Office. At the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, he leaves the Land Office to take an appointment as brigadier general of volunteers. He serves with distinction and is twice wounded.

In 1848, Shields is appointed to and confirmed by the Senate as the first governor of the Oregon Territory, which he declines. After serving as Senator from Illinois, he moves to Minnesota and there founds the town of Shieldsville. He is then elected as Senator from Minnesota. He serves in the American Civil War and, at the Battle of Kernstown, his troops inflict the only tactical defeat of Stonewall Jackson in the war. He resigns his commission shortly thereafter. After moving multiple times, he settles in Missouri and serves again for three months in the Senate.

Shields dies unexpectedly in Ottumwa, Iowa on June 1, 1879, while on a lecture tour, after reportedly complaining of chest pains. His body is transferred to Carrollton, Missouri by train, where a funeral is held at the Catholic church, and his body escorted to St. Mary’s Cemetery by two companies of the Nineteenth Infantry, the Craig Rifles, and a twenty-piece brass band. His grave remains unmarked for 30 years, until the local government and the U.S. Congress fund a granite and bronze monument there in his honor.

A bronze statue of Shields is given by the State of Illinois to the United States Capitol in 1893 and represents the state in the National Statuary Hall. The statue is sculpted by Leonard Volk and dedicated in December 1893. Statues of Shields also stand in front of the Carroll County Court House in Carrollton, Missouri and on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Mary Hayden, Historian & Activist

mary-hayden

Mary Teresa Hayden, Irish historian, Irish language activist and campaigner for women’s causes, is born in Dublin on May 9, 1862.

Hayden is educated initially at the Dominican College, Eccles Street and then at Alexandra College in Dublin. She attends the Royal University of Ireland where she graduates with a BA in 1885 and an MA in 1887 in Modern Languages. With Agnes O’Farrelly she campaigns for women’s rights in the university.

A campaigner for gender equality and noted as a public speaker, Hayden is a prominent member of the Irish Women’s Suffrage and Local Government Association. She is a member of the Gaelic League and friends with Patrick Pearse. However, she opposes violence and disapproves of the 1916 Easter Rising.

In 1911 Hayden is elected to the senate of the National University of Ireland and in 1915 is appointed Professor of History at University College Dublin, a position she retains until her death.

Hayden helps to form the Women’s Social and Progressive League as a political party committed to opposing the 1937 constitution of Ireland and any regressive consequences it would entail. She opposes articles 40, 41, and 45 concerning the status of women.

Mary Hayden dies in Dublin on July 12, 1942.