Perceval-Maxwell is born in 1870, the only son of John Perceval-Maxwell, eldest son of Robert Perceval-Maxwell DL (1813–1905), of Finnebrogue House, Downpatrick, County Down.
Perceval-Maxwell is educated at Eton College. He plays a significant part in the raising of the 36th (Ulster) Division on the outbreak of World War I. He is commissioned Major in the 13th (County Down) Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, which he had raised, in September 1914, and is appointed second-in-command in December 1914. He is promoted to the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and commands a battalion from November 1916 and commands a battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers from May 1918. He is seriously wounded during the war. He resigns his commission in January 1919.
He is appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland in the honours for the opening of the Parliament of Northern Ireland in July 1921, entitling him to the style “The Right Honourable.” He serves in the Northern Ireland Senate from 1921 to 1925.
In 1895, Perceval-Maxwell marries Edith Grace Head. They have five sons: John Robert Perceval-Maxwell (born 1896), Richard Henry (born 1897, killed in action in 1916), Patrick Edward (born 1900), Brian Stephen (born 1908), and David (born 1911).
Perceval-Maxwell dies at the age of 62 on May 24, 1932, in a Belfast nursing home. He is buried in Inch Parish Churchyard, Downpatrick.
Roberts is born in Waterford in 1712 or 1714, the son of Thomas Roberts, an architect and builder. Little is known of his early life, although he possibly trains in London for a time. At 17, he elopes with Mary Susannah Sautelle, a Huguenot heiress who also lives in Waterford.
In 1785, Roberts builds a house in Waterford for William Morris, now the Harbour Commissioners’ headquarters and the Chamber of Commerce. In 1786, he designs Newtown House, later Newtown School, a Quaker school. In 1787, he designs The Leper Hospital and Church of St. Stephen. He also builds the Assembly Rooms on Waterford’s Mall in 1788, which is now the Theatre Royal and City Hall.
Roberts has between 21 and 24 children with his wife Susannah, of whom eight live to adulthood, including the painters Thomas Roberts and Thomas Sautelle Roberts. They live for many years in the old bishop’s palace, opposite the cathedral, with a country residence at Roberts Mount. He is nicknamed “Honest John” because he pays his workers so reliably, sometimes giving half their pay directly to their wives so that it would not be wasted on alcohol.
Roberts dies on May 23, 1796, after falling asleep on the floor of the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, Waterford, and contracting pneumonia. The main square in Waterford is named John Roberts Square in his honour.
After an episode of The IT Crowd is criticised as transphobic, Linehan becomes involved in anti-transgender activism. He argues that transgender activism endangers women, and likens the use of puberty blockers to Nazi eugenics. He says his views have lost him work and ended his marriage.
Linehan attends Catholic University School, a Roman Catholic secondary school for boys. In the 1980s, he joins the staff of the Dublin politics and music magazine Hot Press, where he meets his future writing partner, Arthur Mathews. In their early collaborations, they create segments in sketch shows including Alas Smith and Jones, Harry Enfield & Chums, The All New Alexei Sayle Show, The Day Today and the Ted and Ralph characters in The Fast Show. They continue their collaboration with Paris (one series, 1994), Father Ted (three series, 1995–1998), and the first series of the sketch show Big Train. They also write the “Dearth of a Salesman” episode for the series Coogan’s Run, which features the character Gareth Cheeseman. In late 2003, he and Mathews are named one of the 50 funniest acts to work in television by The Observer. Father Ted wins BAFTA awards for Best Comedy in 1996 and 1999.
Linehan writes for the satirical series Brass Eye (1997), Blue Jam (1997–1999) and Jam (2000). With the actor Dylan Moran, he creates the sitcom Black Books (2000–2004). He writes and directs the 2006 Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd, in which he seeks to move away from the British trend towards mockumentary comedies. Unlike many series of the time, it is recorded before a studio audience. In November 2008, he is awarded an International Emmy for The IT Crowd. In 2013, he writes and directs the sitcom The Walshes. He co-writes the first series of the BBC sitcom Motherland and directs its pilot episode. In 2014, he wins his fifth BAFTA, for Best Writer, Comedy, for his work on The IT Crowd. He is also nominated for Count Arthur Strong.
In 2018, Linehan and Mathews announce plans for a Father Ted musical. Lineham says it will finish the series as they had planned it before the death of the lead actor, Dermot Morgan. The musical is cancelled by producers following the controversy over Linehan’s views on transgender rights. In December 2024, he announces plans to move to Arizona to work on a sitcom and create a production company with the comedians Rob Schneider and Andrew Doyle.
The son of a local school teacher, Noonan is raised in Loughill, County Limerick. He is educated at the local National School and St. Patrick’s Secondary School in Glin, before studying to be a primary school teacher at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin. He subsequently completes a BA and H.Dip. in English and Economics at University College Dublin (UCD). He begins to work as a secondary school teacher in Dublin. He develops an interest in politics from his mother, whose family had been heavily involved in Fine Gael at the local level in Limerick, and joins the Dublin branch of the party after graduating from university.
Having been involved in the local Fine Gael organisation in Limerick since the late 1960s, Noonan first holds political office in 1974, when he is elected as a member of Limerick County Council. Having built up a local profile he contests the 1981 Irish general election for the party and secures a seat in Limerick East. Upon taking his Dáil seat, he becomes a full-time politician, giving up his teaching post and resigning his seat on Limerick County Council. Though Fine Gael forms a coalition government with the Labour Party, as a first time Teachta Dála (TD), he remains on the backbenches. He serves as a TD from 1981 to 2020.
Noonan marries Florence Knightley, a native of Castlemaine, County Kerry and a primary school teacher, in 1969. They have three sons (Tim, John and Michael) and two daughters (Orla and Deirdre). In May 2010, Noonan appears on RTÉ‘s The Frontline to talk about his wife’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Florence Noonan dies on February 23, 2012 of pneumonia.
A native of Carlanstown, near Kells in the north of County Meath, Tully is educated in Carlanstown schools and in St Patrick’s Classical School in Navan. He is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party TD for the Meath constituency at the 1954 Irish general election. He loses his seat at the 1957 Irish general election, but is re-elected at the 1961 Irish general election and serves until 1982. When Labour enters into a coalition government with Fine Gael in 1973, he is appointed Minister for Local Government. While serving in that post he gains prominence for a massive increase in the building of public housing, and notoriety for an attempt to gerrymander Irish constituencies to ensure the re-election of the National Coalition at the 1977 Irish general election. His electoral reorganisation effort via the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974, which comes to be called a “Tullymander,” backfires spectacularly and helps engineer a landslide for the opposition, Fianna Fáil. He is regarded as a conservative within the Labour Party, though tends to support party decisions, even if he disagrees with them. For many years he is opposed to coalition, though finding the years in opposition fruitless, he changes his mind and becomes increasingly in favour of coalition with Fine Gael.
Also as Minister for Local Government, Tully decides on alterations to the plans for the controversial Dublin CorporationCivic Offices.
Tully is appointed deputy leader of the Labour Party under Michael O’Leary in 1981, and Minister for Defence in the short-lived 1981–82 Fine Gael-Labour Party government. In that capacity he travels to Cairo, in 1981, as the Republic of Ireland‘s representative in Egypt‘s annual October 6 military victory parade. While in the reviewing stand, next to PresidentAnwar Sadat, he suffers a shrapnel injury to his face when Sadat was assassinated by members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who had infiltrated the Egyptian Army.
In 1982, a few months after the event, Tully retires from politics. He dies ten years later, on May 20, 1992, at the age of 76.
(Pictured: Portrait of James Tully taken from his 1954 election poster)
O’Grady is the son of Admiral Hayes O’Grady and his wife, Susan Finucane. His father is one of the chiefs of the Cinél Donnghaile, the collective name of the O’Gradys. He is a nephew of Standish O’Grady, 1st Viscount Guillamore, and a cousin of the novelist Standish James O’Grady, with whom he is sometimes confused. As a child he is fostered in Coonagh, County Limerick, an Irish-speaking area. There he learns Irish and comes into contact with the Gaelic manuscript tradition, listening to stories read aloud from manuscripts in farmers’ houses during wakes or while carding wool. He maintains this interest in the literary tradition throughout his life.
O’Grady receives his secondary education in Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, his name appearing in the school register for August 1846. Subsequently he attends Trinity College Dublin (TCD) from 1850 to 1854 but does not graduate. He is critical of an education system that makes no mention of Irish history and legend. During his student days he becomes a friend of the leading scholars and antiquarians, John O’Donovan, George Petrie and Eugene O’Curry, as well as the bookseller and publisher, John O’Daly. At this time he begins copying Gaelic manuscripts under their direction. He purchases from O’Daly in 1853 a collection in Irish of “tales and other pieces, in prose and verse” which he presents to the British Museum in 1892. He is a founding member of the Ossianic Society in 1853 and becomes its president in 1856. O’Curry attacks him publicly in a review in TheTablet, questioning his ability as a scholar. The publication of the society’s third volume prompts the review.
In 1857 O’Grady moves to the United States where he remains for thirty years. In 1901 he contributes an essay on Anglo-Irish Aristocracy to a collection entitled Ideals in Ireland edited by Augusta, Lady Gregory.
O’Grady is a bachelor all his life and dies on October 16, 1915, in his home in Ballinruan, Hale, Cheshire, England. He is buried in Altrincham cemetery.
Gilmartin is the son of Michael Gilmartin, Rinshiona, Castlebar.[1] He is educated at the Franciscan monastery boys school in Errew and at O’Dea’s Academy in Castlebar. He attends St Jarlath’s College in Tuam, and then St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 1883, he becomes a professor of mathematics and natural science at St Jarlath’s.
In 1891, Gilmartin serves as Dean of Formation and Vice-President of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. He is awarded a Doctor of Divinity by Rome in 1905.
During the Irish War of Independence, Archbishop Gilmartin speaks out strongly against violence. In January 1920, he criticizes the “undisguised ruffianism” in the rebel ranks. He counsels his priests that whatever their personal political beliefs, they should not take an aggressive part on behalf of either side. However, many younger clerics support Sinn Féin and the IRA.
T.H. White describes meeting the Archbishop on the top of Croagh Patrick on an annual Reek Sunday pilgrimage during the 1930s in his book The Godstone and the Blackymor and having a cup of tea with him on the top after overenthusiastically kissing his ring.
Gilmartin dies at the age of 78 in office in Tuam on October 14, 1939.
Gilmartin writes the memoir of Primate Joseph Dixon in Healy’s Centenary History of Maynooth in 1895. He is also a contributor to the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, the Irish Theological Quarterly, and the Catholic Encyclopedia.
The siege of Enniskillen takes place at Enniskillen in Fermanagh, present day Northern Ireland, in 1594 and 1595, during the Nine Years’ War. In February 1594, the English had captured Enniskillen Castle from the Irish after a waterborne assault and massacred the defenders after they surrendered. From May 1594, an Irish army under Hugh Maguire and Cormac MacBaron O’Neill besiege the English garrison in the castle, and in August they defeat an English relief force. A second relief force is allowed to resupply the garrison, but the castle remains cut off. Eventually, in May 1595, the English garrison surrenders to the Irish and are then massacred.
In 1593, Hugh Maguire, Chief of the Name and Lord of Fermanagh, had objected to the behaviour of the newly-appointed English Crown sheriff Humphrey Willis. As he had done before being expelled by Hugh Roe O’Donnell from Tyrconnell in 1592, Willis is cattle raiding and plundering throughout Clan Maguire territory. Maguire is not strong enough to resist the sheriff, but after receiving reinforcements from Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, Maguire expels Willis. In May and June 1593, Maguire and Brian Oge O’Rourke of West Breifne raid lands held by the English Lord President of Connaught, Richard Bingham. They destroy the town around Ballymote Castle. This is part of a proxy war waged to distract the Crown while Tyrone strengthens his position in Ulster. As hoped for, the Crown responds by sending an army under Sir Henry Bagenal and Gaelic leader Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone (outwardly still loyal to the Crown), who defeat Maguire’s force at the Battle of Belleek in October 1593. However, Maguire’s main force remains unscathed.
On May 17, 1594, now acting with the covert support of Tyrone, Hugh Maguire and Cormac MacBaron O’Neill lay siege to Enniskillen which is now isolated in hostile country. Their army consists of 1,400 foot soldiers and 600 horsemen. It quickly grows with support arriving from HughRoeO’Donnell. The English commander, James Eccarsall, has only 50 foot soldiers and 24 horsemen to defend the castle, along with some light artillery. Eccarsall launches a sortie by boat but has to retreat under heavy fire. Irish fortifications cut off access by river and the castle is attacked nightly. Many of the garrison fall sick due to food shortages and exhaustion brought on by incessant skirmishing with the Irish.
On August 7, Maguire and his allies defeat an English relief force for Enniskillen at the Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits. A second relief force commanded by the Lord DeputyWilliam Russell is sent by another route. Although it is not attacked by the Irish, none of Russell’s scouts or messengers reach the castle nor return. Russell relieves the beleaguered garrison by August 30 with six months supplies, then withdraws. Following this, there is a truce, but “subterfuge and deception were the hallmarks of this stage of the war.”
McDonald was born Patrick Joseph McDonnell in Killard, County Clare, on July 29, 1878. When his sister lands at Ellis Island after her sea voyage from Ireland, immigration officials pin a name tag on her with her name spelled “McDonald.” Taking no chances of being deported, she and all the McDonnells who come after her, accept the name McDonald.
McDonald competes for the United States in the 1912 Summer Olympics held in Stockholm, Sweden, in the shot put where he once again defeats Rose and wins the gold medal. He also takes part in the shot put competition where the distance thrown with each hand is added together. This is the only time this event is held in the Olympic program, and he finishes second behind Rose.
McDonald continues to be a nationally competitive athlete well into his 50s. At the age of 54, he beats his old rival Matt McGrath to win the weight throw for distance at the 1933 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. It is his 26th senior national championship meet, and the Omaha World-Herald notes that he has gray hair at the time of his last victory.
In 1802 Corry is dismissed from the Exchequer and replaced by John Foster (later Lord Oriel), he is awarded, however, £2,000 p.a. in compensation. In 1806 the changes in ownership of the Newry estates alters his position. The lands pass to a senior line of the Needham family and they support General Francis Needham, 1st Earl of Kilmorey, at the general election. Corry does not have the funds needed, in excess of £5000, to purchase a seat elsewhere. However, Lady Downshire is inclined to support the Grenville ministry and comes to a formal agreement with Corry to give him £1000 towards his expenses should he be successful in Newry, and, if not, to bring him in for another borough. He fails against the Needham interest in Newry, but a seat at Newport, Isle of Wight, is purchased for him, with £4000 from Lady Downshire, and he is appointed to the Board of Trade. Six months later Grenville’s ministry has fallen and there is another general election. Corry stands, again unsuccessfully, for Newry.
Corry is unmarried but has a long-term relationship with Jane Symms. They have three sons and three daughters. His daughter Ann marries Lt. Col. Henry Westenra, the brother of Robert Cuninghame, 1st Baron Rossmore. His residence in Newry is the Abbey Yard, now a school, and Derrymore House, Bessbrook, County Armagh, which he had inherited from his father and sold in 1810. It is now the property of the National Trust. During his life, a road is constructed from near the main entrance of Derrymore House around Newry and links up with the Dublin Road on the southern side of the town primarily for his use. This road subsequently becomes known as “The Chancellor’s Road,” as a result of his term as the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer. A local legend has it that the road is constructed after an incident in which Corry’s stagecoach is stoned while passing through Newry by people angry at an unpopular window tax he had introduced. The road has retained this name, but it is cut in half by the Newry by-pass in the mid-1990s, however, as a result of works associated with the new A1 dual carriageway, the two-halves of the road are now reconnected.
Corry dies at his house in Merrion Square, Dublin, on May 15, 1813, his 60th birthday. He is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
seamus dubhghaill 