At the 1961 Irish general election, Mac Giolla unsuccessfully contests the Tipperary North constituency for Sinn Féin. In 1962, he becomes President of Sinn Féin, and is one of the people who moves the party to the left during the 1960s. In 1969, Sinn Féin splits and he remains leader of Official Sinn Féin. It is also in 1962 that he marries May McLoughlin who is also an active member of Sinn Féin as well as Cumann na mBan, the women’s section of the IRA. In 1977, the party changes its name to Sinn Féin the Workers Party and in 1982 it becomes simply the Workers’ Party.
In 1999, Mac Giolla writes to the chairman of the Flood Tribunal calling for an investigation into revelations that former Dublin Assistant City and County Manager George Redmond had been the official supervisor at the election count in Dublin West and was a close associate of Liam Lawlor. In 2003, Redmond is convicted of corruption by a Dublin court but subsequently has his conviction quashed due to conflicting evidence.
In his eighties Mac Giolla continues to be active and is a member of the group which campaigns to prevent the demolition of No. 16 Moore Street in Dublin city centre, where the surrender after the Easter Rising was completed. He also serves on the Dublin ’98 committee to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Tomás Mac Giolla dies in Beaumont Hospital in Beaumont, Dublin on February 4, 2010, after a long illness.
(Pictured: Tomás Mac Giolla, former president of the Workers’ party and lord mayor of Dublin in 2007, by Niall Carson, PA Wire, Press Association Images)
Browne grows up in the Bogside area of Derry. The Browne family also lives in Athlone and Ballinrobe for a period of time. His mother Mary Therese (née Cooney) is born in 1885 in Hollymount, County Mayo. His father Joseph Brown, an Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) sergeant, later works as an inspector for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and, partly as a result of this work, all of the Browne family becomes infected with tuberculosis. Both parents die of the disease during the 1920s. His father is the first to die, leaving only £100 behind to support a wife and seven children. Fearing that if she and the children remain in Ireland they will be forced into a workhouse, Mary sells all their possessions and takes the family to London. Within two days of their arrival, Mary is dead, later buried in a pauper’s grave. Of her seven children, six contract tuberculosis. Noël is only one of two Browne children to survive into adulthood after those bouts with TB.
In 1929, Browne is admitted free of charge to St. Anthony’s, a preparatory school in Eastbourne, England. He then wins a scholarship to Beaumont College, the Jesuitpublic school near Old Windsor, Berkshire, where he befriends Neville Chance, a wealthy boy from Dublin. Neville’s father, the eminent surgeon Arthur Chance, subsequently pays Browne’s way through medical school at Trinity College Dublin.
In 1940, while still a student, Browne suffers a serious relapse of tuberculosis. His treatment at a sanatorium in Midhurst, Sussex is paid for by the Chance family. He recovers, passes his medical exams in 1942, and starts his career as a medical intern at Dr. Steevens’ Hospital in Dublin, where he works under Bethel Solomons. He subsequently works in numerous sanatoria throughout Ireland and England, witnessing the ravages of the disease. He soon concludes that politics is the only way in which he can make an attack on the scourge of tuberculosis.
The poverty and tragedy that had shaped Browne’s childhood deeply affects him. He considers both his survival and his level of education a complete fluke, a stroke of random chance that saved him when he was seemingly destined to die unknown and in poverty like the rest of his family. He finds this completely distasteful and is moved to enter politics as a means to ensure no one else would suffer the same fate that had befallen his family.
A ‘White Paper’ on proposed healthcare reforms had been prepared by the previous government, and results in the 1947 Health Act. In February 1948, Browne becomes Minister for Health and starts the reforms advocated by the Paper and introduced by the Act.
The health reforms coincide with the development of a new vaccine and of new drugs (e.g., BCG and penicillin) that help to treat a previously untreatable group of medical conditions. Browne introduces mass free screening for tuberculosis sufferers and launches a huge construction program to build new hospitals and sanitoria, financed by the income and accumulated investments from the Department of Health-controlled Hospital Sweeps funds. This, along with the introduction of Streptomycin, helps dramatically reduce the incidence of tuberculosis in Ireland.
As Minister for Health Browne comes into conflict with the bishops of the Catholic Church and the medical profession over the Mother and Child Scheme. This plan, also introduced by the 1947 Health Act, provides for free state-funded healthcare for all mothers and children aged under 16, with no means test, a move which is regarded as radical at the time in Ireland, but not in the rest of Europe. Virtually all doctors in private practice oppose the scheme, because it would undermine the “fee for service” model on which their income depended.
The Church hierarchy, which controls many hospitals, vigorously opposes the expansion of “socialised medicine” in the Irish republic. They claim that the Mother and Child Scheme interferes with parental rights, and fear that the provision of non-religious medical advice to mothers will lead to birth control contrary to Catholic teaching. They greatly dislike Browne, seeing him as a “Trinity Catholic,” one who has defied the Church’s ruling that the faithful should not attend Trinity College Dublin, which had been founded by Protestants and for many years did not allow Catholics to study there.
Under pressure from bishops, the coalition government backs away from the Mother and Child Scheme and forces Browne’s resignation as Minister for Health. Following his departure from government, he embarrasses his opponents by arranging for The Irish Times to publish TaoiseachJohn A. Costello‘s and MacBride’s correspondence with the Catholic hierarchy, which details their capitulation to the bishops.
The controversy over the Mother and Child Scheme leads to the fall of the coalition government in which Browne had served as a Minister. But Church opposition to socialised medicine continues under the subsequent Fianna Fáil-led government. The hierarchy does not accept a no-means-test mother-and-infant scheme even when Fianna Fáil reduces the age limit from sixteen years to six weeks, and the government again backs down.
After his resignation as Minister for Health, Browne leaves Clann na Poblachta, but is re-elected to the Dáil as an Independent TD from Dublin South-East in the subsequent election.
Browne joins Fianna Fáil in 1953, but loses his Dáil seat at the 1954 Irish general election. He fails to be selected as a candidate for the 1957 Irish general election and he resigns from the party. He is re-elected at that election for Dublin South-East as an Independent TD.
In 1977 Browne is the first Irish parliamentarian to call for law reforms in regards to homosexuality, which is illegal at the time, and in 1979 is one of the few Irish politicians to attend the opening of the Hirschfeld Centre, Dublin’s first full-time LGBT community space.
In 1990, a number of left-wing representatives within the Labour Party, led by Michael D. Higgins, approach Browne and suggest that he should be the party’s candidate in the presidential election due later that year. Though in failing health, Browne agrees. However, the offer horrifies party leader Dick Spring and his close associates for two reasons. Firstly, the leadership had secretly decided to run Mary Robinson, a barrister and former senator. Secondly, many around Spring are “appalled” at the idea of running Browne, believing he has “little or no respect for the party” and is “likely in any event to self-destruct as a candidate.” When Spring informs Browne by telephone that the party’s Administrative Council has chosen Robinson over him, Browne hangs up the telephone.
Browne spends the remaining seven years of his life constantly criticising Robinson who had gone on to win the election, thus becoming the seventh President of Ireland, and who is considered highly popular during her term. During the campaign he also indicates support for the rival Fine Gael candidate, Austin Currie.
After retiring from politics, Browne moves with his wife Phyllis to Baile na hAbhann, County Galway. He dies at the age of 81 in the Regional Hospital, Galway, on May 21, 1997. He is buried in a small graveyard near Baile na hAbhann.
Mulcahy is born in Manor Street, Waterford, County Waterford, on May 10, 1886, the son of post office clerk Patrick Mulcahy and Elizabeth Slattery. He is educated at Mount Sion Christian Brothers School and later in Thurles, County Tipperary, where his father is the postmaster.
Mulcahy is second-in-command to Thomas Ashe in an encounter with the armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at Ashbourne, County Meath, during the 1916 Easter Rising, one of the few stand-out victories won by republicans in that week, and generally credited to Mulcahy’s grasp of tactics. In his book on the Rising, Charles Townshend principally credits Mulcahy with the defeat of the RIC at Ashbourne, for conceiving and leading a flanking movement on the RIC column that had engaged with the Irish Volunteers. Arrested after the Rising, he is interned at Knutsford and at the Frongoch internment camp in Wales until his release on December 24, 1916.
Mulcahy and Michael Collins are largely responsible for directing the military campaign against the British during the Irish War of Independence. During this period of upheaval in 1919, he marries Mary Josephine (Min) Ryan, sister of Kate and Phyllis Ryan, the successive wives of Seán T. O’Kelly. Her brother is James Ryan. O’Kelly and Ryan both later serve in Fianna Fáil governments.
Mulcahy supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. Archive film shows that Mulcahy, as Minister of Defence, is the Irish officer who raises the Irish tricolour at the first hand-over of a British barracks to the National Army in January 1922. He is defence minister in the Provisional Government on its creation and succeeds Collins, after the latter’s assassination, as Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government’s forces during the subsequent Irish Civil War.
Mulcahy earns notoriety through his order that anti-Treaty activists captured carrying arms are liable for execution. A total of 77 anti-Treaty prisoners are executed by the Provisional Government. He serves as Minister for Defence in the new Free State government from January 1924 until March 1924, but resigns in protest because of the sacking of the Army Council after criticism by the Executive Council over the handling of the “Army Mutiny,” when some National Army War of Independence officers almost revolt after he demobilises many of them at the end of the Irish Civil War. He re-enters the cabinet as Minister for Local Government and Public Health in 1927.
After the resignation of W. T. Cosgrave as Leader of Fine Gael in 1944, Mulcahy becomes party leader while still a member of the Seanad. Thomas F. O’Higgins is parliamentary leader of the party in the Dáil at the time and Leader of the Opposition. Facing his first general election as party leader, Mulcahy draws up a list of 13 young candidates to contest seats for Fine Gael. Of the eight who run, four are elected. He is returned again to the 12th Dáil as a TD for Tipperary at the 1944 Irish general election. While Fine Gael’s decline had been slowed, its future is still in doubt.
Following the 1948 Irish general election Mulcahy is elected for Tipperary South, but the dominant Fianna Fáil party finishes six seats short of a majority. However, it is 37 seats ahead of Fine Gael, and conventional wisdom suggests that Fianna Fáil is the only party that can possibly form a government. Just as negotiations get underway, however, Mulcahy realises that if Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan band together, they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil and, if they can get support from seven independents, they will be able to form a government. He plays a leading role in persuading the other parties to put aside their differences and join forces to consign the then Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Éamon de Valera, to the opposition benches.
Mulcahy initially seems set to become Taoiseach in a coalition government. However, he is not acceptable to Clann na Poblachta’s leader, Seán MacBride. Many Irish republicans had never forgiven him for his role in the Irish Civil War executions carried out under the Cosgrave government in the 1920s. Consequently, MacBride lets it be known that he and his party will not serve under Mulcahy. Without Clann na Poblachta, the other parties would have 57 seats between them — 17 seats short of a majority in the 147-seat Dáil. According to Mulcahy, the suggestion that another person serve as Taoiseach comes from Labour leader William Norton. He steps aside and encourages his party colleague John A. Costello, a former Attorney General of Ireland, to become the parliamentary leader of Fine Gael and the coalition’s candidate for Taoiseach. For the next decade, Costello serves as the party’s parliamentary leader while Mulcahy remained the nominal leader of the party.
Mulcahy goes on to serve as Minister for Education under Costello from 1948 until 1951. Another coalition government comes to power at the 1954 Irish general election, with Mulcahy once again stepping aside to become Minister for Education in the Second Inter-Party Government. The government falls in 1957, but he remains as Fine Gael leader until October 1959. In October the following year, he tells his Tipperary constituents that he does not intend to contest the next election.
Mulcahy dies from natural causes at the age of 85 in Dublin on December 16, 1971. He is buried in Littleton, County Tipperary.
Colley is the son of Harry and Christina Colley. His father is a veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising and a former adjutant in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who is elected to Dáil Éireann in 1944, as a Fianna Fáil candidate. He is educated at St. Joseph’s Secondary C.B.S. in Fairview, where one of his classmates and closest friends is Charles Haughey, who later becomes his political arch rival. He studies law at University College Dublin (UCD) and qualifies as a solicitor in the mid-1940s. He remains friends with Haughey after leaving school and, ironically, encourages him to become a member of Fianna Fáil in 1951. Haughey is elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1957 Irish general election, ousting Colley’s father in the process. This puts some strain on the relationship between the two young men.
Colley is elected to the Dáil at the 1961 Irish general election, reclaiming his father’s old seat in the Dublin North-East constituency. Furthermore, he is elected in the same constituency as Haughey, thereby accentuating the rivalry. Thereafter, he progresses rapidly through the ranks of Fianna Fáil. He becomes a member of the Dáil at a time when a change from the older to the younger generation is taking place, a change facilitated by TaoiseachSeán Lemass.
Colley is active in the Oireachtas as chairman of some of the Joint Labour Committees, which are set up under the Labour Court, to fix legally enforceable wages for groups of workers who have not been effectively organised in trade unions. He is also leader of the Irish parliamentary delegation to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. His work as a backbencher is rewarded by his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands in October 1964.
Following the return of Lemass’s government at the 1965 Irish general election, Colley joins the cabinet as Minister for Education. He introduces a plan to establish comprehensive schools, set up an advisory council on post-primary school accommodation in Dublin, and introduces a school psychological service.
Colley is promoted as Minister for Industry and Commerce in a cabinet reshuffle in July 1966, and he continues the government policy of economic expansion that had prevailed since the late 1950s.
In November 1966, Seán Lemass resigns suddenly as party leader. Colley contests the subsequent leadership election. He is the favoured candidate of party elders such as Seán MacEntee and Frank Aiken, the latter managing Colley’s campaign. Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney also declare their interest in the leadership, however both withdraw when the Minister for Finance, Jack Lynch, announces his candidacy. Colley does not back down and the leadership issue goes to a vote for the first time in the history of the Fianna Fáil party. The leadership election takes place on November 9, 1966, and Lynch beats Colley by 59 votes to 19. When the new Taoiseach announces his cabinet, Colley retains the Industry and Commerce portfolio.
In the wake of the Arms Crisis in 1970, a major reshuffle of the cabinet takes place, with four Ministers either removed, or resigned, or simply retired from the government due to the scandal. Colley remains loyal to the party leader and is rewarded by his appointment as Minister for Finance, the second most important position in government.
In 1973, Fianna Fáil are ousted after sixteen years in government when the national coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party come to power. Colley is appointed opposition Spokesman on Finance, in the new Fianna Fáil front bench. As the 1977 Irish general election approaches, Colley and Martin O’Donoghue are the main architects of Fianna Fáil’s election manifesto.
Fianna Fáil sweeps to power at the 1977 Irish general election, with a 20-seat Dáil majority, contrary to opinion polls and political commentators. Colley is re-appointed as Minister for Finance and Minister for the Public Service, and is also appointed as Tánaiste, establishing him firmly as the heir apparent to Taoiseach Jack Lynch.
In December 1979, Jack Lynch resigns unexpectedly as Taoiseach and as Fianna Fáil leader. Colley and Charles Haughey seek the leadership position and are evenly matched. A secret ballot is taken on December 7, 1979. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael O’Kennedy, announces his support for Haughey on the eve of the election. This apparently swings the vote, and Haughey beats Colley by 44 votes to 38. Colley remains as Tánaiste, but demands and receives a veto on Haughey’s ministerial appointments to the departments of Justice and Defence.
Fianna Fáil loses power at the 1981 Irish general election. Haughey delays naming a new opposition front bench, but Colley remains a key member of the Fianna Fáil hierarchy. The party regains office at the February 1982 Irish general election. He demands the same veto as before on Haughey’s Defence and Justice appointments, but is refused. When it is revealed that Ray MacSharry is to be appointed Tánaiste in his stead, he declines another ministerial position. This effectively brings his front bench political career to an end, but he remains a vocal critic of the party leadership from the backbenches.
When the Fianna Fáil government collapses and are replaced by another coalition government after the November 1982 Irish general election, a number of TDs and Senators express lack of confidence in Haughey’s leadership once again. Several unsuccessful leadership challenges take place in late 1982 and early 1983, with Colley now supporting Desmond O’Malley and the Gang of 22 who oppose Haughey.
Colley dies suddenly on September 17, 1983, aged 57, while receiving treatment for a heart condition at Guy’s Hospital, Southwark, London. He is survived by his wife, three sons, and four daughters, one of whom, Anne Colley, becomes a TD as a member of the Progressive Democrats party.
MacBride is born in Paris on January 26, 1904. He is the son of Major John MacBride and Maud Gonne. After his father’s execution for his participation in the Easter Rising of 1916, MacBride is sent to school at Mount St. Benedict’s, Gorey, County Wexford in Ireland. In 1919, at the age of 15, he joins the Irish Volunteers, which fights as part of the Irish Republican Army, and takes part in the Irish War of Independence. He is imprisoned by the Irish Free State but is released in 1924 and resumes his IRA activities. He returns to Dublin in 1927 and becomes the Director of Intelligence of the IRA.
Toward the end of the 1920s, after many supporters have left the IRA to join Fianna Fáil, some members start pushing for a more left-wing agenda. After the IRA Army Council votes down the idea, MacBride launches a new movement, Saor Éire (“Free Ireland”), in 1931. Although it is a non-military organisation, Saor Éire is declared unlawful along with the IRA, Cumann na mBan, and nine other organizations.
In 1936, MacBride becomes Chief of Staff of the IRA after Moss Twomey is sent to prison for three years. At the time, the movement is in a state of disarray, with conflicts between several factions and personalities. In 1937, he is called to the bar and then resigns from the IRA when the Constitution of Ireland is enacted later that year. As a barrister, he frequently defends IRA political prisoners, but is not unsuccessful in stopping the execution of Charlie Kerins in 1944 who is convicted of killing Garda Detective Dennis O’Brien in 1942. In 1946, during the inquest into the death of Seán McCaughey, he embarrasses the authorities by forcing them to admit that the conditions in Portlaoise Prison are inhumane.
In 1946, MacBride founds the republican/socialist party Clann na Poblachta, hoping it would replace Fianna Fáil as Ireland’s major political party. In October 1947, he wins a seat in Dáil Éireann at a by-election in the Dublin County constituency. However, at the 1948 Irish general election Clann na Poblachta wins only ten seats.
Clann na Poblachta is reduced to only two seats after the 1951 Irish general election. MacBride keeps his seat and is re-elected again at the 1954 Irish general election. Opposing the internment of IRA suspects during the Border Campaign (1956–62), he contests both the 1957 and 1961 Irish general elections but fails to be elected both times. He then retires from politics but continues practicing as a barrister. He expresses interest in running as an independent candidate in the 1983 Irish presidential election, but does not receive sufficient backing and ultimately does not enter the contest.
Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, MacBride works tirelessly for human rights worldwide. He is a founding member of Amnesty International and serves as its International chairman from 1961 until 1975. During the 1980s, he initiates the Appeal by Lawyers against Nuclear War which is jointly sponsored by the International Peace Bureau and the International Progress Organization.
MacBride is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974 as a man who “mobilised the conscience of the world in the fight against injustice.” He later receives the Lenin Peace Prize (1975–76) and the UNESCO Silver Medal for Service (1980).
In his later years, MacBride lives in his mother’s home, Roebuck House, that served as a meeting place for many years for Irish nationalists, as well as in the Parisian arrondissement where he grew up with his mother, and enjoyed strolling along boyhood paths. In 1978, he receives the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
MacBride dies in Dublin on January 15, 1988, just eleven days shy of his 84th birthday. He is buried in a simple grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, with his mother, and wife who died in 1976.
Mac Giolla is educated at the local national school in Nenagh before completing his secondary education at St. Flannan’s College in Ennis, County Clare. It is while at St. Flannan’s that he changes to using the Irish language version of his name. He wins a scholarship to University College Dublin where he qualifies with a Bachelor of Arts degree, followed by a degree in Commerce.
A qualified accountant, Mac Giolla is employed by the Irish Electricity Supply Board (ESB) from 1947 until he goes into full-time politics in 1977.
At the 1961 Irish general election, Mac Giolla unsuccessfully contests the Tipperary North constituency for Sinn Féin. In 1962, he becomes President of Sinn Féin, and is one of the people who moves the party to the left during the 1960s. In 1969, Sinn Féin splits and he remains leader of Official Sinn Féin. It is also in 1962 that he marries May McLoughlin who is also an active member of Sinn Féin as well as Cumann na mBan, the women’s section of the IRA. In 1977, the party changes its name to Sinn Féin the Workers Party and in 1982 it becomes simply the Workers’ Party.
In 1999, Mac Giolla writes to the chairman of the Flood Tribunal calling for an investigation into revelations that former Dublin Assistant City and County Manager George Redmond had been the official supervisor at the election count in Dublin West and was a close associate of Liam Lawlor. In 2003, Redmond is convicted of corruption by a Dublin court but subsequently has his conviction quashed due to conflicting evidence.
In his eighties Mac Giolla continues to be active and is a member of the group which campaigns to prevent the demolition of No. 16 Moore Street in Dublin city centre, where the surrender after the Easter Rising was completed. He also serves on the Dublin ’98 committee to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Tomás Mac Giolla dies in Beaumont Hospital in Beaumont, Dublin on February 4, 2010, after a long illness.
seamus dubhghaill 