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Birth of Peadar O’Donnell, Irish Republican Politician & Writer

Peadar O’Donnell, Irish republican, socialist activist, politician, writer and one of the foremost radicals of 20th-century Ireland, is born on February 22, 1893, in Meenmore, near Dungloe, County Donegal.

O’Donnell is the youngest among six sons and three daughters of Biddy and James O’Donnell. He is greatly influenced by his upbringing in the Rosses, in northwest Donegal, one of the poorest and most remote parts of Ireland. His father, a popular local fiddler, earns a living through his smallholding, seasonal labouring in Scotland, and winter work in a local corn mill. His mother, who comes from a radical labour and nationalist political background, works in a local cooperative store. He attends Rampart national school and Roshine national school, near Burtonport, where he is a monitor for four years. In 1911 he wins a scholarship to attend St. Patrick’s College in Drumcondra, Dublin, and returns in 1913 to the Rosses, where he spends two years teaching on the islands of Inishfree. In 1915 he is appointed head of Derryhenny national school, near Dungloe, and the following year becomes principal of a national school on the island of Arranmore, where he begins to write.

O’Donnell had long been concerned by the poor conditions of the local ‘tatie-hokers’ (potato pickers) who migrate annually to Scotland. In the summer of 1918, he travels there to help organise the Scottish Farm Servants’ Union. While there he is influenced by left-wing radicals such as Willie Gallacher, later a communist Member of Parliament (MP), and Emanuel ‘Manny’ Shinwell, later Baron Shinwell. In September 1918, against a background of rising labour militancy, he leaves teaching to become a full-time organiser for the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) in the west Ulster area. The following year he organises one of Ireland’s first “soviets” when the attendants and nurses of the Monaghan District Lunatic Asylum occupy the grounds and appoint O’Donnell as governor until their demands are met.

In early 1919 O’Donnell joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Monaghan, resigning from the ITGWU for full-time IRA service in late 1920. He leads the 2nd Battalion, Donegal IRA, from the summer of 1920. In December 1920 he goes “on the run” and leads a flying column in west Donegal until May 1921, when he is wounded. Regarded as insubordinate and militarily inexperienced, he is unpopular among the other senior officers of the 1st Northern Division. He, in turn, is disappointed by the lack of social radicalism among the nationalist leadership. He opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, is placed in command of the minority anti-treaty 1st Northern Division and is a member of the IRA executive that occupies the Four Courts in Dublin in defiance of the provisional government.

Arrested in June 1922, O’Donnell shares a prison cell with Liam Mellows and influences his radical “Notes from Mountjoy,” an important document for subsequent left-wing republicans. He spends the next two years in various prisons and internment camps. His execution is widely expected to follow those of December 8, 1922. In August 1923, he is elected as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for Donegal in the general election called after the end of the Irish Civil War. He goes on hunger strike for forty-one days in late 1923 and succeeds in escaping from the Curragh in March 1924. In June 1924, while on the run, he marries Lile O’Donel, a wealthy Cumann na mBan activist who had smuggled communications for republican prisoners. O’Donel, a radical and member of the Communist Party, is the daughter of Ignatius O’Donel, a prominent landowner from Mayo. They have no children but raise their nephew, Peadar Joe, as their own son after the death in New York of O’Donnell’s brother Joe.

O’Donnell begins writing seriously while in jail and remains a prolific writer, journalist, and editor until the 1960s. His first novel, Storm, set in the Irish War of Independence, is published in 1925. One of his most highly regarded books, Islanders, is published in 1928. Adrigoole, like Islanders a story of poverty and starvation in rural Ireland, is published the following year. The Knife (1930) and On the Edge of the Stream (1934) soon follow. The most significant of his later novels is probably The Big Windows (1954). Foremost among his qualities as a writer is his empathy for the people, life, and landscape of rural Ireland. But his novels have been criticised for their slow pace, excessive detail, and didactic nature. He claims his writing is incidental to his political activism. His trilogy of autobiographical non-fiction, The Gates flew Open (1932), Salud! An Irishman in Spain (1936), and There Will Be Another Day (1963), which respectively concern the Irish Civil War, his activism during the Spanish Civil War, and his role in the land annuities agitation, remain highly regarded. His other important literary achievement is with The Bell, an innovative literary and political magazine which plays a useful dissenting role in an insular and conservative period. He founds The Bell with the writer Seán Ó Faoláin in 1940 and edits it from 1946 until it ceases publication in 1954.

O’Donnell exercises an influential role in the interwar IRA, particularly through his editorship of An Phoblacht (1926–29), which he attempts to divert from militarism to socialist agitation. His ultimate aim is for a thirty-two-county socialist republic. His most successful campaign is organising small farmers against the payment of land annuities to the government in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This campaign is later adopted by Fianna Fáil and contributes to their electoral success in 1932. He is less successful in radicalising the IRA. After the failure of Saor Éire, a left-wing IRA front which provokes clerical and popular hostility against the IRA, increasing tensions between the IRA’s left-wing and the leadership lead O’Donnell, along with Frank Ryan and George Gilmore, to split from the IRA to establish the short-lived Republican Congress in 1934.

Although O’Donnell claims he was never a Communist Party member, he plays a central role in forging links between republicans and the revolutionary left both in Ireland and internationally and invariably supports the communist party line at critical junctures. After the failure of Republican Congress, he takes up the cause of the Spanish republic. His championing of unpopular causes such as communism and Spain entail a good deal of frustration. He is physically attacked at political meetings and in 1932, despite having never visited the Soviet Union, loses a high-profile libel action against the Dominican Irish Rosary, which claim he had studied in Moscow‘s Lenin College. He is banned from entering the United States for several decades, although he maintains: “My relations with all the great powers continue to be friendly.”

O’Donnell continues to support radical campaigns until his death. He is an outspoken advocate of Irish emigrants. He is prominent in the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and serves as its president in the early 1960s. He is a leading protester against the Vietnam War and a supporter of African anti-colonial movements such as that against apartheid. In later years he is involved in the “Save the west” campaign, highlighting the problems of the west of Ireland.

After several months of ill-health following a heart attack, O’Donnell dies in Dublin, aged 93, on May 13, 1986. He leaves instructions that there are to be “no priests, no politicians and no pomp” at his funeral, and those wishes are granted. He is cremated in Glasnevin Cemetery and his ashes are buried at his wife’s home in Swinford, County Mayo. Although he once remarked that every cause he fought for was a failure, he is now regarded as one of the most influential socialist republican theorists and an important voice of dissent in twentieth-century Ireland.

(From: “O’Donnell, Peadar” by Fearghal McGarry, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie)


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Birth of Margaret Pearse, Politician & Mother of Patrick Pearse

Margaret Pearse (née Brady), Irish politician and mother of Patrick and Willie Pearse, who are both executed after the 1916 Easter Rising, is born in Dublin on February 12, 1857.

Margaret Brady is born to Patrick Brady, a coal merchant whose family are from County Meath, and Brigid Brady (née Savage) of Oldtown, Dublin. She is baptised in St. Lawrence O’Toole’s parish. At the time, her parents are living at 1 Clarence Street. She has three known siblings and is educated by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. She is employed as a stationery shop assistant where she meets her future husband, James Pearse.

In 1877, she marries James Pearse at St. Agatha’s Church, off the North Strand. James is born in Bloomsbury, Middlesex, on December 8, 1839, and later lives in Birmingham. He comes to Ireland to work as a sculptor in the late 1850s with his first wife, Emily Susanna Fox, who dies in 1876. They have four children together. The first three children are Margaret Mary (born on August 4, 1878), Patrick (born on November 10, 1879) and William (born on November 15, 1881). All three children are born while the family lives in 27 Great Brunswick Street. Their youngest child, Mary Brigid, is born on September 29, 1888, by which time the family has moved to Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount. Pearse’s aunt, Margaret Brady, an Irish speaker, is a frequent visitor to the family home and encourages the children’s interest in the Irish language and culture. Her husband dies in 1900. Pearse does not permit her children to play with other children, however, she supports her children in all their aspirations. She has a very strong relationship and consequent effect on her eldest son, Patrick, who founds St. Enda’s School in 1908 and is the headmaster up until the time of his execution. She takes over the responsibility of Housekeeper at the school.

Pearse supports her sons’ political beliefs. After their execution, she wishes to maintain their legacy and becomes involved in political life. She joins Sinn Féin after the Rising and gives support and endorsement to candidates during the 1918 Westminster election. During the 1920 Poor Law Elections for the Rathmines area of Dublin, she stands as a Sinn Féin candidate and is elected on the first count. She is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin County constituency at the 1921 Irish elections.

Pearse strongly opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, as do all the female TDs. She states during the Treaty debate that:

“I rise to support the motion of our President for the rejection of the Treaty. My reasons for doing so are various, but my first reason for doing so I would like to explain here today is my son’s account. It has been said here on several occasions that Patrick Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account, I will not accept it.”

Later she continues in a similar vein:

“Always we had to be on the alert. But even the Black and Tans alone would not frighten me as much as if I accepted this Treaty; because I feel in my heart – and I would not say it only I feel it – that the ghosts of my sons would haunt me.”

Following the ratification of the Treaty Pearse leaves the Dáil with the other anti-Treaty deputies. She is defeated at the 1922 Irish general election. She supports those who oppose the Treaty during the Irish Civil War and continues to be a member of Sinn Féin until 1926. In 1926 she leaves the party conference with Éamon de Valera and becomes a founder member of Fianna Fáil. She never stands for election again.

At the launch of The Irish Press newspaper, Pearse is asked to press the button to start the printers rolling. At many public occasions she states that were her sons alive they too would have joined Fianna Fáil. Accordingly, Patrick Pearse is recognised as the spiritual figurehead of the party to this day.

After Patrick’s death, the responsibility for running the school falls to Pearse and her two daughters. As Patrick Pearse had died without a will, the school is left in a precarious financial position. In May 1924, when she is aged 70, she undertakes a trip to the United States to raise funds for the school, alongside showing support for Éamon de Valera and the Irish Republic. At an event in Brooklyn on May 19, 1924, when referencing the execution of her two sons, she declares herself the “proudest mother in Ireland.” She also states that Michael Collins had attempted to “bribe” her with an offer to subsidise the school, which she refused. During a meeting in Seattle on August 11, 1924, she again discusses her sons and how she believes “the best way to honour their memory was to carry on their work for Ireland.” She raises over $10,000 in donations for the school during the trip. Notwithstanding her fundraising activities, St. Enda’s continues to decline and eventually closes in 1935. Great Brunswick Street, where she and the Pearse family originally lived, is renamed Pearse Street in 1920 by a resolution passed at the Dublin City Council meeting.

Pearse dies on April 22, 1932. She is honoured with a large state funeral and a motion is passed at the meeting of Dublin City Council expressing sympathy with the Pearse family. On April 26, 1932, sizeable crowds pay their respects as her funeral procession makes its way through the streets of Dublin. At the General Post Office (GPO), where Patrick and William fought during the Easter Rising, the funeral cortege pauses for a minute of silence before proceeding to Glasnevin Cemetery. Éamon de Valera gives an oration as she is laid to rest, which praises her inspiring courage, charity and cheerfulness during the years after her son’s death.

After Pearse’s death, her daughter, Mary Margaret, continues to reside at St. Enda’s. She also joins Fianna Fáil, and serves as a TD from 1933 to 1937 and later serves in Seanad Éireann as a Senator from 1938 until her death in 1968. Upon her death, as per her mother’s request, she passes St. Enda’s on to the people of Ireland.


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Birth of Roddy Connolly, Socialist, Trade Unionist & Politician

Roderick James Connolly, socialist, trade unionist, and politician, is born on February 11, 1901, at 54 Pimlico, Dublin. He is also known as “Roddy Connolly” and “Rory Connolly.”

Connolly is the only son and sixth among seven children of Irish socialist James Connolly and Lillie Connolly. A lieutenant in the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) boys’ corps, he is involved in the 1916 Easter Rising. At the age of 15, he serves in the General Post Office (GPO) under his father. He joins the Socialist Party of Ireland in 1917.

Connolly travels to Russia on several occasions in 1920 and 1921 and forms a close association with Vladimir Lenin and is hugely influenced by the Soviet leader. He is a delegate to the Second Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) as a delegate of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in June 1920. It is here he meets Lenin at just 19 years of age following an introduction from journalist John Reed. According to Connolly, Lenin speaks English with a Rathmines accent which he acquired from his Irish tutor.

Connolly helps form and becomes President of the first Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) in October 1921. He is editor of the CPI newspaper, The Workers’ Republic. He opposes the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty between the representatives of the Irish Republic and the British state, and fights in the Irish Civil War on the anti-treaty side. The CPI is the first Irish political party to oppose the Treaty and urges the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to adopt socialist policies to defeat the new Irish Free State government. The CPI is dissolved in 1924 by the Comintern but in 1926, Connolly helps set up a second Marxist party, the Irish Workers’ Party. He is the party leader and editor of its journal, The Hammer and Plough. This party too is dissolved in 1927.

Connolly joins the Irish Labour Party in 1928 and in 1934 participates in the last socialist initiative of Inter-War Ireland, the Irish Republican Congress. He is imprisoned twice in 1935. At the 1943 Irish general election, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth. He loses his seat at the 1944 Irish general election, but is re-elected at the 1948 Irish general election, before losing once more at the 1951 Irish general election. He is also financial secretary of the party from 1941 to 1949.

Connolly enters a semi-retirement between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s, but in the late 1960s, he begins a comeback. He is elected as party chairman in 1971 and holds this position until 1978. During his time as chairman, he oversees the expulsion of the Socialist Labour Alliance in 1971, some of whose members go on to form the Socialist Workers Network (SWN), which in turn eventually establishes People Before Profit (PBP).

Connolly also sits in Seanad Éireann from 1975 to 1977 on the Cultural and Educational Panel. He is a supporter of the Labour Party–Fine Gael coalition government that is in power from 1973 to 1977 and defends the coalition from left-wing critics by reminding them his father, James Connolly, had allied with the likes of Patrick Pearse in 1916.

Connolly dies of pneumonia and stomach cancer in St. Michael’s Hospital, Dún Laoghaire, on December 16, 1980. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

In 1921, Connolly marries Jessica Maidment, a socialist activist in England and chartered accountant, who from 1928 works for Russian Oil Products in Dublin. She dies in 1930 from blood poisoning arising from an operation. He is survived by his second wife, Peggy, whom he marries in 1937, sons, and daughters. His recreations include chess and bridge; highly adept at both, he learns the former from Seán Mac Diarmada as prisoners after the Easter rising and is international bridge correspondent for the Irish Independent.

(Pictured: Roddy Connolly during an interview conducted for the RTÉ Television project “Portraits 1916” on January 9, 1966)


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Death of J. J. Walsh, Politician & Businessman

James Joseph Walsh, generally referred to as J. J. Walsh, Postmaster General (later Minister for Posts and Telegraphs) of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1927, dies in Dublin on February 3, 1948. He is also a senior Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) organiser and Cumann na nGaedheal politician. Later, he has heavy connections with fascism, including his association with Ailtirí na hAiséirghe.

Walsh is born in the townland of Rathroon, near Bandon, County Cork, on February 20, 1880. His family comes from a farming background, “working a substantial holding of medium but well-cultivated land.” Until the age of fifteen, he attends a local school in Bandon, but by his own account “as far as learning went, I may as well have been at home.” Together with his school friend P. S. O’Hegarty, he passes the Civil Service exams for the Postal service. He later works locally as a clerk in the Post Office. Like O’Hegarty, he spends three years in London at King’s College, studying for the Secretary’s Office “a syllabus (which) differed little from the Indian Civil Service.” While O’Hegarty succeeds in his studies, Walsh does not, and returns to Cork where a friend, Sir Edward Fitzgerald, arranges work for him on the Entertainments Committee of the Cork International Exhibition.

Walsh is active in the GAA, promoting Gaelic games in many areas, but particularly in Cork city and county. His interest in organised sports has a strong political dimension.

“I happened to be one of those who realised the potentialities of the GAA as a training ground for Physical Force. Contamination with the alien and all his works was taboo. I gathered around me a force of youthful enthusiasts from the University, Civil Service and Business. With this intensely organised instrument, war was declared on foreign games which were made to feel the shock so heavily that one by one, Soccer and Rugby Clubs began to disappear.”

Walsh is also instrumental in establishing the “revived” Tailteann Games. He is Chairman of the Cork County Council GAA and is involved in the founding of the Cork City Irish Volunteers.

Walsh participates in the Easter Rising in 1916 in the General Post Office (GPO). He claims he is responsible for mobilising 20 members of the Hibernian Rifles and takes them to the GPO. However, Rifles commandant John J. Scollan contradicts this account. He is promoted from Rifleman to Vice-Commandant of the Hibernian Rifles in 1915.

Walsh is arrested following the general surrender and sentenced to death after a court-martial at Richmond Barracks. This is almost immediately commuted to life imprisonment, but he is released the following year under a general amnesty.

In later 1917 Walsh is arrested and imprisoned after making a speech declaring “the only way to address John Bull is through the barrel of a rifle.”

In the autumn of 1919 Walsh is involved in a failed assassination attempt on John French, 1st Earl of Ypres.

Walsh is elected as a Sinn Féin Member of Parliament (MP) in the 1918 United Kingdom general election for the Cork City constituency. As a member of the First Dáil he is arrested for partaking in an illegal government. He is released in 1921 and supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty and goes on to become a founding member of the new political party, Cumann na nGaedheal. He serves as Postmaster General from 1922 until 1924 and joins the cabinet of W. T. Cosgrave between 1924 and 1927, after the office is reconstituted as the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. He is elected at every election for the Cork Borough constituency until 1927 when he retires from government.

In August 1922 Walsh is part of a government committee which is intended to consider what the Irish Free State’s policy towards north-east Ulster will be.

During World War II, known at the time in Ireland as “the Emergency,” Walsh’s connections with fascism, including his association with Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, bring him to the attention of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, the Intelligence branch of the Irish Army. Their request to the Minister for Justice, Gerald Boland, to place a tap on Walsh’s phone is, however, refused. He is closely associated with Irish-based pro-Nazi initiatives through his association with Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, frequently expressing his views with anti-semitic rhetoric.

After leaving politics Walsh founds a bus company which operates with great success between the city centre and south Dublin. When private bus services are bought out by the Dublin Tramway Co., he invests his profits in other Irish companies including Clondalkin Paper Mills, Solus Teoranta and Benbulben Barytes. He is also a director of Killeen and Newbrook Paper Mills, timber exporters Dinan Dowds, the Moore Clothing Co., and Fancy Goods. In 1937 he is elected president of the Federation of Irish Manufacturers, having previously held the vice-presidency. His businesses benefit greatly from the protectionist measures introduced by Fianna Fáil after 1932. Nonetheless, he complains that not enough has been done to make capital available to native entrepreneurs, and that “alien” interests are allowed too much scope to penetrate the Irish market.

In 1944 Walsh publishes a short memoir, Recollections of a Rebel. In his later years he suffers from deteriorating health, leading to his resignation from the presidency of the Federation of Irish Manufacturers in 1946. He dies in Dublin on February 3, 1948. He is buried in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery, Cork, County Cork.

On April 24, 2016, a plaque commemorating Walsh is unveiled in Kilbrittain, County Cork.


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Death of D. P. Moran, Journalist, Activist & Theorist

David Patrick Moran (Irish: Dáithí Pádraig Ó Móráin), better known as simply D. P. Moran, Irish journalist, activist and cultural-political theorist, dies on January 31, 1936. He is known as the principal advocate of a specifically Gaelic Catholic Irish nationalism during the early 20th century. Associated with the wider Celtic Revival, he promotes his ideas primarily through his journal, The Leader, and compilations of his articles such as the book The Philosophy of Irish Ireland.

Moran is born in Manor, a townland in Waterford, the youngest of twenty children born to James Moran, a builder, and Elizabeth Moran (née Casey). One of his brothers goes on to serve on the defense team of Patrick O’Donnell.

Moran is educated at Castleknock College, near Dublin, before working as a journalist in London, where he is a member of the Irish Literary Society. His brand of nationalism and concept of the decolonisation of Ireland is of a homogeneous Irish-speaking and Roman Catholic nation, promoting the revival of the Irish language and of Gaelic games in Irish cultural life. He often employes disparaging terms (West Brits, shoneens, sourfaces) in reference to Unionists and/or non-Catholics.

Despite the failure of the 1893 Home Rule Bill and the division of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) in 1891, nationalists take heart from Douglas Hyde‘s 1892 speech, entitled “The Necessity for De-anglicising Ireland.” Moran builds upon this thesis and provides a wider ideology for enthusiasts, particularly after the re-unification of most of the nationalist parties from 1900.

In his 1905 text The Philosophy of Irish-Ireland, Moran argues that to be Irish requires:

  • the use of the Irish language
  • membership in the Roman Catholic Church
  • an anti-materialist outlook on life
  • the playing of only Gaelic games

Though a sponsor of the use of Irish, he never becomes fluent in the language himself. He emphasises the use of English in 1908–09 as “an active, vigilant, and merciless propaganda in the English language.” In the longer term, when Irish becomes again the language of the people, its use enables a de facto censorship of any foreign and unwelcome ideas written in English.

While Moran argues that the idea of “the Gael” is one that can assimilate others, he also feels that it will be hard if not impossible for members of the Church of Ireland who support the British Empire to ever qualify as Irish, being “resident aliens.” This extends to Anglo-Irish literature. He rejects the Abbey Theatre and questions Yeats‘ genius. He once speaks out against the influence Britain has over Irish Universities, stating, “We are all Palemen now.” In the matter of religious differences, Daniel O’Connell had said in 1826 that “the [Roman] Catholics of Ireland are a nation.” Moran moves beyond that, affirming in 1901 that “…the Irish Nation is de facto a Catholic nation.” He is virulent in his opposition to female suffrage.

Moran’s articles frequently contrast “Belfast” with “Ireland,” yet hope that Belfast can eventually change and assimilate. He feels that Ulster unionists should “… be grateful to the Irish nation for being willing to adopt them.” His paper publishes numerous articles by the future TD Arthur Clery (writing under the pen name “Chanel”), who advocates partition on the grounds that Ulster unionists are a separate nation, but Moran himself disagrees and refuses to concede the legitimacy of a northern Protestant identity.

When Irish republicans initiate the Irish War of Independence in 1919, widescale anti-Catholic rioting breaks out in Belfast in 1920 and 1922. Moran identifies this as being caused by Orangeism, which he describes as “a sore and a cancer” in Ireland. He also alleges that “bigotry on the part of Catholics in the Six Counties is immediately due to Orange bigotry.”

Moran is initially a supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party, believing that the separatism advocated by Arthur Griffith‘s Sinn Féin is impracticable; however, he opposes John Redmond‘s support of the British World War I effort.

Moran supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty agreed in 1921–22 and sees the partition of Ireland as beneficial for a truly Irish culture in the Irish Free State. This causes a sea-change in his opinions; from now on Northern Ireland can be safely ignored, along with what he sees as the English evils of “free thought, free trade, and free literature.” He claims Irish life and culture has to be protected from foreign influences, including the twin evils of the music hall and the English press. The new jazz music of the 1920s and other imported cultural elements are deprecated as “imported debasement and rot.”

On January 9, 1901, Moran marries Theresa Catherine, daughter of Thomas Francis O’Toole, a former Parnellite mayor of Waterford. They have four sons and one daughter.

Moran dies suddenly at his home in Skerries, Dublin, on January 31, 1936. His daughter, Nuala, who has written for the paper since the early 1920s, generally on artistic and social matters, takes over the running of the paper on his death, though it is then much diminished in size and influence. Nuala, who never marries, retains control of The Leader until it ceases publication in 1971.


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Death of Eamon Broy, Member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police & IRA

Eamon “Ned” Broy, successively a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the National Army, and the Garda Síochána of the Irish Free State, dies in Rathgar, Dublin, on January 22, 1972. He serves as Commissioner of the Gardaí from February 1933 to June 1938. He later serves as president of the Olympic Council of Ireland for fifteen years.

Broy is born in Rathangan, County Kildare, on December 22, 1887. He joins the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) on August 2, 1910, and the Dublin Metropolitan Police on January 20, 1911.

Broy is a double agent within the DMP, with the rank of Detective Sergeant (DS). He works as a clerk inside G Division, the intelligence branch of the DMP. While there, he copies sensitive files for IRA leader Michael Collins and passes many of these files on to Collins through Thomas Gay, the librarian at Capel Street Library. On April 7, 1919, he smuggles Collins into G Division’s archives in Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street), enabling him to identify “G-Men,” six of whom are eventually killed by the IRA. He supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and joins the National Army during the Irish Civil War, reaching the rank of colonel. In 1925, he leaves the Army and joins the Garda Síochána.

Broy’s elevation to the post of Commissioner comes when Fianna Fáil replaces Cumann na nGaedheal as the government. Other more senior officers are passed over as being too sympathetic to the outgoing party.

In 1934, Broy oversees the creation of “The Auxiliary Special Branch” of the Garda, formed mainly of hastily trained anti-Treaty IRA veterans, who were opponents of Broy in the civil war. It is nicknamed the “Broy Harriers” by Broy’s opponents, a pun on the Bray Harriers athletics club or more likely on the Bray Harriers hunt club. It is used first against the quasi-fascist Blueshirts, and later against the diehard holdouts of the IRA, now set against former comrades. The “Broy Harriers” nickname persists into the 1940s, even though Broy himself is no longer in command, and for the bodies targeted by the unit is a highly abusive term, still applied by radical Irish republicans to the Garda Special Branch (now renamed the Special Detective Unit). The Broy Harriers engage in several controversial fatal shootings. They shoot dead a protesting farmer named Lynch in Cork, and when the matter is discussed in the Senate in 1934, the members who support Éamon de Valera‘s government walk out. They are detested by sections of the farming community. In the light of this latter history, their name is often used in reference to individuals or groups who attempt to disrupt contemporary dissident republicans, such as the remnants of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

Broy is President of the Olympic Council of Ireland from 1935 to 1950. He is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Irish Amateur Handball Association.

Broy dies on January 22, 1972, at his residence in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar.

On September 17, 2016, a memorial to Broy is unveiled in Coolegagen Cemetery, County Offaly, close to his childhood home. His daughter Áine is in attendance, as are representatives of the government, the Air Corps, and the Garda Síochana.

Neil Jordan‘s film Michael Collins (1996) inaccurately depicts Broy (played by actor Stephen Rea) as having been arrested, tortured and killed by Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) agents. In addition, G Division was based not in Dublin Castle, as indicated in the film, but in Great Brunswick Street. Collins had a different agent in the Castle, David Neligan. Broy is also mentioned and makes an appearance in Michael Russell’s detective novel The City of Shadows, set partly in Dublin in the 1930s, published by HarperCollins in 2012.


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Birth of Kevin Barry, IRA Volunteer & Medical Student

Kevin Gerard Barry, Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer and medical student, is born on January 20, 1902, at 8 Fleet Street, Dublin. He becomes the first Irish republican to be executed by the British Government since the leaders of the Easter Rising.

Barry is the fourth of seven children born to Thomas Barry, dairyman, and Mary Barry (née Dowling), both originally from northeast County Carlow. His father dies of heart disease on February 8, 1908, at the age of 56. His mother then moves the family to the family’s farm at Tombeagh, Hacketstown, County Carlow, while retaining the family’s townhouse on Fleet Street. As a child he goes to the National School in Rathvilly. In 1915, he is sent to live in Dublin and attends the O’Connell Schools for three months, before enrolling in the Preparatory Grade at St. Mary’s College, Rathmines, in September 1915. He remains at that school until May 31, 1916, when it is closed by its clerical sponsors. With the closure of St. Mary’s College, he transfers to Belvedere College, a Jesuit school in Dublin. He joins the Irish Volunteers, the forerunner of the IRA, while still at Belvedere College, and enters University College Dublin (UCD) in 1919 to study medicine.

As a member of 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, he takes part in a successful raid for arms on the military post in King’s Inns, Dublin, on June 1, 1920. Within only six minutes the raiders secure rifles, light machine guns, and large quantities of ammunition, and depart the site with no casualties. He also takes part in an abortive attempt to burn Aughavanagh House, Aughrim, County Wicklow in July 1920, and an attack on a British ration party in Church Street, Dublin, on September 20, with the aim of seizing arms. The final operation fails. Gunfire breaks out, three soldiers of around Barry’s own age are killed or fatally wounded, and he becomes the first Volunteer to be captured in an armed attack since 1916.

During interrogation, Barry is threatened with a bayonet and is mistreated. A general court-martial on October 20, which he refuses to recognise, condemns him to death for murdering the three soldiers, although one of the bullets taken from Private Marshall Whitehead’s body is a .45 calibre, while all witnesses state that Barry was armed with a .38 Mauser Parabellum. Despite widespread appeals on grounds of both clemency and expediency, the cabinet in London and officials in Dublin decide separately against a reprieve, probably because of its likely effect on the morale of soldiers and police.

On October 28, the Irish Bulletin, the official propaganda newspaper produced by Dáil Éireann‘s Department of Publicity, publishes Barry’s statement alleging torture. The headline reads English Military Government Torture a Prisoner of War and are about to Hang him. The Irish Bulletin declares Barry to be a prisoner of war, suggesting a conflict of principles is at the heart of the conflict. The British do not recognise a war and treat all killings by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as murder. The public learns on this day that the date of execution has been fixed for November 1.

He was hanged in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, on November 1, after hearing two Masses in his cell. The timing of the execution, only seven days after the death by hunger strike of Terence MacSwiney, the republican Lord Mayor of Cork, brings public opinion to a fever-pitch. He is buried in unconsecrated ground on the jail property. His comrade and fellow student Frank Flood is buried alongside him four months later. A plain cross marks their graves and those of Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Thomas Traynor, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Bryan, Bernard Ryan, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher who are hanged in the same prison before the Anglo-Irish Treaty of July 1921 which ends hostilities between Irish republicans and the British. The graves go unidentified until 1934. They become known as the Forgotten Ten by republicans campaigning for the bodies to be reburied with honour and proper rites. On October 14, 2001, the remains of the ten men are given a state funeral and moved from Mountjoy Prison to be re-interred at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Barry is the first person to be tried and executed for a capital offence under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920, passed twelve weeks earlier. Together with his youth, this makes him a republican martyr celebrated in many ballads and verses. The best-known, set to a tune popular with British servicemen, is recorded by the American singer Paul Robeson, among others. A memorial stained-glass window by Richard King of the Harry Clarke Studio is later installed in the former UCD council chamber (afterward called the Kevin Barry Room), Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin.


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Death of John Joe Sheehy, Republican Activist & Sportsperson

John Joseph Sheehy, Irish political/military activist and sportsperson, dies on January 12, 1980. He participates in the Irish War of Independence (1919-21) and Irish Civil War (1922-23) in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), where he is a senior figure in County Kerry. He also gains fame as a successful Gaelic footballer representing the Kerry county football team.

Sheehy is born in Tralee, County Kerry, on October 16, 1897. In 1914 he joins Fianna Éireann, the republican boy scouts, and later the Irish Volunteers. He commands the Boherbue company of the IRA, and later the Tralee company. His brother Jimmy is killed in the British Army in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Sheehy sides against the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922, like most of the IRA in Kerry. In the Irish Civil War, when Free State troops land in Kerry as part of a seaborne offensive, he is in command of the Anti-Treaty garrison in Tralee. After the Army takes the town, he retreats, burning the barracks there. As the conflict becomes a guerrilla affair, he finds himself in charge of three flying columns, or around 75 men in total, in the Ballymacthomas area. He and Tom McEllistrim are in charge of an attack on Castlemaine in January 1923. 

Just after the Irish Civil War, when Sheehy is still on the run, he manages to play football for Kerry. Kerry captain Con Brosnan, though a member of the Free State army, guarantees his safe passage. He pays into Munster and All-Ireland finals, slips off his street clothes, plays, and then at the final whistle, disappears back into the crowd. In 1936 he is in New York and is able to smuggle a large number of Thompson submachine guns back to Ireland.

In February 1941 Sheehy is arrested and interned in the Curragh Camp for two years. He is arrested again and charged with making “seditious speeches” on May 11, 1946, the day that IRA hunger striker Seán McCaughey dies. He is found guilty and sentenced to four months imprisonment.

Sheehy plays Gaelic football with his local club, John Mitchels, and is a member of the senior Kerry county football team from 1919 until 1930. He also plays hurling with Tralee Parnells. He captains Kerry to the All-Ireland title in 1930. He plays in the Railway Cup hurling final in 1927 and is captain of the football team the same year and wins other medals in 1931. Three of his sons – Seán Óg, Niall and Paudie – all win All-Ireland titles with Kerry in the 1960s.

Sheehy remains a staunch supporter of Sinn Féin and is critical of the moves to end abstention by the party in the late 1960s. He sides with the Provisionals in the split at the 1970 Ardfheis and remains active in Provisional Sinn Féin until his death, supporting the IRA’s guerrilla campaign. He dies in Tralee on January 12, 1980, and is given a republican funeral at his own request. His funeral oration is given by Dáithí Ó Conaill, vice-president of Sinn Féin.


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Birth of Stephen Hayes, Member & Leader of the IRA

Stephen Hayes, a member and leader of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from April 1939 to June 1941, is born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, on December 26, 1902.

During the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), Hayes is commandant of the Wexford Brigade of Fianna Éireann. He takes the Anti-Treaty side during the Irish Civil War (1922-23), during which he is interned.

Hayes is active in Gaelic Athletic Association circles in Wexford. In 1925, he helps Wexford win the Leinster Senior Football Championship. He also serves as secretary to the county board for ten years, from the 1920s to 1930s.

Hayes joins the IRA and is on the IRA Army Council in January 1939 when it declares war on the British government. When IRA Chief of Staff Seán Russell departs on IRA business to the United States, and subsequently to Nazi Germany, Hayes becomes IRA Chief of Staff. His time in office is marred by controversy and it is widely believed that he serves as an informer to the Garda Síochána.

Hayes sends a plan for the invasion of Northern Ireland by German troops to Germany in April 1940. This plan later becomes known as Plan Kathleen. He is also known to have met with German agent Hermann Görtz on May 21, 1940, in Dublin shortly after the latter’s parachuting into Ireland on May 5, 1940, as part of Operation Mainau. He is known to have asked Görtz for money and arms to wage a campaign in Northern Ireland, although shortly after this meeting the original Plan Kathleen is discovered. The discovery of the plan leads to the acceleration of joint British and Irish military planning for a German invasion known as Plan W.

Another meeting on August 15, 1940, on Rathgar Road, Dublin, organised by Hayes and attended by senior IRA men Paddy McGrath, Tom Harte and Tom Hunt, is also raided by the Garda Síochána.

McGrath and Harte are both arrested and tried by Military Tribunal, established under the Emergency Powers Act 1939. They challenge the legislation in the High Court, seeking a writ of habeas corpus, and ultimately appeal to the Supreme Court of Ireland. They are represented in the courts by Seán MacBride. The appeal is unsuccessful, and they are executed by firing squad at Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison on September 6, 1940.

On June 30, 1941, Northern-based IRA men kidnap Hayes, accusing him of being a spy. By his own account, he is tortured and “court-martialed” for “treason” by his comrades, and would have been executed, but he buys himself time composing an enormously long confession. He manages to escape on September 8, 1941, and hands himself in to the Garda for protection.

The Officer Commanding (O/C) of the IRA Northern Command, Seán McCaughey, is convicted on September 18, 1941, of the kidnapping. After a long hunger and thirst strike in Portlaoise Prison, he dies on May 11, 1946.

Hayes is later sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by the Special Criminal Court on account of his IRA activities.

Within IRA circles, Hayes is still considered a traitor and an informer. One of the main allegations against him is that he informed the Garda Síochána about IRA arms dumps in Wexford. However, this is later blamed on a Wexford man named Michael Deveraux, an officer of the Wexford Battalion of the IRA who is subsequently abducted and executed by an IRA squad in County Tipperary on Hayes’ orders. George Plant, a Protestant IRA veteran, is later executed in Portlaoise Prison for Devereux’s murder.

After his release, Hayes resumes his clerical position at Wexford County Council. He dies in Enniscorthy on December 28, 1974.