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Birth of Sean O’Callaghan, Member of the Provisional IRA

Sean O’Callaghan, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s works against the organisation from within as a mole for the Irish Government with the Garda Síochána‘s Special Detective Unit, is born in Tralee, County Kerry, on October 10, 1954.

O’Callaghan is born into a family with a Fenian paramilitary history. His paternal grandfather had taken the Anti-Treaty side during the Irish Civil War, and his father had been interned by the Irish Government at the Curragh Camp in County Kildare for IRA activity during World War II.

By the late 1960s, O’Callaghan ceases to practise his Catholic faith, adopts atheism and has become interested in the theories of Marxist revolutionary politics, which finds an outlet of practical expression in the sectarian social unrest in Northern Ireland at the time, centered on the activities of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. In 1969, communal violence breaks out in Northern Ireland and believing that British imperialism is responsible, he joins the newly founded Provisional IRA at the age of 17.

Soon afterward, O’Callaghan is arrested by local Gardaí after he accidentally detonates a small amount of explosives, which cause damage to the homes of his parents and their neighbours. After demanding, and receiving, treatment as a political prisoner, he quietly serves his sentence.

After becoming a full-time paramilitary with the IRA, in the early to mid-1970s O’Callaghan takes part in over seventy operations associated with Irish Republican political violence including bomb materials manufacture, attacks on IRA targets in Northern Ireland, and robberies to provide funding for the organisation.

In 1976, O’Callaghan ends his involvement with the IRA after becoming disillusioned with its activities. He later recalls that his disenchantment with the IRA began when one of his compatriots openly hoped that a female police officer who had been blown up by an IRA bomb had been pregnant so they could get “two for the price of one.” He is also concerned with what he perceives as an undercurrent of ethnic hatred in its rank and file toward the Ulster Scots population. He leaves Ireland and moves to London. In May 1978, he marries a Scottish woman of Protestant unionist descent. During the late 1970s, he runs a successful mobile cleaning business. However, he is unable to fully settle into his new life, later recalling, “In truth there seemed to be no escaping from Ireland. At the strangest of times I would find myself reliving the events of my years in the IRA. As the years went on, I came to believe that the Provisional IRA was the greatest enemy of democracy and decency in Ireland.”

In 1979, O’Callaghan is approached by the IRA seeking to recruit him again for its paramilitary campaign. In response, he decides to turncoat against the organisation and becomes an agent within its ranks for the Irish Government. He decides to become a double agent even though he knows that even those who hate the IRA as much as he now does have a low opinion of informers. However, he feels it is the only way to stop the IRA from luring teenagers into their ranks and training them to kill.

Soon after being approached by the IRA to re-join, O’Callaghan returns to Tralee from London, where he arranges a clandestine meeting with an officer of the Garda Special Detective Unit in a local cemetery, at which he expresses his willingness to work with it to subvert the IRA from within. At this point, he is still opposed to working with the British Government. A few weeks later, he makes contact with Kerry IRA leader Martin Ferris and attends his first IRA meeting since 1975. Immediately afterward, he telephones his Garda contact and says, “We’re in”.

During the 1981 hunger strike in the Maze Prison, O’Callaghan attempts to start his own hunger strike in support of the Maze prisoners but is told to desist by the IRA for fear it will detract focus from the prisoners. He successfully sabotages the efforts of republicans in Kerry from staging hunger strikes of their own.

In 1984, O’Callaghan notifies the Garda of an attempt to smuggle seven tons of AK-47 assault rifles from the United States to Ireland aboard a fishing trawler named Valhalla. The guns are intended for the arsenal of the Provisional IRA’s units. As a result of his warning, a combined force of the Irish Navy and Gardaí intercept the boat that received the weaponry, and the guns are seized. The seizure marks the complete end of any major attempt by the IRA to smuggle guns out of the United States.

In 1983, O’Callaghan claims to be tasked by the IRA with placing 25 lbs. of Frangex in the Dominion Theatre in London, in an attempt to kill Prince Charles and Princess Diana who are due to attend a charity pop music concert there. A warning is phoned into the Garda, and the Royal couple are hurriedly ushered from the theatre by their police bodyguard during the concert. The theatre had been searched before the concert and a second search following the warning reveals no device.

In 1985, O’Callaghan is elected as a Sinn Féin councillor for Tralee Urban District Council, and unsuccessfully contests a seat on Kerry County Council.

After becoming disillusioned with his work with the Irish Government following the murder of another of its agents within the IRA, which it had failed to prevent despite O’Callaghan’s warnings of the threat to him, and sensing a growing threat to himself from the organisation which had become suspicious of his own behaviour, he withdraws from the IRA and leaves Ireland to live in England, taking his wife and children with him. His marriage ends in a divorce in 1987, and on November 29, 1988, he walks into a police station in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, where he presents himself to the officer on duty at the desk, confesses to the murder of Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) Greenfinch (female member) Eva Martin and the murder of D.I. Peter Flanagan during the mid-1970s, and voluntarily surrenders to British prosecution.

Although the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) offers him witness protection as part of the informer policy, O’Callaghan refuses it and is prosecuted under charges of two murders and 40 other crimes, to all of which he pleads guilty, committed in British jurisdiction with the IRA. Having been found guilty, he is sentenced to a total of 539 years in prison. He serves his sentence in prisons in Northern Ireland and England. While in jail, he publishes his story in The Sunday Times. He is released after being granted the royal prerogative of mercy by Queen Elizabeth II in 1996.

In 1998, O’Callaghan publishes an autobiographical account of his experiences in Irish Republican paramilitarism, entitled The Informer: The True Life Story of One Man’s War on Terrorism (1998).

In 2002, O’Callaghan is admitted to Nightingale Hospital, Marylebone, an addiction and rehab center where he undergoes a rehabilitation program for alcohol dependency. His identity and past activities are not revealed to the other patients. He lives relatively openly in London for the rest of his life, refusing to adopt a new identity. He is befriended in the city by the Irish writer Ruth Dudley Edwards, and works as a security consultant, and also occasional advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) on how to handle Irish republicanism in general, and Sinn Féin in particular.

In 2006, O’Callaghan appears in a London court with regard to an aggravated robbery that occurs in which he is the victim.

In 2015, O’Callaghan publishes James Connolly: My Search for the Man, the Myth & his Legacy (2015), a book containing a critique of the early 20th century Irish revolutionary James Connolly, and what he considers to be his destructive legacy in Ireland’s contemporary politics.

O’Callaghan dies by drowning after suffering a heart attack at the age of 63 while in a swimming pool in Kingston, Jamaica, on August 23, 2017, while visiting his daughter. A memorial service is held in his memory on March 21, 2018, at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, a Church of England parish church at the northeast corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. The service is attended by representatives from Ulster Unionist parties and the Irish Government.


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Death of Brian Keenan, Member of the Army Council of the Provisional IRA

Brian Keenan, a member of the Army Council of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), dies on May 21, 2008, at Cullyhanna, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, following a battle with colorectal cancer. He receives an 18-year prison sentence in 1980 for conspiring to cause explosions and plays a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

The son of a member of the Royal Air Force (RAF), Keenan is born on July 17, 1941, in Swatragh, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, before his family moves to Belfast. As a teenager, he moves to England to find work, for a time working as a television repairman in partnership with his brother in Corby, Northamptonshire. During this time, he comes to the attention of the police when he damages a cigarette machine, which leads to police having his fingerprints on file. He returns to Northern Ireland when the Troubles begin and starts working at the Grundig factory in the Finaghy area of Belfast where he acquires a reputation as a radical due to his involvement in factory trade union activities.

Despite his family having no history of republicanism, Keenan joins the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1970 or 1971, and by August 1971 is the quartermaster of the Belfast Brigade. He is an active IRA member, planning bombings in Belfast and travelling abroad to make political contacts and arrange arms smuggling, acquiring contacts in East Germany, Libya, Lebanon and Syria. In 1972, he travels to Tripoli to meet with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in order to acquire arms and finance from his government. In early 1973 he takes over responsibility for control of the IRA’s bombing campaign in England and also becomes IRA Quartermaster General. In late 1973, he is the linchpin of the kidnap of his former employer at Grundig, director Thomas Niedermayer.

In early 1974, Keenan plans to break Gerry Adams and Ivor Bell out of Long Kesh using a helicopter, in a method similar to Seamus Twomey‘s escape from Mountjoy Prison in October 1973, but the plan is vetoed by Billy McKee. He is arrested in the Republic of Ireland in mid-1974 and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment for IRA membership. On March 17, 1975, he is shot and wounded while attempting to lead a mass escape from Portlaoise Prison. While being held in Long Kesh, Gerry Adams helps to devise a blueprint for the reorganisation of the IRA, which includes the use of covert cells and the establishment of a Southern Command and Northern Command. As the architects of the blueprint, Adams, Bell and Brendan Hughes, are still imprisoned, Martin McGuinness and Keenan tour the country trying to convince the IRA Army Council and middle leadership of the benefits of the restructuring plan, with one IRA member remarking “Keenan was a roving ambassador for Adams.” The proposal is accepted after Keenan wins support from the South Derry Brigade, East Tyrone Brigade and South Armagh Brigade, with one IRA member saying, “Keenan was really the John the Baptist to Adams’ Christ.”

In December 1975, members of an IRA unit based in London are arrested following the six-day Balcombe Street siege. The IRA unit had been active in England since late 1974 carrying out a series of bombings, and a few months after his release from prison Keenan visits the unit in Crouch Hill, London, to give it further instructions. In follow-up raids after the siege, police discover crossword puzzles in his handwriting and his fingerprints on a list of bomb parts. A warrant is issued for his arrest.

Garda Síochána informer Sean O’Callaghan claims that Keenan recommended IRA Chief of Staff Seamus Twomey to authorise an attack on Ulster Protestants in retaliation to an increase in sectarian attacks on Catholic civilians by Protestant loyalist paramilitaries, such as the killing of three Catholics in a gun and bomb attack by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on Donnelly’s Bar in Silverbridge, County Armagh on December 19, 1975. According to O’Callaghan “Keenan believed that the only way, in his words, to put the nonsense out of the Prods [Protestants] was to just hit back much harder and more savagely than them.” Soon after the sectarian Kingsmill massacre occurs, when ten Protestant men returning home from their work are ordered out of a minibus they are travelling in and executed en masse with a machine gun on January 5, 1976.

Keenan is arrested on the basis of the 1975 warrant near Banbridge on March 20, 1979, when the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) stopped two cars travelling north on the main road from Dublin to Belfast and is extradited to England to face charges relating to the Balcombe Street Gang‘s campaign in England. His capture is a blow to the IRA, in particular as he was carrying an address book listing his contacts including Palestinian activists in the United Kingdom. The IRA responds by dispatching Bobby Storey and three other members to break Keenan out of prison using a helicopter, but all four are arrested and remanded to Brixton Prison. Keenan stands trial at the Old Bailey in London in June 1980 defended by Michael Mansfield and is accused of organising the IRA’s bombings in England and being implicated in the deaths of eight people including Ross McWhirter and Gordon Hamilton Fairley. He is sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment after being found guilty on June 25, 1980.

Keenan continues to support Gerry Adams while in prison. In August 1982 Adams is granted permission by the IRA’s Army Council to stand in a forthcoming election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, having been refused permission at a meeting the previous month. In a letter sent from Leicester Prison, Keenan writes that he “emphatically” supports the move and endorses the Army Council’s decision.

Keenan is released from prison in June 1993 and by 1996 is one of seven members of the IRA’s Army Council. Following the events after the IRA’s ceasefire of August 1994, he is openly critical of Gerry Adams and the “tactical use of armed struggle,” or TUAS, strategy employed by the republican movement. After the Northern Ireland peace process becomes deadlocked over the issue of the IRA decommissiong its arms, he and the other members of the Army Council authorise the Docklands bombing which kills two people and marks the end of the IRA’s eighteen-month ceasefire in February 1996.

Keenan outlines the IRA’s public position in May 1996 at a ceremony in memory of hunger striker Seán McCaughey at Milltown Cemetery, where he states, “The IRA will not be defeated…Republicans will have our victory…Do not be confused about decommissioning. The only thing the Republican movement will accept is the decommissioning of the British state in this country.” In the same speech he accuses the British of “double-dealing” and denounces the Irish government as “spineless.”

On February 25, 2001, Keenan addresses a republican rally in Creggan, County Armagh, saying that republicans should not fear “this phase” of “the revolution” collapsing should the Good Friday Agreement fail. He confirms his continued commitment to the Armalite and ballot box strategy, saying that both political negotiations and violence are “legitimate forms of revolution” and that both “have to be prosecuted to the utmost.” He goes on to say, “The revolution can never be over until we have British imperialism where it belongs—in the dustbin of history,” a message aimed at preventing rank-and-file IRA activists defecting to the dissident Real IRA.

Keenan plays a key role in the peace process, acting as the IRA’s go-between with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD). Gerry Adams remarks, “There wouldn’t be a peace process if it wasn’t for Brian Keenan.” Keenan resigns from his position on the Army Council in 2005 due to ill-health, and is replaced by Bernard Fox, who had taken part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. On May 6, 2007, he is guest speaker at a rally in Cappagh, County Tyrone, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the deaths of the so-called “Loughgall Martyrs,” eight members of the IRA East Tyrone Brigade killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1987.

In July 2002, Keenan is diagnosed as suffering from terminal colorectal cancer. It is alleged by the Irish Independent and The Daily Telegraph that Keenan succeeded Thomas “Slab” Murphy as Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA at some point between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s before he relinquished the role to deal with his poor health caused by cancer.

Keenan’s last years are spent living with his wife in Cullyhanna, County Armagh, where he dies of cancer on May 21, 2008. He is an atheist and receives a secular funeral, representing a major republican show of strength.


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Birth of Seán O’Hegarty, Member of the IRA’s Cork No. 1 Brigade

Seán O’Hegarty, a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in County Cork during the Irish War of Independence, is born on March 21, 1881, in Cork, County Cork. He serves as O/C of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA after the deaths of Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney.

O’Hegarty comes from a family with strong nationalist roots. His parents are John, a plasterer and stucco worker, and Katherine (née Hallahan) Hegarty. His elder brother is Patrick Sarsfield O’Hegarty, the writer. His parents’ families emigrated to the United States after the Great Famine, and his parents married in Boston. His father is a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). In 1888, his father dies of tuberculosis at the age of 42, and his mother has to work to support the family.

O’Hegarty is educated at the Christian Brothers North Monastery school in Cork. By 1902, he has left school to work as a sorter in the local post office, rising to post office clerk. He is a supporter of the Gaelic revival, Irish traditional music, and Gaelic games. A committed sportsman, in his twenties he is captain of the Post Office HQ’s hurling team. He follows his brother Patrick into Conradh na Gaeilge and eventually the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He is a member of the Celtic Literary Society by 1905 and founds the Growney branch of Conradh na Gaeilge in 1907. A puritanical character by nature, he is a non-smoker and never drinks.

O’Hegarty is a founder of the local branch of the Irish Volunteers in Cork in December 1913. In June of the following year, he is appointed to the Cork section of the Volunteer Executive, and then to the Military Council. In October, the Dublin government discovers his illegal activities, and he is dismissed. Excluded from Cork under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) regulations, he moves to Ballingeary, where he works as a labourer. From there he moves to Enniscorthy, County Wexford, where he lives with Larry de Lacy. On February 24, 1915, he is arrested and tried under the Defence of the Realm Act for putting up seditious posters. But for this and a second charge of “possession of explosives” he is discharged. The explosives belonged to de Lacy.

The Volunteers appoint O’Hegarty as Commandant of Ballingeary and Bandon. During the Easter Rising, he is stationed in Ballingeary when visited by Michael McCarthy of Dunmanway to propose an attack on a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) post at Macroom. But their strength is fatally weakened and, having no reserves, they call off the attempt. In 1917, he becomes Vice-commandant of No.1 Cork Brigade. He works as a storekeeper at the workhouse but is intimidating, and clashes with the Poor Law Guardians.

During the Irish War of Independence, O’Hegarty is one of the most active in County Cork. Like others, he is exasperated with Tomás Mac Curtain’s inactivity and refusal to be more bellicose. One such is battalion commander Richard Langford, who joins with O’Hegarty’s unit to make an unauthorized raid on the RIC post at Macroom. Langford is court-martialed, but O’Hegarty continues to rise in the ranks. When a RIC Inspector is murdered, Mac Curtain condemns the shootings and calls for their end. On March 19, 1920, Mac Curtain is shot and killed in his home in Cork. The coroner blames the British establishment in Dublin, but the police never make any attempt to investigate the killings. Shortly after these events General Hugh Tudor begins the policy of official reprisals.

In January 1920, an inquiry is held into corruption alleged against “Hegarty’s Mob” or “Hegarty’s Crowd” running Cork City. O’Hegarty blames the former mayors for the charges of incompetence but remains on good terms with them.

In a raid on Cork City Hall on August 12, 1920, the British manage to net all the top brass of the IRA in Cork. In an incredible failure of intelligence, they do not identify the leadership as their prisoners. They are all released, including Liam Lynch, and O’Hegarty. Only Terence MacSwiney, the new Lord Mayor of Cork, is kept in custody and sent to England.

On February 25, 1921, the Coolavokig ambush is carried out by the 1st Cork Brigade under O’Hegarty at Ballyvourney village, on the road between Macroom and Ballyvourney. The IRA suffers no casualties; however, the number of British casualties has been disputed to this day.

The brigade commanders in the southern division retain a residual lingering resentment of Dublin GHQ’s lack of leadership and supplies. Seán Moylan, commandant of No. 2 Cork Brigade, thinks good communications with No.1 Brigade are to be vital, but little of this is seen via the organizer, Ernie O’Malley, at GHQ. At a meeting set up for April 26, 1921, when the manual of Infantry Training 1914 is produced, the document raises great anger. The meeting ends in uproar when O’Hegarty, who is “a master of invective, tore the communication and its authors to ribbons.”

O’Malley and Liam Lynch, the general, meet with O’Hegarty in the mountains of West Cork, near a deserted farmhouse, just off the main road. In the retreat that follows, the Irish take heavy casualties and leave their wounded to the good care of the British. These are the “Round-ups” in which the Irish sleep outside in order to avoid being at home when the Army calls. They are told by the Brigade to learn the national anthem of England to avoid arrest.

In East Cork brigade, O’Hegarty uncovers a spy ring. He is ruthless in the treatment of Georgina Lindsay and her chauffeur, who give away information to the Catholic clergy, but is remarkably lenient on brigade traitors within. He is allegedly not too bothered about evidence but is reminded that all executions of a traitor have to be approved by Dublin first.

O’Hegarty becomes more and more aggressive toward the establishment, using tough language to impose his will over the area. He attempts to force the civilian Teachtai Dála (TDs) for Cork to stand down, to give way to military candidates, telling the Dáil in December 1921, that any TD voting for the treaty will be guilty of treason. But Éamon de Valera is decided and overrules any interference with the Civil Government. Like the commanders, de Valera rejects the treaty but has already been defeated in the Dáil on a vote by W. T. Cosgrave‘s majority.

On February 1, 1922, O’Hegarty marries Maghdalen Ni Laoghaire, a prominent member of Cumann na mBan.

O’Hegarty is on the IRA’s Executive Council, but when there is a meeting on April 9, 1922, it is proposed that the Army should oppose the elections by force. As a result, Florence O’Donoghue and Tom Hales join him in resigning. In May, he and Dan Breen enter into negotiations with Free Stater Richard Mulcahy. A statement is published in the press asking for unity and acceptance of the Treaty. During this time, the republicans become very demoralized and ill-disciplined, but they have to gain strength before announcing independence from Dublin. The debate amongst the anti-Treaty IRA command is increasingly rancorous.

The bitter divisions split the anti-treatyites into two camps. Two motions are debated at the Army Convention on June 18, 1922. At first, the motion to oppose the treaty by force is passed. These men include Tom Barry, Liam Mellows, and Rory O’Connor, who are all in favour of continuing the fight until the British are driven out of Ireland altogether. However, one brigade’s votes have to be recounted, and then the motion is narrowly defeated. Joe McKelvey is appointed the new chief of staff, but the IRA is in chaos. While he strongly opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, O’Hegarty takes a neutral role in the Irish Civil War and tries to avert hostilities breaking out into full-scale civil war. He emerges as a leader of the “Neutral IRA” with O’Donoghue. This is a “loose” confederation of 20,000 men who have taken part in the pre-truce wars but have remained neutral during the Civil War from January 1923. Over 150 persons attend its convention in Dublin on February 4, 1923. By April 1923, O’Malley is imprisoned in Mountjoy Prison. In a letter to Seamus O’Donovan on April 7, he blames Hegarty for all this compromise and “peace talk.”

It has been alleged by the author Gerard Murphy that O’Hegarty had a role in the assassination of the Commander-in-Chief, Michael Collins, in August 1922, along with Florrie O’Donoghue and Joe O’Connor. It is alleged that as members of the 1st Southern Division Cork, they are actually feigning claims of neutrality but remain part of the IRB in order to set up talks towards peace and the cessation of hostilities at the start of the Irish Civil War.

Although probably an atheist during the Irish War of Independence, O’Hegarty returns to the Catholic church later in life. On forming the Neutral Group of the IRA in December 1922, he tries to unify differences in the volunteers between Republicans and the Free Staters. He communicates with the Papal Nuncio during the inter-war years in an attempt to have Bishop of Cork Daniel Cohalan‘s excommunication bill lifted. Instead, he turns to commemoration as a way to earn favour in Rome, with the dedication of a Catholic church at St. Finbarr’s Cemetery. After his wife’s passing, he becomes a close friend with Florence O’Donoghue until his own death.

O’Hegarty dies on May 31, 1963, at Bon Secours Hospital, Cork.


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Death of Dave Allen, Comedian, Satirist & Actor

David Edward Tynan O’Mahony, comedian, satirist and actor professionally known as Dave Allen, dies from emphysema in Kensington, London, on March 10, 2005.

Allen is born on July 6, 1936, in a nursing home at 37 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, the youngest of three sons of (Gerard John) Cullen Tynan Allen, journalist, manager of The Irish Times, and raconteur, and his wife Jean Ballantyne (née Archer), an English-born nurse. His paternal grandmother, Nora Tynan O’Mahony, is the first women’s features editor of the Freeman’s Journal, and the poet Katharine Tynan is his great-aunt. Allen loses half a finger on his left hand in a childhood accident which becomes a favourite theme (and occasional prop) in his shows.

After initially attending Beaumont convent school, Allen goes to Firhouse national school, County Dublin, near the family residence outside Templeogue. For a period during World War II, he lives with his mother and brothers at Keenagh, County Longford, where they had moved for fear that Dublin might be targeted by air raids. On returning to Dublin, he goes to Terenure College, run by the Carmelite fathers. His reminiscences in later life often centre on memories of frequent and sadistic corporal punishment, and warnings from priests that adolescent male sexuality is a device of Satan leading straight to hell. His resentment is formative in his lifelong and outspoken atheism.

Allen, who is close to his father, is severely affected emotionally by his death in 1948, after which his relations with the school deteriorate further. The discovery that his father’s drinking and gambling had left the family heavily indebted means that, notwithstanding assistance from journalistic friends, his elder brothers are obliged to leave school and work as journalists to support the family. Restless and even more discontented at school than previously, he often plays truant to visit museums and art galleries. Expelled from Terenure College, he briefly attends the Catholic University School before leaving school at the age of 16. After working as a clerk for the Irish Independent, in 1954 he becomes a journalist on the Drogheda Argus, reporting weddings and gymkhanas. He later attributes this career path to the contemporary tradition of following a family profession.

Moving to London but failing to secure a job on a Fleet Street newspaper, Allen follows his brother John by becoming a “redcoat” attendant at Butlin’s holiday camps in Filey (Yorkshire), Skegness, Margate, and Brighton, performing various functions and telling jokes and stories during intervals between stage acts. In the winters he sells educational toys in Sheffield. Acquiring an agent, he becomes a professional comedian, adopting the stage name Dave Allen. He initially works the declining club and variety circuit, later claiming that he had toured with the last old-style nude tableaux show. In 1959, he makes his first television appearance on the BBC talent show New Faces and realises that television is the medium of the future. He tours with pop singer Helen Shapiro in 1963 and 1964, joined in the latter year by an emerging support band, the Beatles. At this period, he models himself on American stand-up comedians such as Jerry Lewis, focusing his act on discrete gags leading up to a punchline.

While performing in support of the singer Helen Traubel in Australian nightclubs, Allen often reminisces to her off stage about his early life. Traubel suggests that he incorporate such material into his act. Such is the genesis of his mature style of rambling absurdist monologues, which he describes as influenced by the Irish storytelling tradition in general, and his father’s stories in particular. After appearing in Melbourne and Sydney, he becomes the host of a ninety-minute chat show, Tonight with Dave Allen, on Sydney-based Channel 9. Eighty-four episodes are recorded of what becomes one of Australian television’s most successful programmes ever, its popularity boosted by the rumour that he is having an affair with singer Eartha Kitt, his hilarious interviews with eccentrics, and the frequent deployment of dangerous animals onstage.

Allen marries the English actress Judith Stott in Australia on March 9, 1964, a divorcée with one son. They have two children, including the comedian Ed Allen (Edward James Allen). After separating in 1980, the couple divorces in 1983. Returning to England in December 1964 to be with his wife, he establishes a reputation there through well-received performances as a compère at the televised Sunday Night at the London Palladium (1967) and The Blackpool Show (1966). After a slot as resident comedian on The Val Doonican Show (1965–67), he obtains his first stand-alone show, Tonight with Dave Allen, in 1967 on ITV, a mixture of sketches with the monologues for which he becomes best known. He usually performs seated on a barstool, smoking a cigarette, and sipping from a presumed glass of whiskey (actually ginger ale), while musing on the oddities of life, often expressing his suspicion of authority figures. His signature farewell phrase is “Goodnight, and may your God go with you.”

On BBC television Allen headlines two programmes: The Dave Allen Show (1968–69), and Dave Allen at Large (1971–79). He writes much of his own material, compulsively scouring newspapers for items that he can work into his act. He resists suggestions that he should move to an early evening slot, as this would entail restrictions on his material. In the 1970s and 1980s he tours widely with a one-man stage show, “An evening with Dave Allen,” containing more “adult” material than would be allowed on television at the time. His stage performances are less well-received in the United States than elsewhere.

Allen’s treatment of sex and religion involves him in frequent controversies. Priests and the confessional are frequent targets. In 1975, he provokes widespread protests from Catholics over a sketch in which the pope, played by Allen himself, and his cardinals perform a striptease on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. In 1977, his shows are banned from RTÉ. In 1984, the British anti-indecency campaigner Mary Whitehouse formally complains about his televised act, with particular reference to a simulated post-coital conversation. As with many stage comedians, his angry and outspoken stage persona contrasts with a reserved offstage life. He keeps his stage persona distinct from his private life and does not allow his children to attend his shows.

Allen gives occasional straight performances, notably in Edna O’Brien‘s plays A Pagan Place (1972) and Flesh and Blood (1985); in the dual roles of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in a production of Peter Pan (1973); and in Alan Bennett‘s television play One Fine Day (1979). He has a supporting role in the Australian comedy film Squeeze a Flower (1970). He also presents several documentaries, notably Dave Allen in the Melting Pot (1969); surveying life in New York City, he discusses racism and drug addiction and conducts one of the first television interviews with openly gay men. Other documentaries for ITV include Dave Allen in Search of the Great English Eccentric (1974), and Dave Allen (1978), which deals with American eccentrics. Long fascinated with ghost stories, he publishes an anthology of horror stories, A Little Night Reading (1974).

In the 1980s, Allen is regarded by many fans of the new, politically engaged “alternative comedians” as old-fashioned. His leisurely style contrasts with their quick-fire delivery, and some of his references to the Irish and other ethnic groups are seen as demeaning. He makes a partial television comeback with a six-part BBC One series, Dave Allen (1990), using considerably more outspoken material than he had previously deployed on television.

In 1993, Allen appears in a six-part series for the new ITV London franchise, Carlton Television. Thereafter he moves into semi-retirement, partly because of health problems, while continuing to make guest television appearances. At the British Comedy Awards he is named best comedy performer (1993) and is granted a lifetime achievement award (1996). He occasionally releases videos of older material “to keep myself in the style to which I had become accustomed – a bit of an Irish retirement, actually.” He maintains tight editorial control over his recordings, having been annoyed when his first television shows were chopped and changed when re-broadcast by American networks. They are released on DVD after his death. He presents a six-part BBC series based on his old material, The Unique Dave Allen (1998). After giving his last performance on BBC Radio 4 in 1999, he retires and devotes himself to his hobby as an amateur painter.

After a seventeen-year relationship, Allen marries secondly Karin Stark, a theatrical producer, on December 9, 2003. Their one son is born three weeks after Allen dies peacefully in his sleep as a result of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome on March 10, 2005, in Kensington, London.

A selection of his routines, edited by Graham McCann, is published as The Essential Dave Allen (2005). His obituarists see him as prefiguring the aggressive mocking of authority by the alternative comedians who had once criticised him, and as paving the way for such irreverent and anti-deferential satire of political and religious authority as Not the Nine O’Clock News and Father Ted. The widespread use of the monologue by Irish dramatists such as Conor McPherson in the first decade of the twenty-first century also owes something to his influence.

(From: “Allen, Dave” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, June 2011)


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Birth of Actress & Author Pauline McLynn

Pauline McLynn, Irish character actress and author, is born in Sligo, County Sligo, on July 11, 1962. She is best known for her roles as Mrs. Doyle in the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted, Libby Croker in the Channel 4 comedy drama Shameless, Tip Haddem in the BBC One comedy Jam & Jerusalem, and Yvonne Cotton in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.

McLynn grows up with two younger brothers in Galway. She studies History of Art and Modern English at Trinity College Dublin but is more heavily involved in the college’s drama society. She graduates with an MA.

Although McLynn is in her early thirties when playing Mrs. Doyle in Father Ted, makeup is used to make her look far older to fit the character’s elderly profile. She receives a British Comedy Award for her performances in 1996. The award is presented to her by Tony Blair.

Subsequent televised appearances include a similar elderly role in the “Yesterday Island” episode of youth sci-fi series Life Force, sketches on Bremner, Bird and Fortune, and panel shows Just a Minute, Have I Got News for You, and If I Ruled the World. In 1999, she appears in the film adaptation of Angela’s Ashes. She also appears in Jennifer Saunders‘ Jam & Jerusalem. Between 2001 and 2003 she reprises Mrs. Doyle in an advert for online tax return filing by the Inland Revenue.

McLynn is critically acclaimed for her performance in the 2005 film Gypo, receiving an Irish Film & Television Academy award nomination for Best Actress.

McLynn appears as Libby Croker in Shameless, which is produced by the British broadcaster Channel 4. In January 2011 it is announced that she has left the show, reportedly after a “difficult year.” She also plays the role of Alice’s mother in the Comedy Central show Threesome. She stars in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in 2011. She plays Mary Whyte in the BBC’s 2013 sitcom Father Figure.

In 2014, McLynn plays the part of Evelyn in “Kiss for the Camera”, a series three episode of the BBC comedy Pramface. On May 12, 2014, she joins the cast of EastEnders as Yvonne Cotton, the mother of Charlie Cotton (Declan Bennett) and ex-daughter-in-law of Dot Branning (June Brown). After starting as a recurring character, she quickly becomes a regular when her character’s storylines escalate. She makes her final appearance on January 13, 2015, at the end of her contract. However, she returns to the soap opera on May 14, 2015 for one single episode to give evidence against Dot during Nick Cotton‘s (John Altman) murder trial.

In 2017, McLynn appears as the mother of lead character Marcella in Roisin Conaty‘s E4 comedy GameFace, and in April 2018 she portrays Sister Mary in the BBC Two biopic Dave Allen At Peace. She appears as a minor character named Mrs. Trattner in the 2018 film Johnny English Strikes Again.

In 2020, McLynn is one of the celebrity pilgrims on the Sultans Trail in the BBC series Pilgrimage: Road to Istanbul. She also appears in Riverdance: The Animated Adventure.

In 2021 McLynn appears as Oona in the E4 S6 of Inside No. 9. She also appears as Carol, a bar landlady, in the film Last Night in Soho, which is released in October 2021. She also appears in Doctor Who, as Mary in the New Year’s special “Eve of the Daleks.”

McLynn is married to theatrical agent Richard Cook. She is a patron of the children’s charity World Vision Ireland and is president of Friends of Innisfree Housing Association. She is also a patron for Littlehill Animal Rescue, Sanctuary in Ireland and Birmingham Greyhound Protection.

McLynn is a fan of the Premier League football team Aston Villa. She says her best moment supporting Villa came in 1996 when she watched them beat Leeds United in the Football League Cup final with her Father Ted co-star Ardal O’Hanlon, who is a Leeds supporter. She is raised as a Roman Catholic but is now an atheist.

McLynn is involved with many charities against the racing and export of greyhounds. She is a patron of Greyhound Protection UK.


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Birth of Clare Daly, Politician & Member of the European Parliament

Clare Daly, Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Dublin constituency since July 2019, is born in Newbridge, County Kildare, on April 16, 1968. She is a member of Independents 4 Change, part of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL.

Daly’s father, Kevin Daly, was a colonel in the Irish Army, where he was Director of Signals. She is an atheist, while her brother and an uncle are Catholic priests. She studies accountancy at Dublin City University (DCU). She is twice elected president of the DCU Students’ Union and is active in the students’ movement as a campaigner for abortion rights and information. On leaving college she takes a job in the catering section of Aer Lingus on a low wage and becomes SIPTU‘s shop steward at Dublin Airport when the airline is engaged in extensive cost-cutting and outsourcing.

In the 1980s Daly is a member of the Labour Party as a teenager. A member of Labour’s Militant Tendency, she is expelled alongside Joe Higgins and other members after being accused of being Trotskyists infiltrating the party using the tactic of entryism. At first calling themselves Militant Labour, in 1996 they form the Socialist Party. In the 1999 Irish local elections she is elected as a Fingal County Councillor for the Swords area, a position she holds for 12 years. She is elected as a Socialist Party TD for the Dublin North constituency at the 2011 Irish general election.

Since 2012, Daly has formed a close political association with Mick Wallace. After Wallace is condemned by left-wing TDs following the revelation his building company had avoided €2.1 million in taxes, she resigns from the Socialist Party in August 2012 in protest and redesignates herself as a United Left Alliance TD, before switching party again in 2015 to her current party, Independents 4 Change.

At the 2019 European Parliament elections, Daly is elected for the Dublin constituency. Since becoming an MEP, she has gained international attention for her foreign policy views, particularly regarding Russia and China, which have been the subject of controversy and criticism.

A report by The Irish Times in April 2022 describes Daly and Wallace’s media profile in China, and discusses how since January 2021, Daly has been featured in more Chinese-language news articles than any other Irish person, while Wallace has the second most Chinese-language news articles. In April 2022, Daly and Wallace initiate defamation proceedings against RTÉ.

On September 15, 2022, Daly is one of sixteen MEPs who vote against condemning President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua for human rights violations, in particular the arrest of Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.


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Birth of Charles Maturin, Clergyman, Playwright & Novelist

Charles Robert Maturin, also known as C. R. Maturin, an Irish Protestant clergyman ordained in the Church of Ireland and a writer of Gothic plays and novels, is born in Dublin on September 25, 1780. His best-known work is the novel Melmoth the Wanderer.

Maturin is descended from Huguenots who found shelter in Ireland, one of whom is Gabriel Jacques Maturin who becomes Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, after Jonathan Swift in 1745. He attends Trinity College Dublin. Shortly after being ordained as curate of Loughrea, County Galway, in 1803, he moves back to Dublin as curate of St. Peter’s Church. He lives in York Street with his father William, a Post Office official, and his mother, Fedelia Watson. He marries the acclaimed singer Henrietta Kingsbury on October 7, 1804.

Maturin’s first three works are Gothic novels published under the pseudonym Dennis Jasper Murphy and are critical and commercial failures. They do, however, catch the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who recommends Maturin’s work to Lord Byron. With their help, his play Bertram is staged in 1816 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane for 22 nights, with Edmund Kean starring in the lead role as Bertram. Financial success, however, eludes Maturin, as the play’s run coincides with his father’s unemployment and another relative’s bankruptcy, both of them assisted by the fledgling writer. To make matters worse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge publicly denounces the play as dull and loathsome, and “melancholy proof of the depravation of the public mind,” going nearly so far as to decry it as atheistic.

The Church of Ireland takes note of these and earlier criticisms and, having discovered the identity of Bertram‘s author after Maturin had shed his nom de plume to collect the profits from the play, subsequently bar his further clerical advancement. Forced to support his wife and four children by writing on his curate salary of £80-90 per annum, compared to the £1000 he made for Bertram, he switches back from playwright to novelist after a string of his plays meet with failure. He produces several novels in addition to Melmoth the Wanderer, including some on Irish subjects and The Albigenses, a historical novel which features werewolves. Various poems have also been ascribed to Maturin on dubious grounds and appear to be the work of others. The prize-winning “Lines on the Battle of Waterloo” is published in 1816 under the name of the university graduate John Shee. “The Universe” appears with Maturin’s name on the title page in 1821 but is now thought to be almost completely the work of James Wills.

The exaggerated effectiveness of Maturin’s preaching can be gauged from the two series of sermons that he publishes. On the occasion of the death of Princess Charlotte, he declares, “Life is full of death; the steps of the living cannot press the earth without disturbing the ashes of the dead – we walk upon our ancestors – the globe itself is one vast churchyard.” A contemporary account records that there had seldom been seen such crowds at St Peter’s. “Despite the severe weather, people of all persuasions flocked to the church and listened spellbound to this prince of preachers. In his obituary it is said that ‘did he leave no other monument whereon to rest his fame, these sermons alone would be sufficient.'”

Maturin dies in Dublin on October 30, 1824. A writer in the University Magazine later sums up his character as “eccentric almost to insanity and compounded of opposites – an insatiable reader of novels; an elegant preacher; an incessant dancer; a coxcomb in dress and manners.”

A sister of Maturin’s wife marries Charles Elgee, whose daughter, Jane Francesca, becomes the mother of Oscar Wilde. Thus, Charles Maturin is Oscar Wilde’s great-uncle by marriage. Wilde discards his own name and adopts the name of Maturin’s novel, Melmoth, during his exile in France.

Maturin’s eldest son, William Basil Kingsbury Maturin, follows him into the ministry, as do several of his grandsons. One of these, Basil W. Maturin, dies in the sinking of RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915. The second son is Edward Maturin, who emigrates to the United States and becomes a novelist and poet there.


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Birth of Robert Boyle, Philosopher, Writer & Chemist

Robert Boyle, Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, theological writer, chemist, physicist, inventor and a preeminent figure of 17th-century intellectual culture, is born on January 25, 1627, at Lismore Castle, in County Waterford.

At age eight, Boyle begins his formal education at Eton College, where his studious nature quickly becomes apparent. In 1639 he and his brother Francis embark on a grand tour of the continent together with their tutor Isaac Marcombes. In 1642, owing to the Irish rebellion, Francis returns home while Robert remains with his tutor in Geneva and pursues further studies.

Boyle returns to England in 1644, where he takes up residence at his hereditary estate of Stalbridge in Dorset. There he begins a literary career writing ethical and devotional tracts, some of which employ stylistic and rhetorical models drawn from French popular literature, especially romance writings. In 1649 he begins investigating nature via scientific experimentation. From 1647 until the mid-1650s, he remains in close contact with a group of natural philosophers and social reformers gathered around the intelligencer Samuel Hartlib. This group, the Hartlib Circle, includes several chemists who heighten his interest in experimental chemistry.

Boyle spends much of 1652–1654 in Ireland overseeing his hereditary lands and performing some anatomic dissections. In 1654 he is invited to Oxford, and he takes up residence at the university until 1668. In Oxford he is exposed to the latest developments in natural philosophy and becomes associated with a group of notable natural philosophers and physicians, including John Wilkins, Christopher Wren, and John Locke. These individuals, together with a few others, form the “Experimental Philosophy Club.” Much of Boyle’s best known work dates from this period.

In 1659 Boyle and Robert Hooke, the clever inventor and subsequent curator of experiments for the Royal Society, complete the construction of their famous air pump and use it to study pneumatics. Their resultant discoveries regarding air pressure and the vacuum appear in Boyle’s first scientific publication, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and Its Effects (1660). Boyle and Hooke discover several physical characteristics of air, including its role in combustion, respiration, and the transmission of sound. One of their findings, published in 1662, later becomes known as “Boyle’s law.” This law expresses the inverse relationship that exists between the pressure and volume of a gas, and it is determined by measuring the volume occupied by a constant quantity of air when compressed by differing weights of mercury.

Among Boyle’s most influential writings are The Sceptical Chymist (1661), which assails the then-current Aristotelian and especially Paracelsian notions about the composition of matter and methods of chemical analysis, and the Origine of Formes and Qualities (1666), which uses chemical phenomena to support the corpuscularian hypothesis. He argues so strongly for the need of applying the principles and methods of chemistry to the study of the natural world and to medicine that he later gains the appellation of the “father of chemistry.”

Boyle is a devout and pious Anglican who keenly champions his faith. He sponsors educational and missionary activities and writes a number of theological treatises. He is deeply concerned about the widespread perception that irreligion and atheism are on the rise, and he strives to demonstrate ways in which science and religion are mutually supportive. For Boyle, studying nature as a product of God’s handiwork is an inherently religious duty. He argues that this method of study would, in return, illuminate God’s omnipresence and goodness, thereby enhancing a scientist’s understanding of the divine. The Christian Virtuoso (1690) summarizes these views and may be seen as a manifesto of his own life as the model of a Christian scientist.

In 1668 Boyle leaves Oxford and takes up residence with his sister Katherine Jones, Vicountess Ranelagh, in her house on Pall Mall in London. There he sets up an active laboratory, employs assistants, receives visitors, and publishes at least one book nearly every year. Living in London also provides him the opportunity to participate actively in the Royal Society.

Boyle is a genial man who achieves both national and international renown during his lifetime. He is offered the presidency of the Royal Society and the episcopacy but declines both. Throughout his adult life, he is sickly, suffering from weak eyes and hands, recurring illnesses, and one or more strokes. He dies in London at age 64 on December 31, 1691, after a short illness exacerbated by his grief over Katherine’s death a week earlier. He leaves his papers to the Royal Society and a bequest for establishing a series of lectures in defense of Christianity. These lectures, now known as the Boyle Lectures, continue to this day.


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Birth of John Tyndall, Experimental Physicist

File source: //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Tyndall_(scientist).jpg

John Tyndall, Irish experimental physicist who, during his long residence in England, is an avid promoter of science in the Victorian era, is born on August 2, 1820, in Leighlinbridge, County Carlow.

Tyndall is born into a poor Protestant Irish family. After a thorough basic education, he works as a surveyor in Ireland and England from 1839 to 1847. When his ambitions turn from engineering to science, he spends his savings on gaining a Ph.D. from the University of Marburg in Marburg, Hesse, Germany (1848–1850), but then struggles to find employment.

In 1853 Tyndall is appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution, London. There he becomes a friend of the much-admired physicist and chemist Michael Faraday, entertains and instructs fashionable audiences with brilliant lecture demonstrations rivaling the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley in his popular reputation and pursuing his research.

An outstanding experimenter, particularly in atmospheric physics, Tyndall examines the transmission of both radiant heat and light through various gases and vapours. He discovers that water vapor and carbon dioxide absorb much more radiant heat than the gases of the atmosphere and argues the consequent importance of those gases in moderating Earth’s climate, that is, in the natural greenhouse effect. He also studies the diffusion of light by large molecules and dust, known as the Tyndall effect, and he performs experiments demonstrating that the sky’s blue color results from the scattering of the Sun’s rays by molecules in the atmosphere.

Tyndall is passionate and sensitive, quick to feel personal slights and to defend underdogs. Physically tough, he is a daring mountaineer. His greatest fame comes from his activities as an advocate and interpreter of science. In collaboration with his scientific friends in the small, private X Club, he urges greater recognition of both the intellectual authority and practical benefits of science.

Tyndall is accused of materialism and atheism after his presidential address at the 1874 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, when he claims that cosmological theory belongs to science rather than theology and that matter has the power within itself to produce life. In the ensuing notoriety over this “Belfast Address,” his allusions to the limitations of science and to mysteries beyond human understanding are overlooked. He engages in a number of other controversies such as spontaneous generation, the efficacy of prayer and Home Rule for Ireland.

In his last years Tyndall often takes chloral hydrate to treat his insomnia. When bedridden and ailing, he dies from an accidental overdose of this drug on December 4, 1893, at the age of 73 and was buried at Haslemere, Surrey, England.

Tyndall is commemorated by a memorial, the Tyndalldenkmal, erected at an elevation of 7,680 ft. on the mountain slopes above the village of Belalp, where he had his holiday home, and in sight of the Aletsch Glacier, which he had studied.


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Birth of C.S. Lewis, Poet & Novelist

clive-staples-lewis

Clive Staples Lewis, novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist, is born in Belfast on November 29, 1898. He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

Lewis is schooled by private tutors until age nine when his mother dies in 1908 from cancer. His father then sends him to live and study at Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire. After the school is closed soon afterward, he attends Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home, but leaves after a few months due to respiratory problems. He is then sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attends the preparatory school Cherbourg House. It is during this time that he abandons his childhood Christian faith and becomes an atheist. In September 1913, he enrolls at Malvern College. After leaving Malvern, he studies privately with William T. Kirkpatrick, his father’s old tutor and former headmaster of Lurgan College.

Lewis holds academic positions in English literature at both the University of Oxford (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and the University of  Cambridge (Magdalene College, 1954–1963).

Lewis and fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien are close friends. They both serve on the English faculty at Oxford University and are active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the Inklings. He returns to Anglicanism at the age of 32, owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, and he becomes an “ordinary layman of the Church of England.” His faith profoundly affects his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity bring him wide acclaim.

Lewis writes more than 30 books which have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, television, radio and cinema. His philosophical writings are widely cited by Christian apologists from many denominations.

In early June 1961, Lewis begins suffering from nephritis, which results in blood poisoning. He recovers but on July 15 of that year he falls ill and is admitted to the hospital where he suffers a heart attack the following day, lapses into a coma and awakens the next day. After he is discharged from the hospital his condition continues to decline. He is diagnosed with end-stage renal failure in mid-November. He collapses and dies in his bedroom on November 22. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford.

Media coverage of Lewis’s death is almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, which takes place approximately 55 minutes after Lewis’s collapse.

In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lewis is honoured with a memorial in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.