Hendron is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Belfast West between April 1992 and May 1997 in the UK Parliament in London. He takes the seat from Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams at his third attempt with a majority of one percent. He becomes the only nationalist MP to defeat Adams. The seat had previously been held for the SDLP by Gerry Fitt, later Lord Fitt, until 1983. He attracts unprecedented cross-community support from Nationalists and Unionists in the constituency. This is the only example where an SDLP candidate receives a high enough number of Unionist votes in Belfast West to help unseat a Sinn Féin candidate. Adams regains the seat at the 1997 United Kingdom general election.
Hendron is appointed a member of the Northern Ireland Parades Commission in 2005. He retires from this role in December 2010.
On June 11, 2019, Hendron escapes with just bruising and a damaged collarbone after he is struck by a van and thrown up into the air while crossing Balmoral Avenue. He says he is probably partly to blame for the accident as he decided to cross the street in front of a van that was trying to pull out onto the main road. Apparently, the driver of the van did not see Hendron and began to pull out, striking him.
(Robert John) Douglas Gageby, one of the pre-eminent Irish newspaper editors of his generation, dies on June 24, 2004, following a lengthy illness. His life is well documented and a book of essays about him, Bright Brilliant Days: Douglas Gageby and the Irish Times, written by many of his colleagues, some of whom had attained fame for their literary achievements, is published in 2006.
Gageby is educated at Belfast Royal Academy and Trinity College Dublin, where he is elected a scholar in Modern Languages (French and German) in 1940. He is also actively involved with the student newspaper, Trinity News. He enlists in the Irish Army as a private soldier at the outbreak of World War II. He is commissioned later, and he serves as an intelligence officer. He reports from post-war Germany for The Irish Press and goes on to work under Conor Cruise O’Brien in the Irish News Agency. In 1954 he is the first editor of the Evening Press. In 1963 he becomes editor of The Irish Times, a post he holds until 1986, having been brought back from a short retirement in 1974. He is credited with moving The Irish Times from a Unionist organ into a successful Irish journal of record.
In 2003 it is revealed that a director, and later Chairman, of The Irish Times, Major Thomas Bleakley McDowell, had referred to Gageby as a “white nigger” for his views and role in the paper during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement‘s campaign in the 1960s. The comment appears in a letter from the British Ambassador to Dublin, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, to Kelvin White, head of the Irish Section of the British Foreign Office and is dated October 2, 1969. Gilchrist is referring to conversations which he had with McDowell where the latter professes himself to be fully behind the British government in the North and hostile to Gageby’s coverage of the civil rights movement. However, historian Mark O’Brien notes, “Despite his contacts with London, McDowell’s actions did not interfere with Gageby’s editorials on Northern Ireland”, due to the fact McDowell believes in editorial independence (even though McDowell strongly disagrees with Gageby’s nationalist views), and because Gageby is making the newspaper commercially successful. Under the 30 year rule, this letter is made available to newspapers on December 22 and 23, 1999, but no newspaper publishes it at that time.
The communiqué is later discovered by the historian Jack Lane and published in the Irish Political Review, a small magazine strongly antagonistic to The Irish Times, in January 2003. He brings it to the attention of The Irish Times editor, Geraldine Kennedy, on January 10, 2003, and she replies on January 15, 2003 saying she is “unable to confirm the veracity of it” and does not publish it. When, on January 26, 2003, the Sunday Independent (Ireland) publishes the story, The Irish Times finally follows the next day, January 27. Nonetheless, on April 24, 2004, Kennedy defends her position by saying, “The contents of the letter in question were published on January 27, 2003, as soon as its existence was drawn to my attention.”
Gageby dies on June 24, 2004, following a two year illness. His private funeral is conducted by Rev. Terence McCaughey, a family friend. The Irish Times endows an annual Douglas Gageby Fellowship for young journalists and a stand of trees is planted in his memory at Moynalty. His papers are presented to Dublin City University (DCU).
McCann grows up in the Falls Road area of West Belfast. He is educated at St. Comgalls Primary School on Divis Street and later at St. Peters Secondary School off the Whiterock Road.
McCann is released from Long Kesh on May 9, 1972, then rearrested in November 1972 and re-interned until December 1975. During this period of internment, he is sentenced to nine months for escaping from Long Kesh through a tunnel. During this escape, IRA volunteer Hugh Coney is murdered by British soldiers.
McCann is arrested again in November 1976 and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol where he spends six months on remand before being sentenced to three years. He joins the blanket protest in Crumlin Road Gaol where he and his comrades are held in solitary confinement until August 1978 when they are moved to the H-Blocks in Long Kesh, joining hundreds more on the blanket protest. He is released on November 22, 1979.
Upon his release, McCann travels throughout Ireland with other ex-prisoner’s highlighting the inhumanity in the H-Blocks. He travels throughout the United States in 1980 during which time he is arrested and spends 17 days in prison in New York. In 1981, he travels to Canada where he helps form H-Block committees and raises awareness about the hunger strike.
On his return to Ireland McCann is elected to sit on the National H-Block Committee and speaks at many events in support of the hunger strike. In the aftermath of the hunger strike he helps reorganise Sinn Féin in the Falls area.
McCann is elected to Belfast City Council in 1987 and sits on the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee and the Parks and Leisure committee. He is elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly representing Belfast West in 2003 and again in 2007, 2012 and 2018. While there he sits on the Finance and Personnel Committee and the Committee for Social Development.
In June 2006, McCann is charged with assault and disorderly behaviour following an incident in west Belfast. The incident occurs as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are attempting to arrest a teenager for attempted robbery. However, he claims heavy-handedness by the police and states, “I tried to put myself between one of the officers and the girl when the police officer radioed for assistance.” He is released on bail.
In October 2021, McCann announces that he would be stepping down as Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Belfast West and would not be contesting the next election.
Napier joins the Ulster Liberal Party, rising to become Vice President by 1969. That year, he leads a group of four party members who join the New Ulster Movement, accepting the post of joint Chairman of its political committee. The Liberal Party promptly expels him, but, working with Bob Cooper, he uses his position to establish a new political party, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, which seeks to become a political force that can command support from across the divided communities of the province, but remain pro-union. This aims to offer an alternative to what he describes as the sectarianism of the Ulster Unionist Party. Despite his faith he is a supporter of the Union.
Napier serves as the party’s joint leader from 1970 until 1972, then as its sole leader from 1973 to 1984. Under his leadership Alliance participates in successive assemblies that seek to solve the debate on the province’s position, including the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973 in which he is a minister in the power-sharing Executive. In 1979 he comes closer to winning a seat in the Westminster Parliament than any other Alliance candidate up to that point when he is less than a thousand votes behind Peter Robinson‘s winning total in Belfast East in a tight three-way race. This record is beaten in 2010, when Naomi Long ousts Robinson from the same seat. When Napier steps down as leader in 1984 he receives many plaudits for his work. The following year he is knighted and in 1989 he stands down from Belfast City Council, seemingly to retire.
Napier dies at the age of 75 on July 2, 2011. He is survived by his wife, Briege, whom he marries in 1961, three sons and five daughters, and 23 grandchildren. A son predeceases him.
Shawcross studies at Bolton College of Art from 1955 to 1958, and Lancaster College of Art from 1958 to 1960, before moving to Belfast in 1962 to take up a part-time lecturer’s post at the Belfast College of Art, becoming full-time in 1968. He continues to lecture there until his retirement in 2004.
Shawcross has exhibited nationally, with one-man shows in London, Manchester, Dublin and Belfast, and internationally in Hong Kong and the United States, and his work is found in many private and corporate collections.
Shawcross is elected an Associate of the Royal Ulster Academy of Art in 1975, and is made a full Academician in 1977. He wins the Academy’s Conor Award in 1975, its gold medal in 1978, 1982, 1987, 1994, 1997 and 2001, and its James Adam Prize in 1998. He is also a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). He is awarded the Gallaher Portrait Prize in 1966.
In 2010, the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, hosts a private collection of the works of Shawcross. In 2015, he exhibits a collection of six foot tall book covers inspired by original Penguin paperbacks at the National Opera House in Wexford, County Wexford. In 2018, he donates to Belfast City Council a collection of 36 paintings dedicated to ‘Writers of Belfast’ in a show of appreciation to his adopted home city. A major retrospective of his works are exhibited at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio, Banbridge, County Down, in the same year.
Shawcross is a Patron of the charity YouthAction Northern Ireland. He lives in Hillsborough, County Down, Northern Ireland.
John Joseph “Rinty” Monaghan, world flyweightboxing champion from Belfast, is born on August 21, 1918. He becomes famous in the post-war period, eventually rising to become undisputed world champion and a hero to many people in his home city.
Born in Lancaster Street in north Belfast, Monaghan attends St. Patrick’s Christian Brothers’ School in Donegall Street. A noted fighter at boys’ level, he entereds the paid ranks in his mid-teens. After a short period of wartime service, he resumes his career and his burgeoning reputation draws huge crowds from all parts of Belfast. In particular, bouts at Belfast’s King’s Hall are the highlight with that venue normally packed to the rafters.
In October 1947, the National Boxing Association world crown becomes Monaghan’s after outpointing American Salvador “Dado” Marino at Harringay Stadium for the vacant title. The mantle of undisputed champion of the world rests on his shoulders after he defeats the tough Scottish fighter Jackie Paterson on March 23, 1948. Paterson is to prove one of his major adversaries.
By the time that a long-standing chest complaint forces his retirement as champion in 1950, Monaghan’s trophy cabinet contains the British, European, Commonwealth and World crowns. Of the 66 official bouts he fights during his illustrious career, he wins 51, draws 6 and loses 9. He endears himself to his supporters after his fights by singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” to the King’s Hall audience, which joins in the singing.
Monaghan’s nickname “Rinty” comes from his fondness for dogs. According to his daughter Martha, he brought home injured dogs so often that his grandmother called him Rin Tin Tin, after the film dog, and shortened it to Rinty.
Monaghan marries Frances Thompson in 1938 and moves to nearby Sailortown. He has three daughters, Martha, Rosetta and Collette, and one son, Sean. In later life he has a variety of jobs but remains true to his working-class roots and stays in Belfast. He dies at his home in Little Corporation St. on March 3, 1984, at the relatively young age of 65. He is buried in Belfast City Cemetery.
To mark the influence of this “home-town hero”, the Ulster History Circle and Belfast City Council provide a plaque in Monaghan’s honour at the King’s Hall that is unveiled, in the presence of many of his family circle and friends, on May 3, 2007.
Belfast City Council erects a statue to Monaghan at Cathedral Gardens on August 20, 2015. The 10-foot high bronze statue on a granite plinth is designed by Alan Beattie Herriot and features Monaghan holding a microphone and singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”
Jaffe is born into a Jewish family, one of four boys and five girls born to Daniel Joseph and Frederiké Jaffe. In 1852, his parents bring their family to Belfast. His father, along with his older brothers, Martin, John and Alfred, set up a business exporting linen. He is educated at Mr. Tate’s school in Holywood, County Down, and later in Hamburg and Switzerland.
Jaffe marries Paula Hertz, daughter of Moritz Hertz from Braunschweig, on March 8, 1879. They have two sons, Arthur Daniel and William Edward Berthold Jaffe. Daniel Joseph Jaffé is his nephew, son of his brother Martin.
From 1867 to 1877 Jaffe lives and works in New York. In 1877, his brothers retire so he returns to Belfast to head the family business, The Jaffe Brothers, at Bedford Street. He builds it up to become the largest linen exporter in Ireland. He is a member of the Belfast Harbour Commission and becomes a naturalised citizen in 1888. In 1894, he successfully agitates for the reporting and destruction of shipwrecks in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Jaffe is a Justice of the Peace, a governor of the Royal Hospital, a member of the Irish Technical Education Board and a member of the Senate of Queen’s College, which later becomes Queen’s University Belfast. He is the German consul in Belfast. He is an active member of the committee which gets the Public Libraries Act extended to Belfast, leading to the first free library being established there. In 1910 he erects the Jaffe Spinning Mill on the Newtownards Road, also known as Strand Spinning. This provides work for 350 people, rising to 650 in 1914 when the company expands to make munitions. He is lavishly charitable and contributes to Queen’s College.
Jaffe takes a keen interest in the Jewish community of Belfast. He is life-president of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation, which worships at the Great Victoria Street, Belfast synagogue. His father established it on July 7, 1871. Between 1871 and 1903 the congregation increases from fifty-five to over a thousand. He pays most of the £4,000 cost of building the synagogue in Annesley Street. He opens it in 1904 wearing his mayoral regalia. Three years later with his wife, they set up the Jaffe Public Elementary School on the Cliftonville Road.
The outbreak of war sees anti-German sentiment and when the RMS Lusitania passenger liner is torpedoed by a German U-boat of the coast of County Cork on May 7, 1915, resulting in the death of 1,000 people, anti-German feeling in Britain and Ireland rise to breaking point. Even though he is loyal to the Crown, and his eldest son Arthur and his nephew are serving in the British Army, Jaffe is accused of being a German spy. Society women refuse support for the Children’s Hospital so long as Jaffe and his wife remain on the board. He is “overwhelmed with pain and sorrow.”
After twenty-five years of service, Jaffe resigns his post as Alderman of Windsor Ward for Belfast City Council in June 1916 when he is almost 70 years of age and takes up residence in London, where he dies on April 29, 1929. Lady Jaffe is too ill to attend his funeral, and she dies a few months later, in August 1929.
Ervine is born into a Protestant working-class family in east Belfast on July 21, 1953. He leaves Orangefield High School at age 14 and joins the Orange Order at age 18, however his membership does not last long. The following year he joins the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), believing this to be the only way to ensure the defence of the Protestant community after the events of Bloody Friday.
Ervine is arrested in November 1974, while an active member of the UVF. He is driving a stolen car containing five pounds of commercial explosives, a detonator and fuse wire. After seven months on remand in Crumlin Road Gaol he is found guilty of possession of explosives with intent to endanger life. He is sentenced to 11 years and imprisoned in The Maze.
While in prison, Ervine comes under the influence of Gusty Spence who makes him question what his struggle is about and unquestionably changes Ervine’s direction. After much study and self-analysis, he emerges with the view that change through politics is the only option. He also becomes friends with Billy Hutchinson while in prison.
Ervine is released from prison in 1980 and takes up full-time politics several years later. He stands in local council elections as a Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) candidate in 1985 Northern Ireland local elections. In 1996 he is elected to the Northern Ireland Forum from the regional list, having been an unsuccessful candidate in the Belfast East constituency. In 1998, he is elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly to represent Belfast East and is re-elected in 2003. He is also a member of Belfast City Council from 1997.
In 1982 Cushnahan is elected to the Prior Assembly for North Down and two years later he becomes the new leader of Alliance, succeeding Oliver Napier. During his tenure as leader, he seeks to strengthen the party’s links with the British Liberal Party. The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed during this period and Cushnahan faces the difficult position of giving Alliance support to it and facing the united opposition of the Unionist parties. However, when the Assembly is dissolved in 1986, Cushnahan finds it financially difficult to remain in politics and so stands down as leader in 1987 to be succeeded by John Alderdice.
Two years later Cushnahan makes a surprise political comeback when he moves to the Republic of Ireland and stands as a Fine Gael candidate in the 1989 election to the European Parliament, winning a seat in the Munster constituency. He is an MEP for fifteen years before retiring at the 2004 elections.
Cushnahan now serves as a board member of the peace and reconciliation charity Co-operation Ireland.
seamus dubhghaill 