seamus dubhghaill

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Death of RIC Detective Oswald Ross Swanzy

Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Detective Oswald Ross Swanzy is shot dead by Cork Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers while leaving church in Lisburn, County Antrim, on August 22, 1920.

Swanzy lives at 31 Railway Street and attends Morning Service at the Cathedral. At 1:06 p.m. as he is walking past the entrance to the Northern Bank (now Shannon’s Jewelers), he is shot by the IRA and dies at the scene.

A 39-year-old single man from County Monaghan, he had been a member of the police for 15 years. His funeral takes place at Mount Jerome Cemetery, Harold’s Cross, Dublin three days later.

In February 1921, a memorial is erected in the north wall of the Cathedral by his mother and sister. The brass tablet mounted in Irish Oak bears the following inscription:

“In proud and loving memory of Oswald Ross Swanzy DI Royal Irish Constabulary who gave his life in Lisburn on Sunday, August 22, 1920, and his gallant comrades who, like him, have been killed in the unfaltering discharge of their duty and in the service of their country. Be thou faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life.”

In his book, Police Casualties in Ireland 1919 to 1922, Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Inspector Richard Abbott says the decision to kill Swanzy is taken by Michael Collins himself who believes the officer had been the leader of the party of unidentified men who killed Tomás Mac Curtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork and Commandant of Cork Number One Brigade of the IRA.

With the help of RIC Sergeant Matt McCarthy, who had provided Collins with information in the past, Swanzy is traced to Lisburn. The Intelligence Officer of B Company of the IRA’s First Cork Battalion, Sean Culhane, is then sent to Belfast to link up with local IRA activists. On the day of the attack, Culhane and a number of Belfast IRA men leave the city in a taxi and make their way to Lisburn.

Culhane and Roger McCorley, a Belfast member of the IRA, walk up to Swanzy and shoot him at close range. They, along with their accomplices, then run in pairs along Castle Street with another man in the middle of the road. They continue to fire as they make their way to the taxi which is waiting outside the Technical College.

The vehicle starts to move off before McCorley reaches it and he is forced to throw himself into the car. As he does so he lands in a heap on the back floor of the car and accidentally fires a round from his revolver inside the taxi.

A member of the public notes the taxi’s number as it leaves Lisburn and the driver is arrested later that afternoon. He tells police he works for the Belfast Motor Cab and Engineering Co. at Upper Library Street. At 11:45 a.m., he says he had been sent to the Great Northern Railway Station in Great Victoria Street to collect a fare who wanted to “take a run along the County Down coast.” The taxi driver is later tried for the killing of Swanzy but is found not guilty.

The IRA killing of Detective Inspector Swanzy leads to bitter sectarian rioting in Lisburn. A number of Catholics are murdered and others assaulted and terrorised as their homes and businesses are burned by mobs on the rampage. Journals kept at the time recall how groups of people wait at Lambeg to attack Catholics fleeing the town on the main Belfast Road. This forces many to leave Lisburn by way of the mountain route into the city as columns of smoke rise into the air above the town.

Workers at local mills are also called upon to sign the following declaration: “I…. …hereby declare I am not a Sinn Féiner nor have any sympathy with Sinn Féin and do declare I am loyal to king and country.” Violence also sweeps across Belfast in the wake of the Market Square attack.

A total of 22 people are killed in one week and on August 24 the authorities swear in a number of special constables to try to regain control of the situation. This is the first time since the start of the IRA campaign in 1919 that Special Constables have to be used.

(From: “Assassination of Detective Inspector Oswald Ross Swanzy,” Lisburn.com)


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The Royal Irish Constabulary is Disbanded

The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom, is disbanded on August 17, 1922, and replaced by the Garda Síochána.

A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), patrols the capital and parts of County Wicklow, while the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police forces, later have special divisions within the RIC. For most of its history, the ethnic and religious makeup of the RIC broadly matches that of the Irish population, although Anglo-Irish Protestants are overrepresented among its senior officers.

The first organised police forces in Ireland come about through Dublin Police Act 1786, which is a slightly modified version of the failed London and Westminster Police Bill 1785 drafted by John Reeves at the request of Home Secretary Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, following the Gordon Riots of 1780. The force is viewed as oppressive by local elites and becomes a strain on the city budget. The arguably excessive budget is used as a pretext by Irish nationalist MP Henry Grattan and short-lived Lord Lieutenant of Ireland William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, to essentially abolish the Dublin Police in 1795 and even temporarily move it under Dublin Corporation.

The Peace Preservation Act 1814, for which Sir Robert Peel is largely responsible, and the Irish Constabulary Act 1822 forms the provincial constabularies. The 1822 act establishes a force in each province with chief constables and inspectors general under the United Kingdom civil administration for Ireland controlled by the Dublin Castle administration.

The RIC’s existence is increasingly troubled by the rise of the Home Rule campaign in the early twentieth century period prior to World War I.

In January 1922, the British and Irish delegations agree to disband the RIC. Phased disbandments begin within a few weeks with RIC personnel both regular and auxiliary being withdrawn to six centres in southern Ireland. On April 2, 1922, the force formally ceases to exist, although the actual process is not completed until August 17. The RIC is replaced by the Civic Guard (renamed as the Garda Síochána the following year) in the Irish Free State and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Northern Ireland.

According to a parliamentary answer in October 1922, 1,330 ex-RIC men join the new RUC in Northern Ireland. This results in an RUC force that is 21% Roman Catholic at its inception in 1922. As the former RIC members retire over the subsequent years, this proportion steadily falls.

Just thirteen men transfer to the Garda Síochána. These include men who had earlier assisted Irish Republican Army (IRA) operations in various ways. Some retire, and the Irish Free State pays their pensions as provided for in the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty agreement. Others, still faced with threats of violent reprisals, emigrate with their families to Great Britain or other parts of the British Empire, most often to join police forces in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. A number of these men join the Palestine Police Force, which is recruiting in the UK at the time.


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Death of Liam Ó Briain, Irish Language Expert & Political Activist

Liam Ó Briain, Irish language expert and political activist, dies on August 12, 1974, in Cabinteely, County Dublin.

Christened as William O’Brien, Ó Briain is born at 10 Church Street, North Wall, Dublin, on September 16, 1888, the seventh child of Arthur O’Brien, clerk, and Mary O’Brien (née Christie), who is from County Meath. He takes an interest in the Irish language from an early age and begins learning Irish by himself from a grammar book, as it is not encouraged by his teachers at the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School nor spoken by his parents. While still at the O’Connell School, he starts using the Irish version of his name. He also attends meetings of the Gaelic League, then attends University College Dublin (UCD) on a scholarship, where he studies French, English and Irish, receiving a BA (1909) and an MA (1910).

UCD decides to start awarding one annual scholarship for overseas travel in 1911, and Ó Briain wins the first one, using it to visit Germany and study under Kuno Meyer and Rudolf Thurneysen. After three years, he returns home, where he rejoins the Gaelic League and begins teaching French at UCD. He also joins the Irish Volunteers then, the following year, Seán T. O’Kelly convinces him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Ó Briain sees action with the Irish Citizen Army. He comes into conflict with his commander, Michael Mallin, as he wants to pursue a strategy without the Dublin brigade being “cooped up in the city.” However, Mallin overrules him and insists they should focus on taking Dublin Castle. He spends two months in Wandsworth Prison in London and six months in Frongoch internment camp in Wales before being released to discover that he has been fired from his job. However, he quickly obtains a professorship in Romance languages at University College Galway (UCG).

Around this time, Ó Briain joins Sinn Féin, and he stands unsuccessfully for the party in Mid Armagh at the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, taking 5,689 votes. His campaign leads, indirectly, to his arrest and three months in jail in Belfast. In 1920, following his release, he is appointed a judge in the then-illegal republican court system in Galway, and visits both France and Italy to try to source weapons for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In November 1920, he is arrested in the UCG dining room by Black and Tans, and is imprisoned for thirteen months, first in Galway and then in the Curragh camp in County Kildare, thereby missing the conclusion of the Irish War of Independence. By the time he is released, the Anglo-Irish Treaty has been signed. He supports the treaty and takes no further part in militant activity.

In the newly independent Ireland, Ó Briain remains a professor at Galway. He also stands in the 1925 Seanad election, although he is not successful. He is the founding secretary of the Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe theatre, also acting in many of its productions, and spends much time translating works from English and the Romance languages into Irish. He stands to become president of UCG in 1945, but is not elected, and in the 1940s and 1950s is best known for his many appearances on television and radio.

From his retirement in 1959, Ó Briain lives in Dublin. In 1974, the National University of Ireland (NUI) confers an honorary doctorate on him. He dies on August 12, 1974, at St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Cabinteely, County Dublin. His funeral to Glasnevin Cemetery is almost a state occasion, with a huge attendance of public figures, and a military firing party at the graveside, where the oration is given by Micheál Mac Líammóir and a lesson is read by Siobhán McKenna. For days after his death, the newspapers carry tributes to his many-sided career and personality. On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and Art Ó Beoláin write commemorative articles in Feasta.

On September 1, 1921, Ó Briain marries Helen Lawlor, of Dublin, who dies two years before him. The couple’s only child is Eibhlín Ní Bhriain, who is a journalist for The Irish Times and other periodicals.


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Death of Wilhelmina Geddes, Stained Glass Artist

Wilhelmina Geddes, Irish stained glass artist who is an important figure within the Irish Arts and Crafts movement and also the twentieth-century British stained glass revival, dies in London, England, on August 10, 1955. Her notable works include windows at St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church (Ottawa, Canada), St. Peter’s Church (Lampeter, Wales), and the King Albert Memorial Window, St. Martin’s Cathedral (Ypres, Belgium).

Geddes is born on her maternal grandparent’s farm at Drumreilly Cottage in Leitrim, County Leitrim, on May 25, 1887. She is the eldest of four children, three girls and a boy, of William Geddes and his wife Eliza Jane Stafford. The family, who migrates to Ireland from Scotland, has mainly been farmers. Her father, a Methodist, who is born near his father’s farm at Tandragee, County Armagh, emigrates to the United States as a young man, working as a labourer for the railway construction business. This serves a useful purpose as he had worked as a site engineer at the Cavan, Leitrim and Roscommon Railway Company. When she is still an infant her parents move to their native home in Belfast, so her father can set up in business as a building contractor.

Geddes begins drawing subjects from life and nature from the age of four. She learns first how to draw from the school mistress in Ayrshire, where her father occasionally goes shooting. She begins her studies at Methodist College Belfast along with her three younger sisters. She later moves to the Belfast School of Art. She is encouraged by Rosamond Praeger, a sculptor from County Down, to continue with her studies. She is accepted as a student to study at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University. This is where she adapts and improves her style and is introduced to a professional standard of art work.

While still studying at the Belfast School of Art, Geddes takes part in the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland‘s fourth exhibition. For this exhibition, she contributes a glowingly coloured illustration of the book Cinderella Dressing the Ugly Sister (Dublin City Gallery), which she had created. It is at this exhibition that her work is spotted by Sarah Purser, a well established painter seeking newly trained students to introduce to stained glass artistry. Purser, who goes on to be her lifelong mentor, invites the young Geddes to join her in Dublin, working under the established stained glass artist William Orpen.

Geddes contributes a watercolour illustration of a Ballad Seller with the Belfast Art Society in 1907. She is elected as an Associate of the Belfast Art Society’s successor, the Ulster Academy of Arts, in 1933 before promotion to Honorary Academician in 1935. She shows five illustrations in the 1911 Oireachtas Exhibition. It is some twenty-one years before she returns to the Oireachtas when she exhibits three cartoons and three sketches for stained glass in 1932.

Geddes joins Purser at the acclaimed stained glass workshop called An Túr Gloine in 1910. The workshop is held in Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art. It is here that she discovers her passion for the craftsmanship of stained glass artistry and creates her most important works.

During her early years at An Túr Gloine, Geddes’s originality shines, and important commissions come from St. Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin and the Presbyterian church in Rathgar. Dogged by illness, she returns to Belfast before 1916 and lives between there and Dublin until moving in 1925, as she has long wanted, to work in London at The Glass House, Fulham. While working at The Glass House, she instructs the Irish painter and stained glass artist Evie Hone.

Geddes’s work is considered pioneering and represents a rejection of the Late Victorian approach. She creates a new view of men in stained glass windows, portraying them with close-shaven crew cuts. The muscularity and tension of her portraiture is matched by the radical design of her constructions. Ambitious large-scale projects, as at the cathedral in Ypres, are equalled by the drama of smaller-scale work at Wallasey (Lancashire) and Wallsend (Northumberland), or war memorial windows in obscure country churches.

Despite the hardships of living in London during World War II, poverty, and ill health, Geddes designs seventeen full-scale stained glass masterpieces, sixteen of which she completes.

Geddes dies on August 10, 1955 in London of a pulmonary embolism. She is buried in Carnmoney Cemetery, County Antrim, along with her mother and sister Ethel. Even after moving to London, she claims that her native identity never wavered as she says she was always “a Belfast woman.”


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Birth of Desmond Boal, Unionist Politician & Barrister

Desmond Norman Orr Boal, unionist politician and barrister, is born on August 8, 1928, in St. Columb’s Court, Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Boal is the third of five children (and only son) of James Boal, cashier and bakery manager, and his wife Kathleen (nèe Walker). Brought up in the Church of Ireland, he is educated at First Derry Primary School, Cathedral Primary School (Derry), Foyle College (Derry), Portora Royal School In Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), where he graduates BA and Bachelor of Laws (LLB).

During his studies Boal founds an Orange lodge at TCD. He is called to the bar in 1952 at the Inner Temple, London. He travels extensively during his summers, visiting Afghanistan, South America and even China during the Cultural Revolution.

Around 1956, Boal makes the acquaintance of Ian Paisley through friendships with ultra-protestant activists, and for the next half-century is one of Paisley’s closest friends and advisers. He has a legal career before he enters politics in 1960. He was the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for the Belfast Shankill constituency between 1960 and 1972. He is very critical of the leadership under Captain Terence O’Neill, then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He opposes the manner, if not the substance, of O’Neill’s attempts at improving relations with both the Irish government and the Roman Catholic/Irish nationalist minority in Northern Ireland, along with many backbenchers.

Discontented with James Chichester-Clark and Brian Faulkner who come to government after O’Neill’s 1969 fall from power, Boal resigns from the UUP in 1971 and joins Ian Paisley in establishing the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in order to provide dissident unionist opinion with a viable political alternative. He works as the first chairman and one of the first public representatives of the DUP and continues to sit in Stormont during the years of 1971–1972. He later resumes his practice as a barrister.

While Boal’s interest in federalism diminishes after the 1970s, the federalist Boal scheme of January 1974 is again put forward by liberal protestants such as John Robb as late as 2007. His friendship with Paisley finally breaks when the DUP agrees to enter government with Sinn Féin in 2007. He tells Paisley, who takes the breach very hard, that he had betrayed everything he ever advocated.

Boal dies at his home in Holywood, County Down, on April 23, 2015, aged 86. His funeral is held at Roselawn Crematorium in Belfast.


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Heavy Fighting in Newcastle West, County Limerick

Nationalist forces enter Newcastle West, County Limerick, on Monday, August 7, 1922, after a twelve-hour battle, in which twelve anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, sometimes referred to as Irregulars, are killed. The casualties of the Nationalists are less than those of the Irregulars.

Taking little respite after Sunday’s labors, the Nationals advance from Rathkele on Monday morning, and by midday are in sight of their fresh objective. Armored cars enter the town and machine gun fire is directed against a party of Irregulars, causing many casualties.

When the artillery goes into action against the headquarters of the Irregulars, the Irregulars flee precipitately along Cord road.

Owing to the slow progress in the operations in Southern Ireland, the meeting of Dáil Éireann, scheduled to open Saturday, is postponed again.

The official army bulletin announces that the Nationals captured Castle Island on Saturday, August 5. It says that the counties of Cork and Kerry with a part of South Tipperary and a small area in County Waterford are the only districts held by the Irregulars with any degree of security.

The streets of Dublin are lined with great crowds of people on Tuesday, August 8, for the military funeral of nine National Army soldiers who were killed in fighting the Republican Irregulars in County Kerry. Michael Collins, Chairman of the Provisional Government, and all the leading officers of the army in Dublin march beside the hearses. Each coffin is covered with the Republican tricolour. There are many clergymen and other civilians in the funeral procession.

Prominent Catholics of Dublin and Belfast are trying to effect a better understanding between the Ulster and Free State Governments, according to the Daily Mail. This newspaper further states that all efforts to this end, which have all been taken with the advice and approval of leading English Catholics, are without official character.

A message from Strabane, County Tyrone, received by the Exchange Telegraph Company on August 8 states that a settlement between the Ulster Government and the Free State authorities is imminent, the terms of agreement having been practically arranged in negotiations proceeding in London.

In Downing Street, however, all knowledge of any such Irish negotiations is disclaimed and a telegram from Belfast quotes Ulster Government officials as denying that a settlement with the Free State is imminent.

The Free State Government is also unaware of any negotiations for a settlement between the Ulster Government and the Free State authorities. It is further states that such negotiations are unlikely to take place.

(From: “Irish Irregulars Routed With Loss,” The New York Times, August 9, 1922 | Pictured: General Michael Collins inspects a soldier at Newcastle West, County Limerick, August 8, 1922)


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Brendan Foley, Writer, Film Producer & Director

Brendan Foley is a Northern Irish writer, film producer and director. Raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he has written feature film and TV series scripts for producers and studios in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hollywood, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Poland, South Africa, China and Thailand. He writes and produces the 2005 action-thriller Johnny Was, starring Vinnie Jones, Eriq La Salle and Patrick Bergin. The film wins awards including Audience Awards and Best Feature Awards from six film festivals.

Foley’s most recent work includes Cold Courage, a TV series thriller for Lionsgate, Viaplay and Luminoir shot in Europe in 2019 and The Man Who Died, a series for Elisa-Viaplay.

Foley writes, produces and directs The Riddle in 2006, starring Jones, Sir Derek Jacobi and Vanessa Redgrave. In September 2007, The Riddle becomes the world’s first feature film to be released as a DVD premiere by a national newspaper. The UK’s The Mail on Sunday buys UK DVD rights and distributes 2.6 million copies, making the film one of the most widely watched independent films in the UK.

During 2006–07, Foley writes and directs Assault of Darkness, a satirical horror film set in rural Ireland, starring Jones, Jason Barry and Nora-Jane Noone. It is released by Lionsgate in the United States on DVD in 2009. He co-creates and is a writer on Shelldon, a children’s environmental animated TV series on NBC (2010–12) and Byrdland (five seasons of animated TV series in Asia with GMM Grammy).

In 2015, Foley starts developing a new TV detective series for BBC Television, Farmoor (makers of The Fall) and Northern Ireland Screen (UK home of Game of Thrones) and, in 2016, he develops Tunnel Kings, a mini-series on World War II POW “escape-artists” for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Dream Street, Canada. He completes pilot scripts for SOS, a new eco-thriller series by Finnish producers Luminoir, and Kvenland, set in the Dark Ages. Previously he writes the pilot for drama Dr. Feelgood for Monday TV (Denmark).

Cold Courage, described as a Nordic noir series involving Finnish characters in present-day London made by Finnish producers Luminoir for Lionsgate and Viaplay, shot in London, Dublin, Belgium and Finland in 2019. Actor John Simm tells Variety that he is attracted to the series by the quality of the writing and the fact that it is a pan-European thriller.

In 2019, Foley is attached to produce an adaptation of Freeman Wills Crofts‘ Inspector French novels.

In 2025, Foley is Writer-Creator and Executive Producer for Sherlock & Daughter, a drama series starring David Thewlis and Blu Hunt for The CW, WarnerBrosDiscovery UK, Federation, Starlings and StoryFirst (UK).

Foley has written books for U.S. and UK publishers. Under The Wire, a World War II POW escape drama, which he writes along with its subject, pilot William Ash, is published by  Random House, London and St. Martin’s Press, New York, in 2005 and 2006. It becomes a best-seller, reaching number one on Amazon UK‘s history and biography charts. In 2018/19, a related TV series is developed as a future miniseries by CBC in Canada and Northern Ireland Screen.

Foley’s next book, Archerfield, a novel, published in 2015, covers 16,000 years of history in one square mile of Scotland.

Foley is a member of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, a Fellow of the British Association of Communicators in Business, and is made an honorary life member of the National Union of Journalists in June 2006.


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The IRA “Supergrass” Trial Ends in Belfast

The “supergrass” trial of thirty-eight alleged members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ends in Belfast on August 5, 1983. The defendants face various charges including murder and attempted murder. Eighteen later have their convictions quashed. The trial has lasted 120 days with most of the evidence being offered by IRA supergrass Christopher Black. The judge jails twenty-two of the accused to sentences totaling more that 4,000 years. Four people are acquitted and others receive suspended sentences. In 1986, eighteen of the twenty-two who received prison sentences have their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Kevin Malgrew, who faces the most charges, eighty-four, is sentenced to jail terms totaling 963 years. When sentencing him, the judge, Justice Basil Kelly, says, “You are a ruthless terrorist. I do not expect any words of mine will ever raise in you a twinge of remorse.” 

In spite of the long sentences, none of those convicted is expected to spend more than twenty years in prison as the judge orders the terms should be served concurrently.

The IRA members are convicted largely on the evidence of a police informant, the so-called “supergrass” Christopher Black. He is granted immunity from prosecution and is believed to be abroad at the time the trial ends. A police spokesman says they believe Black is being hunted by the IRA.

Justice Kelly wears a bulletproof vest throughout the trial. Like all judges in such cases, he will receive police protection for the rest of his life.

But in spite of some of the long sentences he hands down, Justice Kelly also shows compassion to some of those on trial. He sets thirteen people free with suspended sentences or discharges saying he realises the “enormous pressure” placed upon them within their community to help extremists.

Postman Francis Murphy receives a suspended sentence for allowing an IRA man to wear his uniform so he could carry out a murder. And Justice Kelly gives Murphy’s mother an absolute discharge for having later burned the uniform. “Very many other mothers would have done the same,” he says.

(From: “1983: IRA members jailed for 4,000 years,” by BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk | Pictured: IRA volunteer Kevin Malgrew)


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Birth of Banjo Player Gerry O’Connor

Gerry O’Connor, traditional tenor banjo player, is born on July 21, 1960, in Nenagh, County Tipperary. As Earl Hitchener, music critic for The Wall Street Journal, says, O’Connor can be considered at the moment “the single best four-string banjoist in the history of Irish Music.” He also plays mandolin, fiddle, guitar and tenor guitar.

O’Connor releases four solo albums and his third one, titled No Place Like Home, is named by The Irish Times as Number 1 Traditional/Folk album of the year in 2004. After the sudden death of banjo player Barney McKenna on April 5, 2012, he joins The Dubliners to complete their planned tour, until the final shows at Vicar Street in Dublin, on December 28-30. McKenna himself says about Gerry O’Connor: “He’s my best pupil ever.” Together with Eamonn Campbell, Patsy Watchorn and Seán Cannon, O’Connor keeps touring in 2013 as The Dublin Legends.

In addition to his solo performances and recordings, O’Connor is a member of Four Men and a Dog. He also works on Michael Flatley‘s Lord of the Dance soundtrack and guests over the years with many famous Irish artists such as The Waterboys, Mary Black, Arcady, Moya Brennan, Luka Bloom, Sharon Shannon and performs for U.S. President Bill Clinton in Belfast during his historic visit to Ireland. More recently he guests on Christy Moore‘s album Folk Tale (2011).

O’Connor is one of four musicians brought together by blues rock singer/guitar player Joe Bonamassa to perform on a variety of instruments in an acoustic concert at the Vienna State Opera on July 3, 2012. None of the five had ever worked together nor even met until they arrive in Vienna, where three days later they put on a live performance. The event is released on March 12, 2013, on CD and DVD/Blu-Ray, titled An Acoustic Evening At The Vienna Opera House, and in 2014 is broadcast as a PBS special.

O’Connor mainly plays CGDA tuned tenor banjo, instead of the usual Irish tuning GDAE. He plays a David Boyle banjo on almost every tour since 1996, but usually records with an Epiphone Recording A banjo.


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Birth of James Kilfedder, Northern Ireland Unionist Politician

Sir James Alexander Kilfedder, Northern Irish unionist politician usually known as Sir Jim Kilfedder, is born on July 16, 1928, in Kinlough, County Leitrim, in what is then the Irish Free State. He is the last unionist to represent Belfast West in the House of Commons.

Kilfedder’s family later moves to Enniskillen in neighbouring County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, where he is raised. He is educated at Portora Royal School in Enniskillen and at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD). During his time at TCD, he acts as Auditor of the College Historical Society (CHS), one of the oldest undergraduate debating societies in the world. He becomes a barrister, called to the Irish Bar at King’s Inns, Dublin, in 1952 and to the English Bar at Gray’s Inn in 1958. He practises law in London.

At the 1964 United Kingdom general election, Kilfedder is elected as an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Member of Parliament for Belfast West. During the campaign, there are riots in Divis Street when the Royal Ulster Constabulary(RUC) remove an Irish flag from the Sinn Féin offices of Billy McMillen. This follows a complaint by Kilfedder in the form of a telegram to the Minister of Home Affairs, Brian McConnell. It reads, “Remove tricolour in Divis Street which is aimed to provoke and insult loyalists of Belfast.” Kilfedder loses his seat at the 1966 United Kingdom general election to Gerry Fitt. He is elected again in the 1970 United Kingdom general election for North Down, and holds the seat until his death in 1995.

Kilfedder is elected for North Down in the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election, signing Brian Faulkner‘s pledge to support the White Paper which eventually establishes the Sunningdale Agreement, but becoming an anti-White Paper Unionist after the election. In 1975, he stands for the same constituency in the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention election, polling over three quotas as a UUP member of the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) although he refuses to sign the UUUC’s pledge of conduct.

Kilfedder leaves the UUP in 1977 in opposition to the party’s policies tending to integrationism, preferring to advocate the restoration of the Stormont administration. For a time he sits as an “Independent Ulster Unionist.” He contests the 1979 European Parliament election under that label, finishing fourth in the count for the three seats, having overtaken the UUP leader Harry West on transfers.

In 1980, Kilfedder forms the Ulster Popular Unionist Party (UPUP) and is re-elected under that label in all subsequent elections. He again tops the poll in the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election and is elected as Speaker of the Assembly, serving in the position until 1986. He generally takes the Conservative whip at Westminster. While Speaker, he is paid more than the Prime Minister.

On March 20, 1995, while traveling by train into London from Gatwick Airport, Kilfedder dies of a heart attack. This is the same day that the Belfast Telegraph carries a front-page story saying that an Ulster MP has been targeted as one of twenty MPs invited by the LGBT rights organisation OutRage! in a letter to come out. He dies unmarried and is survived by two sisters.

Kilfedder is described by Democratic Unionist Party MLA Peter Weir as “the best MP North Down ever had.”

The UPUP does not outlive Kilfedder, and the by-election for his Commons seat is won by Robert McCartney, standing for the UK Unionist Party (UKUP). McCartney had fought the seat in the 1987 United Kingdom general election as a “Real Unionist” with the backing of the Campaign for Equal Citizenship. At the 1987 election count, in his victory speech, Kilfedder “attacked his rival’s supporters as ‘a rag tag collection of people who shame the name of civil rights.’ He said they included communists, Protestant paramilitaries and Gay Rights supporters and he promised to expose more in future.” McCartney loses North Down in 2001 to Sylvia Hermon of the UUP.

Kilfedder’s personal and political papers (including constituency affairs) are held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, reference D4127.

Kilfedder is buried in Roselawn Cemetery in East Belfast.