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Death of Cathal O’Shannon, Journalist & Television Presenter

Cathal O’Shannon, Irish journalist and television presenter, dies in Dublin on October 22, 2011. He is a former journalist with The Irish Times and television reporter/presenter and documentary film maker with RTÉ. He is probably best known for presenting documentaries on Irish history, produced mainly for Irish television viewers and broadcast by RTÉ.

O’Shannon is awarded lifetime membership of the Irish Film & Television Academy in 2010, to which he says it is “particularly gratifying that it occurs before I pop my clogs”.

The Irish radio and television broadcaster Terry Wogan describes O’Shannon as possibly the greatest Irish television journalist of the 20th century.

O’Shannon is born in Marino, Dublin, on August 23, 1928, the son of Cathal O’Shannon (Sr.), a socialist and Irish Republican. He receives his formal education at Coláiste Mhuire in Parnell Square, Dublin. In 1945, despite his father’s politics, as a 16-year-old, he volunteers for war time service with the Royal Air Force in Belfast during World War II, utilizing a forged birth certificate to disguise being underage for enlistment with the British Armed Forces. After air crew training he is posted to the Far East, as a tail gunner in an Avro Lancaster bomber to take part in the Burma campaign, but the war ends with the downfall of the Japanese Empire before he is required to fly combat sorties.

O’Shannon first becomes a journalist with The Irish Times on leaving the Royal Air Force in 1947. Later he joins the Irish state broadcasting service Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ).

In July 1972, O’Shannon records a notable television interview with 31-year-old Muhammad Ali, when Ali is in Dublin to compete at Croke Park in a bout with Alvin Lewis.

O’Shannon receives a Jacob’s Award for his 1976 TV documentary, Even the Olives are Bleeding, which details with the activities of the “Connolly Column” in the Spanish Civil War. Two years later he is honoured with a second Jacob’s Award for his television biography Emmet Dalton Remembers (1978).

In 1978, O’Shannon leaves RTÉ to join Canadian company Alcan which is setting up an aluminum plant at Aughinish, County Limerick, in 1978. He is head-hunted to become its Director of Public Affairs, an important post at a time when there are environmental concerns about the effects of aluminum production. He admits that he is attracted by the salary, “five times what RTÉ were paying me,” but he also later says that one reason for the move is that he had become unhappy with working at RTÉ, stating in an interview that: “The real reason I got out of RTÉ was that they wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do journalistically.” He had submitted proposals to the station’s editors for television documentary series on the Irish Civil War, and also one on the wartime Emergency period, but they had been rejected. While he enjoys the social life with lavish expenses which his public relations duties involve, his friends believe that he misses the varied life and travel of journalism. He retires early from Aughinish in 1992, and returns to making television documentaries with RTÉ.

In January 2007, O’Shannon’s last documentary, Hidden History: Ireland’s Nazis, is broadcast by RTÉ as a two-part series. It explores how a number of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators from German-occupied Europe went to live in Republic of Ireland after World War II, the best known of whom is Otto Skorzeny, who lives for a period in County Kildare. Others include such Breton nationalists as Alan Heusaff, Yann Fouéré and Yann Goulet, as well as two Belgians, Albert Folens and Albert Luykx.

O’Shannon’s wife, Patsy, whom he met while they were working at The Irish Times office in London, dies in 2006. They had been married for more than 50 years.

On January 12, 2007, O’Shannon announces his retirement at the age of 80. In a 2008 television documentary, he admits that throughout his marriage he had been a serial womaniser and had repeatedly engaged in extra-marital affairs unbeknownst to his wife.

After weakening health for two years, and spending his last days in a hospice at Blackrock, O’Shannon dies at the Beacon Hospital in Dublin on October 22, 2011, in his 84th year. His body is reposed at Fanagans Funeral Home in Dublin on October 25, followed by a funeral the following day at Glasnevin Cemetery Chapel, where his remains are cremated afterward.

Director General of RTÉ Noel Curran says O’Shannon had brought into being “some of the great moments in the RTÉ documentary and factual schedule over the past five decades.” In tribute, RTÉ One shows the documentary Cathal O’Shannon: Telling Tales on November 10, 2011. It had originally aired in 2008 to mark his 80th birthday


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Birth of Lilian Davidson, Artist, Teacher & Writer

Lilian Davidson ARHA, Irish landscape and portrait artist, teacher and writer, is born on January 26, 1879, at Castle Terrace, Bray, County Wicklow.

Davidson is the sixth of ten children of clerk of petty session, Edward Ellice Davidson, and Lucy Rising Davidson (née Doe). Her mother dies in 1888, and it is presumed that she receives a private education but as the family are not affluent, the details are unclear. She goes on to attend the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (DMSA) from 1895 to 1905. While at the DMSA, she wins prizes in 1895 and 1896 and is awarded a scholarship and free studentship at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in 1897, the same year her father dies. She completes her studies in 1905. In the early 1910s, she is living in Rathmines and spends some time in England and Wales.

Davidson is commissioned by Switzer’s department store on Grafton Street to draw costumes in 1899. In 1909, her painting After Rain is exhibited by the Dublin Sketching Club, with her continuing to show work there until 1920. She exhibits The Bonfire with the Water Colour Society of Ireland in 1912, becoming a committee member in 1934 and continuing to exhibit with them until 1954. In 1914, she is one of the artists included in a sale of paintings to aid Belgian refugees. She is first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1914, with The Student. Her painting exhibited by the RHA in 1916, The Harbour, St. Ives, demonstrates an influence from Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School, with a bright palette and contrasting illumination, which become characteristic of her work. She illustrates C. H. Bretherton’s collection of humorous poems and recollections about London Zoo, A Zoovenir (1919).

Davidson holds a joint exhibition with Mainie Jellett in 1920, at Mill’s Hall, Merrion Row, Dublin. Jellett produces a pencil portrait of Davison (pictured above), which shows her in a straw hat she frequently wears. The RHA exhibits Davidson’s oil painting, The Flax Pullers, in 1921. This work shows an influence from Paul Henry and French Impressionism in her use of colour-blocking. In the early 1920s, she travels to Switzerland, Belgium, and France, producing works such as Fish Market, Bruges. She lives in Paris in the late 1920s, exhibiting at the Salon de la Societé Nationale in 1924 and 1930. She places a self-portrait in her depiction of a peasant gathering, The Country Races. Reproductions of her drawing of Leinster House and Christ Church Cathedral by Bulmer Hobson are included in A Book of Dublin (1929). Her landscape, Low Tide, Wicklow, which is exhibited at the RHA in 1934, and Boats at Wicklow, Dusk show her ability to depict reflections in water. She continues to paint scenes of rural life, including Cottages – Keel, Achill, which shows an influence from Jack Butler Yeats in her use of space and colour. The fact that her family is not wealthy likely influences her choice of poorer people as her subjects, depicting them in a sympathetic manner. Her work is part of the painting event in the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics.

Davidson’s paintings are exhibited at the Contemporary Picture Galleries, Dublin in 1930, alongside Yeats, Evie Hone, and Harry Kernoff. She is a member of the Picture Hire Club, 24 Molesworth Street, Dublin from 1941 to 1942, and is a frequent contributor to the Munster Fine Arts Club. Her work is exhibited at the Salon des Beaux Arts, Paris, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and in Amsterdam. A large number of her works from the 1930s show the Irish-speaking area of Galway, Claddagh, such as Night in Claddagh, exhibited with the RHA in 1933. Her Irish landscapes, such as Claddagh Cottages, are included in the Oireachtas Art Exhibitions from 1932 to 1946. From around 1934, she is a member of the Society of Dublin Painters, exhibiting with them from 1939 to 1954. She influences the Society’s move toward the avant-garde in the 1940s. She is elected associate to the RHA in 1940 and continues to exhibit there until her death. Her 1946 work, Gorta, shows influence from Zola, Rilke, Dostoyevsky and Picasso.

Davidson teaches drawing at her studio at 1 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin. Her pupils include Bea Orpen, Anne Yeats, and Mo Irwin. She also is a teacher at a number of Dublin schools, such as Belgrave school, Rathmines, Wesley College, St. Stephen’s Green, and Castle Park School, Dalkey. She travels to Abbeyleix, County Laois, once a week to teach at Glenbawn boarding school.

As well as painting, Davidson writes a number of plays, short stories, and monologues under a pseudonym, “Ulick Burke.” In 1927, a collection of her poems and Donegal rhymes is published. In 1931, Hilton Edwards directs her stage play Bride, at the Gate Theatre. Her short story, Her Only Son, is published in The Bell under a pseudonym in 1942. In 1935, she is a founder-member of the Torch Theatre, Dublin. She designs scenery, and is the co-director with Hugh Hyland in 1936, under the stage name “Jennifer Maude.”

Davidson dies at her home at 4 Wilton Terrace, Dublin on March 29, 1954. She is buried in an unmarked grave in Mount Jerome Cemetery. The National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) holds her 1938 portrait of Yeats, as well as her crayon drawing of Sarah Purser. She is a regular attendee at Purser’s “Second Tuesdays” gatherings. The Abbey Theatre holds her portrait of Joseph Holloway. She bequeaths The Golden Shawl to the Hugh Lane Gallery, which is a large self-portrait. Two of her works are included in the NGI’s 1987 exhibition, Irish Women Artists from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day.


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The Siege of Jadotville

As part of the larger Congo Crisis (1960–1964), the siege of Jadotville begins on September 13, 1961, lasting for five days. While serving under the United Nations Operation in the Congo (Opération des Nations Unies au Congo, ONUC), a small contingent of the Irish Army‘s 35th Battalion, designated “A” Company, are besieged at the UN base near the mining town of Jadotville (modern-day Likasi) by Katangese forces loyal to the secessionist State of Katanga. The siege takes place during the seven-day escalation of hostilities between ONUC and Katangese forces during Operation Morthor. Although the contingent of 156 Irish soldiers repels attacks by a 3,000-strong Katangese force, they are eventually forced to surrender after running out of ammunition and water. “A” Company is subsequently held as prisoners of war for approximately one month, before being released on October 15 as part of a prisoner exchange. The Irish forces inflict approximately 1,300 casualties (including up to 300 killed) on the Katangan force, with no deaths amongst “A” Company.

On the morning of Wednesday, September 13, 1961, the soldiers stationed at Jadotville are informed of Operation Morthor by UN Headquarters at Elisabethville. At 07:40 twenty Katangese troops attack while many of the UN Irish troops of A Company are attending an open-air Mass. Expecting to take the men off-guard, the first attackers move in rapidly. However, they are spotted by an Irish sentry, and a warning shot by Private Billy Ready alerts the company to the threat. Ready is wounded in a later exchange of fire.

The paramilitary Katangese Gendarmerie, which is a combined force of mercenaries, Belgian settlers and local tribesmen, attack the Irish company. The attackers have a strength of 3,000–5,000 men – consisting of mostly Katangese and settlers, but with many Belgian, French and Rhodesian mercenaries armed with a mix of weapons. Additionally, these forces have limited air support from a Fouga CM.170 Magister trainer-light ground attack jet fitted with a pair of underwing bombs and twin 7.5 mm machine guns, which repeatedly attacks the UN position. The Irish soldiers are armed with personal weapons, several water-cooled Vickers machine guns, 60 mm mortars and two Irish-built Ford Mark VI armoured cars under the command of Lieutenant Kevin Knightly.

The Katangese attack in waves of 600 or so, preceded by bombardment from 81 mm mortars and a French 75mm field gun. The Irish Support Platoon of “A” Company knocks out most of the Katangese mortar and artillery positions, including the 75mm gun, with counter-battery fire from 60mm mortars. The fire from the UN Irish positions proves accurate and effective. Mercenary officers are reportedly observed shooting native gendarmes to stem the rout caused in Katangese lines.

The 500 Irish and Swedish UN troops based in Kamina, and Indian army Gurkhas make several attempts to relieve the besieged Irish soldiers. The supporting force of mercenaries beat back these efforts. They have been brought in by Moïse Tshombe, Katanga’s premier, whose secessionist government has been supported by Belgium.

Attempting to reach the besieged “A” Company, the relief column, named “Force Kane” after its commander Commandant John Kane, is stymied in a series of battles at a pinch point called the Lufira Bridge. It carries the Jadotville-to-Elisabethville Highway across the Lufira River. The Katangese forces dig in here and bring heavy and sustained ground and air fire onto the relief column, killing three Indian UN troops, injuring a number of Irish UN troops and ultimately forcing the column off the bridge. Additionally, during the effort to reach the trapped company, the Katanga forces set off charges on the railway bridge to impede potential relief efforts.

On September 14, the Katangan Fouga jet flies passes over the battlefield, dropping bombs that rendered the Company’s vehicles inert and cause injuries to Privates Tahaney and Gormley.

During the siege, the Irish radio to their headquarters: “We will hold out until our last bullet is spent. Could do with some whiskey.”

On September 16, a second attempt to reach the Irish Company is made but fails with another three Indian troops being killed and a further eight soldiers suffering injuries. The Katangese ask Commandant Pat Quinlan for a ceasefire, as their own forces have been seriously diminished. By this time their effective strength may have been reduced to 2,000 men. Later that same day, a ceasefire agreement is reached between Commandant Quinlan and the Burgomaster of the Katangan forces, enabling the Irish troops to re-supply with water. The Gendarmerie retreat from their positions surrounding the UN.

Quinlan lacks any clear direction or communication from his superiors, and the Katangese gradually infringe on the ceasefire agreement to undermine “A” Company’s position. With his position untenable, without any clear orders or promise of assistance, having run out of ammunition and food and being low on water, Quinlan accepts their second offer to surrender. On September 17, Quinlan meets with Katanga Minister Munongo, in which a formal written ceasefire and surrender agreement is made, which contains the proviso that the Irish Company will keep their weapons and be unharmed.

“A” Company, 35th Battalion, suffers five wounded in action during the siege. The Katangese suffered up to 300 killed, including 30 mercenaries and an indeterminate number of wounded, with figures ranging from 300 to 1,000.

The Irish soldiers are held as hostages for approximately one month, in an effort to extort terms of ceasefire that are embarrassing to the United Nations.

After being released, the troops are returned to their base in Elisabethville. Some weeks later, however, “A” Company finds itself in active combat again, this time with the support of Swedish UN troops. Eventually, they are reinforced with fresh troops from Ireland, their replacement being the 36th Battalion. After weeks of fighting and their six-month tour of duty now complete, “A” Company is rotated out of the battle zone and are home in Ireland that December.

In 2016, the Irish government awards a Presidential Unit Citation to “A” Company, the first in the State’s history. In October 2017, a plaque commemorating Quinlan is unveiled in his native County Kerry, by former Taoiseach Enda Kenny. The decision of the State to honour individually the soldiers of Jadotville or their next of kin is one of the last decisions taken by Kenny before he retires as Taoiseach in June 2017. They are presented with newly designed Siege of Jadotville Medals in Athlone on December 2, 2017.

(Pictured: No.3 Platoon, A Company, 35th Battalion, pose in front of a UN relief helicopter, September 17, 1961)


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Death of Seamus Twomey, Two Time Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA

Seamus Twomey (Irish: Séamus Ó Tuama), Irish republican activist, militant, and twice chief of staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, dies in Dublin on September 12, 1989.

Twomey is born on November 5, 1919, on Marchioness Street in Belfast, and lives at 6 Sevastopol Street in the Falls district. Known as “Thumper” owing to his short temper and habit of banging his fist on tables, he receives little education and is a bookmaker‘s “runner.” His father is a volunteer in the 1920s. In Belfast he lives comfortably with his wife, Rosie, whom he marries in 1946. Together they have sons and daughters.

Twomey begins his involvement with the Irish Republican Army in the 1930s and is interned in Northern Ireland during the 1940s on the prison ship HMS Al Rawdah and later in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast. Rosie, his wife, is also held prisoner at the women prison, Armagh Jail, in Northern Ireland. He opposes the left-wing shift of Cathal Goulding in the 1960s, and in 1968, helps set up the breakaway Andersonstown Republican Club, later the Roddy McCorley Society.

In 1969, Twomey is prominent in the establishment of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. By 1972, he is Officer Commanding (OC) of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade when it launches its bomb campaign of the city, including Bloody Friday when nine people are killed. During the 1970s, the leadership of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA is largely in the hands of Twomey and Ivor Bell.

In March 1973, Twomey is first appointed IRA Chief of Staff after the arrest of Joe Cahill. He remains in this position until his arrest in October 1973 by the Garda Síochána. Three weeks later, on October 31, 1973, the IRA organises the helicopter escape of Twomey and his fellow IRA members J. B. O’Hagan and Kevin Mallon, when an active service unit hijacks and forces the pilot at gunpoint to land the helicopter in the training yard of Mountjoy Prison. After his escape, he returns to his membership of IRA Army Council.

By June/July 1974, Twomey is IRA Chief of Staff for a second time. He takes part in the Feakle talks between the IRA and Protestant clergymen in December 1974. In the IRA truce which follows in 1975, he is largely unsupportive and wants to fight on in what he sees as “one big push to finish it once and for all.”

IRA informer Sean O’Callaghan claims that on January 5, 1976, Twomey and Brian Keenan give the go-ahead for the sectarian Kingsmill massacre, when ten unarmed Ulster Protestant workmen are executed by the Provisional IRA in retaliation for a rash of loyalist killings of Catholics in the area. It is Keenan’s view, O’Callaghan claims, that “The only way to knock the nonsense out of the Prods is to be ten times more savage.”

Twomey is dedicated to paramilitarism as a means of incorporating Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland. In an interview with French television on July 11, 1977, he declares that although the IRA had waged a campaign for seven years at that point, it can fight on for another 70 against the British state in Northern Ireland and in England. He supports the bombing of wealthy civilian targets, which he justifies on class lines. On October 29, 1977, for example, a no-warning bomb at an Italian restaurant in Mayfair kills one diner and wounds 17 others. Three more people are killed in similar blasts in Chelsea and Mayfair the following month. He says, “By hitting Mayfair restaurants, we were hitting the type of person that could bring pressure to bear on the British government.”

In December 1977, Twomey is captured in Sandycove, Dublin, by the Garda Síochána, who had been tipped off by Belgian police about a concealed arms shipment, to be delivered to a bogus company with an address in the area. They swoop on a house in Martello Terrace to discover Twomey outside in his car, wearing his trademark dark glasses. After a high-speed pursuit, he is recaptured in the centre of Dublin. The Gardaí later find documents in his possession outlining proposals for the structural reorganisation of the IRA according to the cell system. His arrest ends his tenure as IRA chief of staff. In the 1986 split over abstentionism, Twomey sides with the Gerry Adams leadership and remains with the Provisionals.

After a long illness from a heart condition, Twomey dies in Dublin on September 12, 1989. He is buried in the family plot in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. His funeral is attended by about 2,000 people.


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Birth of Seamus Twomey, Two Time Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA

Seamus Twomey (Irish: Séamus Ó Tuama), Irish republican activist, militant, and twice chief of staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, is born on November 5, 1919, on Marchioness Street in Belfast.

Twomey lives at 6 Sevastopol Street in the Falls district. Known as “Thumper” owing to his short temper and habit of banging his fist on tables, he receives little education and is a bookmaker‘s “runner.” His father is a volunteer in the 1920s. In Belfast he lives comfortably with his wife, Rosie, whom he marries in 1946. Together they have sons and daughters.

Twomey begins his involvement with the Irish Republican Army in the 1930s and is interned in Northern Ireland during the 1940s on the prison ship HMS Al Rawdah and later in Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast. Rosie, his wife, is also held prisoner at the women prison, Armagh Jail, in Northern Ireland. He opposes the left-wing shift of Cathal Goulding in the 1960s, and in 1968, helps set up the breakaway Andersonstown Republican Club, later the Roddy McCorley Society.

In 1969, Twomey is prominent in the establishment of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. By 1972, he is Officer Commanding (OC) of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade when it launches its bomb campaign of the city, including Bloody Friday when nine people are killed. During the 1970s, the leadership of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA is largely in the hands of Twomey and Ivor Bell.

In March 1973, Twomey is first appointed IRA Chief of Staff after the arrest of Joe Cahill. He remains in this position until his arrest in October 1973 by the Garda Síochána. Three weeks later, on October 31, 1973, the IRA organises the helicopter escape of Twomey and his fellow IRA members J. B. O’Hagan and Kevin Mallon, when an active service unit hijacks and forces the pilot at gunpoint to land the helicopter in the training yard of Mountjoy Prison. After his escape, he returns to his membership of IRA Army Council.

By June/July 1974, Twomey is IRA Chief of Staff for a second time. He takes part in the Feakle talks between the IRA and Protestant clergymen in December 1974. In the IRA truce which follows in 1975, he is largely unsupportive and wants to fight on in what he sees as “one big push to finish it once and for all.”

IRA informer Sean O’Callaghan claims that on January 5, 1976, Twomey and Brian Keenan give the go-ahead for the sectarian Kingsmill massacre, when ten unarmed Ulster Protestant workmen are executed by the Provisional IRA in retaliation for a rash of loyalist killings of Catholics in the area. It is Keenan’s view, O’Callaghan claims, that “The only way to knock the nonsense out of the Prods is to be ten times more savage.”

Twomey is dedicated to paramilitarism as a means of incorporating Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland. In an interview with French television on July 11, 1977, he declares that although the IRA had waged a campaign for seven years at that point, it can fight on for another 70 against the British state in Northern Ireland and in England. He supports the bombing of wealthy civilian targets, which he justifies on class lines. On October 29, 1977, for example, a no-warning bomb at an Italian restaurant in Mayfair kills one diner and wounds 17 others. Three more people are killed in similar blasts in Chelsea and Mayfair the following month. He says, “By hitting Mayfair restaurants, we were hitting the type of person that could bring pressure to bear on the British government.”

In December 1977, Twomey is captured in Sandycove, Dublin, by the Garda Síochána, who had been tipped off by Belgian police about a concealed arms shipment, to be delivered to a bogus company with an address in the area. They swoop on a house in Martello Terrace to discover Twomey outside in his car, wearing his trademark dark glasses. After a high-speed pursuit, he is recaptured in the centre of Dublin. The Gardaí later find documents in his possession outlining proposals for the structural reorganisation of the IRA according to the cell system. His arrest ends his tenure as IRA chief of staff. In the 1986 split over abstentionism, Twomey sides with the Gerry Adams leadership and remains with the Provisionals.

After a long illness from a heart condition, Twomey dies in Dublin on September 12, 1989. He is buried in the family plot in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. His funeral is attended by about 2,000 people.


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Dom Columba Marmion Beatified by Pope John Paul II

Dom Columba Marmion, a Dublin priest who is credited with curing an American woman of cancer, is beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 3, 2000.

Marmion is born April 1, 1858, in Dublin, the seventh of nine children of William Marmion and Herminie Marmion (née Cordier). He attends St. Laurence O’Toole’s, a primary school run by the Augustinian Fathers of John’s Lane. On January 11, 1869, he transfers to Belvedere College, where he receives an excellent grounding in Greek and Latin from the Jesuit Fathers. From there, he proceeded in January 1874 to Clonliffe College, where he remains until December 1879, when the new Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Edward MacCabe, selects him for further theological studies in Rome.

Marmion is in Rome at the Pontifical Irish College, studying theology at the Propaganda College, for eighteen months (December 1879 – July 1881). Although invited by the authorities at Propaganda to present himself for the doctorate degree, he turns down the offer for health reasons, on account of the necessary extra year in Rome which this would entail. On returning to Dublin, he spends the first year as curate in Dundrum parish. This is followed by four years (1882–86) as professor of philosophy at Clonliffe. On October 25, 1886, he receives from the newly appointed Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. William Walsh, his dimissorial letters, granting him permission to join the Benedictine order. On November 21, 1886, he enters the newly founded Belgian Maredsous Abbey, with which, by virtue of the Benedictine vow of stability, he is to be associated for the rest of his life.

The first thirteen years of his monastic life (1886–99) are spent at Maredsous Abbey itself. After an unsuccessful start in the abbey school as a kind of housemaster to the junior boys, he finds his feet within the community through congenial work, notably the teaching of Thomistic philosophy to the junior monks. He also gradually builds up a reputation as a spiritual guide through the exercise of ministry on a small scale in the surrounding area. The next decade (1899–1909) finds him in Leuven as prior and professor of dogmatic theology at Mont César Abbey, which is founded and staffed by Maredsous. This decade provides a wide outlet for his matured spiritual doctrine through his lectures on dogmatic theology in Mont César, his retreats to priests and religious, and his private correspondence. The third and final phase of his monastic life begins when the chapter of Maredsous elects him as its third abbot in 1909.

An invitation is received from the Belgian government from December 1909 to April 1910 to undertake a Benedictine foundation in Katanga, part of the Belgian Congo. In spite of pressure from government quarters the chapter of Maredsous refuses the offer, and Marmion accepts this negative decision. In 1913 the entire community of Anglican Benedictines of Caldey Island, Wales, transfer their allegiance from Canterbury to Rome. Marmion becomes deeply involved in the spiritual and canonical process of the reception of the community into the Catholic church.

The outbreak of World War I ushers in four years of grave anxiety for Marmion. Belgium is not completely occupied but retains sovereignty over an area extending inland about twenty miles to the Ypres Salient. This enables the young monks of Maredsous, for whom Marmion had found a temporary home in Edermine, County Wexford, to travel to and from the Western Front, where they are being called up to serve as stretcher bearers in the Belgian army. He does his utmost to maintain the unity of his community between those who had remained in Maredsous and the Edermine group.

The first of Marmion’s great spiritual books, Christ, the Life of the Soul, appears in 1916, and its phenomenal success has been described as a silent plebiscite. This is followed by Christ in His Mysteries (1919), Christ the Ideal of the Monk (1922), and Sponsa Verbi (1923). The books are able to appear in rapid succession since they are compiled from his existing conference notes.

One final piece of important monastic and ecclesiastical and even political business absorbs much of Marmion’s energies, although strictly speaking it is not of his remit. His strenuous efforts to install Belgian monks in the Abbey of the Dormition on Mount Zion in Jerusalem following the internment (November 1918) of the original German Benedictine community by the victorious British forces are of no avail, the question being finally settled by the reinstallation of the German (Beuronese) monks in 1921.

Marmion dies at Maredsous on January 30, 1923, following a brief illness which originates in a chill and is aggravated by influenza.

Marmion is beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 3, 2000. This is the outcome of a popular reputation for holiness which had increased steadily since his death and the procedures for beatification prompted in 1954 by Mgr. Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. The canonical steps are: diocesan process at Namur (1957–61); examination at Rome of Marmion’s writings (1960–73); a critical biography (1987–94), written by Mark Tierney, OSB, for the Roman process on the ‘heroicity’ of Marmion’s virtues which concluded in June 1999; and finally, an inexplicable cure of cancer through Marmion’s intercession, judged as miraculous by Rome on January 25, 2000.

The originality of Marmion’s spiritual doctrine lay in his truly central emphasis on the doctrine of our adoption as the children of God in baptism. Many of his predecessors had also emphasised this doctrine, but few had made it the focus from which everything radiated and to which everything returned. The second characteristic of Marmion’s teaching, a much more personal trait, is the conviction of authenticity communicated by his writings, of the greatness of our sharing in the sonship of the Word. This makes a deep and lasting impression on the reader and gives an infinitely sacred meaning to the title ‘children of God’ and thereby to the whole of life. The third characteristic of Marmion’s teaching is the simplicity with which the deepest theological truths are presented – truths which preachers often feel their people cannot ‘take,’ and hence are left unsaid. Marmion presents these truths directly from St. John and St. Paul, and not merely in familiar extracts but in the whole sweep of their texts.

(From: “Marmion, Dom Columba” by Placid Murray, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie)


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Birth of Sir Roger Casement, Diplomat & Irish Nationalist

Sir Roger Casement, in full Sir Roger David Casement, diplomat and Irish nationalist, is born on September 1, 1864, in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire), County Dublin. Following his execution for treason in 1916, he becomes one of the principal Irish martyrs in the revolt against British rule in Ireland.

Casement is born into an Anglo-Irish family, and lives his very early childhood at Doyle’s Cottage, Lawson Terrace, Sandycove. His father, Captain Roger Casement of the (King’s Own) Regiment of Dragoons, is the son of Hugh Casement, a Belfast shipping merchant who goes bankrupt and later moves to Australia. After the family moves to England, Casement’s mother, Anne Jephson (or Jepson), of a Dublin Anglican family, purportedly has him secretly baptised at the age of three as a Roman Catholic in Rhyl, Wales.

The family lives in England in genteel poverty. Casement’s mother dies when he is nine years old. His father takes the family back to County Antrim in Ireland to live near paternal relatives. His father dies when he is thirteen years old. He is educated at the Diocesan School, Ballymena (later the Ballymena Academy). He leaves school at 16 and goes to England to work as a clerk with Elder Dempster Lines, a Liverpool shipping company headed by Alfred Lewis Jones.

Casement is a British consul in Portuguese East Africa (1895–98), Angola (1898–1900), Congo Free State (1901–04), and Brazil (1906–11). He gains international fame for revealing atrocious cruelty in the exploitation of native labour by white traders in the Congo and the Putumayo River region of Peru. His Congo report, published in 1904, leads to a major reorganization of Belgian rule in the Congo in 1908, and his Putumayo report of 1912 earns him a knighthood, which is ultimately forfeited on June 29, 1916.

Ill health forces Casement to retire to Ireland in 1912. Although he comes from an Ulster Protestant family, he has always sympathized with the predominantly Roman Catholic Irish nationalists. Late in 1913 he helps form the National Volunteers, and in July 1914 he travels to New York City to seek American aid for that anti-British force. After World War I breaks out in August, he hopes that Germany might assist the Irish independence movement as a blow against Great Britain. On arriving in Berlin in November 1914, he finds that the German government is unwilling to risk an expedition to Ireland and that most Irish prisoners of war would refuse to join a brigade that he intends to recruit for service against England.

Later, Casement fails to obtain a loan of German army officers to lead the Irish rising planned for Easter 1916. In a vain effort to prevent the revolt, he sails for Ireland on April 12 in a German submarine. Put ashore near Tralee, County Kerry, he is arrested on April 24 and taken to London, where, on June 29, he is convicted of treason and sentenced to death. An appeal is dismissed, and he is hanged at London’s Pentonville Prison on August 3, 1916, despite attempts by influential Englishmen to secure a reprieve in view of his past services to the British government. During this time, diaries reputedly written by Casement and containing detailed descriptions of homosexual practices are circulated privately among British officials. After years of dispute over their authenticity, the diaries are made available to scholars by the British home secretary in July 1959. It is generally considered that the passages in question are in Casement’s handwriting.

In 1965 Casement’s remains are repatriated to Ireland. Despite the annulment, or withdrawal, of his knighthood in 1916, the 1965 UK Cabinet record of the repatriation decision refers to him as “Sir Roger Casement.”

Casement’s last wish is to be buried at Murlough Bay on the north coast of County Antrim, in present-day Northern Ireland, but Prime Minister Harold Wilson‘s government had released the remains only on condition that they could not be brought into Northern Ireland, as “the government feared that a reburial there could provoke Catholic celebrations and Protestant reactions.”

Casement’s remains lay in state at the Garrison Church, Arbour Hill (now Arbour Hill Prison) in Dublin for five days, close to the graves of other leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. After a state funeral, his remains are buried with full military honours in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, alongside other Irish republicans and nationalists. The President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, then the last surviving leader of the Easter Rising, attends the ceremony, along with an estimated 30,000 others.