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Death of Olive Henry, Northern Irish Artist

Olive Henry, Northern Irish artist known for her painting, photography and stained glass design, dies on November 8, 1989, in Crawfordsburn, County Down, Northern Ireland. She is a founding member of the Ulster Society of Women Artists and is believed to be the only female stained glass artist working in Northern Ireland in the first half of the twentieth century.

Henry is born in Belfast on January 15, 1902, the daughter of the tea merchant George Adams Henry. She attends Mount Pottinger National School, and Victoria College, before expanding her studies at night classes at the Belfast School of Art.

Henry completes an apprenticeship at Clokey Stained Glass Studios founded by Walter Francis Clokey where she is to work for over fifty years designing stained glass windows. Her appointment in the autumn of 1919 comes by a chance visit to Victoria College by the firm’s owner who is seeking a suitable apprentice. She retires from the firm at Easter 1972.

In addition to her stained glass work, Henry exhibits her paintings widely in the Oireachtas, Belfast Art Society, Royal Ulster Academy, Royal Hibernian Academy, the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, Water Colour Society of Ireland, Belfast Museum and Art Gallery (now the Ulster Museum) and the National Society in London. She is a founding member, with Gladys Maccabe, of the Ulster Society of Women Artists and is president of the society from 1979 to 1981.

Henry exhibits at the Belfast Art Society for the first time in 1928. She exhibits four works, all landscapes in oil, and then a further two works in the following year. In 1931, she shows a further two works with the successor to the Belfast Art Society, the Ulster Academy of Arts. In 1932, she shows A Derbyshire Village, described by one critic as “a delightful English rural scene.” Between 1931 and 1942 she shows with more than twenty paintings at the Ulster Academy of Arts, exhibiting at each annual show in that time.

Henry has a keen interest in photography from an early age and wins various awards for her photographs. In 1934, she wins the August prize from the Photographic Dealers’ Association for a shot of a child playing with toys in the bath, having received a consolation prize of five shillings in September of the previous year for a shot of a traditional market scene in Boulogne. She goes on to write a regular column for Amateur Photographer throughout the 1930s.

In January 1935, Henry is appointed leader of a local sketching group by the Youth Hostel Association. In December 1935, she is commended for a sketch called River Pool, submitted to a competition judged by James Humbert Craig on behalf of the Youth Hostel Association, presented alongside Port Muckin a show with the sketching group. Maurice Canning Wilks contributes Skernaghan Point, Brown’s Bay to the same show.

The Robinson and Cleaver Art Gallery stages a display of works from Four Ulster Artists in 1936 consisting of paintings from Henry, her sister Marjorie, Theo Gracey and F. H. Hummel. She contributes Green Boat, which she had presented earlier in the year to the Ulster Academy of Arts, and includes Off the Scilly Isles among pictures from Brittany and Bavaria. The reviewer in Belfast’s News Letter refers to her style as “Post-Impressionism.”

In 1937, Henry is elected an Associate of the Ulster Academy of Arts and presents three watercolours to the institution the following year. The exhibition is opened by Oliver St. John Gogarty with participants such as John Luke, Maurice Wilks, James Humbert Craig, Rosamund Praeger and Colin Middleton, who shows three Surrealist works including Angelus.

The Royal Hibernian Academy displays two small works, Flight, 1941 and Lakeside, among an unusually large contingent of Ulster artists in the annual exhibition in the spring of 1942. The Ulster Academy of Arts is united in their commitment to raise funds for the bomb damaged Ulster Hospital for Children and Women in their Spring Exhibition of 1942. Henry displays a sense of humour in her use of black-out paint, roadblocks and air raid shelters in one of the watercolours on show.

Henry is a regular exhibitor with the Water Colour Society of Ireland, and contributes more than one hundred works to their exhibitions between 1943 and 1986.

Henry joins Violet McAdoo in a joint exhibition at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery in 1944. McAdoo presents with watercolours, however, Henry also presents oils. The paintings are primarily of landscapes but included a number urban scenes.

In 1945, Henry and her sister Margaret join Arthur and George Campbell, Colin Middleton, Gladys and Max Maccabe, Thomas Carr, Maurice Wilks, James McIntyre and others, in the only official exhibition from the Ulster branch of the Artists’ International Association sponsored by the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (NI) at the Belfast Museum.

The MacGaffin Gallery at Pottinger’s Entry is the venue for a group exhibition of experimental and modernist works with Nevill Johnson, Aaron McAfee and the MacCabes in 1946, where Henry exhibits seven paintings. Quayside is one of three pictures that she presents at the Ulster Academy in 1946. She also shows it with the Water Colour Society of Ireland in the following year and at CEMA’s Some Ulster Paintings exhibition in that same year.

In 1946, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and Art (CEMA) purchases a painting by Henry, in addition to works by other contemporary Ulster artists. Twenty-four of the works from the CEMA collection, including her painting, are later presented at their Donegall Place gallery in 1954.

Henry debuts at the 1948 Irish Exhibition of Living Art with one painting and returns in each of the subsequent ten years with a total of 20 paintings. She is also elected as an Honorary Academician of the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1948.

Henry displays one work, Harbour, Northern Ireland, with Violet McAdoo at the 88th exhibition of the Society of Women Artists at the Royal Institute Galleries in London during the summer of 1949. Just a few months later her work is back in London for the United Society of Artists annual exhibition where she shows Gossip and Shell and Sail.

Henry is awarded a travel scholarship from the Soroptomists of Belgium in 1957, which enables her to study stained glass in the country. She is the President of Soroptomist Club of Belfast from 1960 to 1961, where she had been a member since its foundation in 1932.

Upon her return from Belgium, CEMA stages a solo exhibition with thirty-five of Henry’s oils and watercolours at their Belfast gallery. The exhibition is arranged at short notice when another is unexpectedly cancelled. Writer Nesca Robb opens the exhibition where it is claimed a new painting technique, “monopainting,” is revealed, described as paint drawn through a gauze over glass. The exhibition includes a ‘Breton’ series, Kerry Tangle, Ship Pattern, Barrack Shapes, Lough Shapes, and Backs. In addition, she displays In the Park, an oil previously seen at the Royal Ulster Academy in 1955 and at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1956, and a second oil, City Lunch Hour, exhibited at the Royal Ulster Academy in 1956.

The Ulster Society of Women Artists is founded in 1957 by Gladys Maccabe with the support of Henry and a number of others at a time when no arts societies are accepting female artists into their ranks. The main objective is to ensure the development of quality art and women artists in Ulster. The organisation begins with ten invited artists. Henry exhibits with the society throughout her life.

Henry receives a mention in the local press referring to her exhibits in the Royal Ulster Academy show of 1959 with Kenneth Jamison comparing her work with that of Deborah Brown, “Olive Henry is more decadent by instinct, a fine formaliser. Her pictures Man and Ropes and Riviera Port, well defined and carefully abstracted, contrast in form with Deborah Brown’s freer Oil Over Tempra,[sic] 1959.”

A group exhibition in 1964 at the New Gallery in Belfast includes work from Henry alongside Neil Shawcross, Max Maccabe, Kathleen Bell, Richard Croft and Helen Ross. Among other works she shows Easter and Long Garden.

In 1965, Henry joins twelve Ulster artists including Alice Berger-Hammerschlag, Basil Blackshaw, Colin Middleton, Romeo Toogood, and Mercy Hunter in a diverse exhibition of landscape paintings at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland gallery. In the same year, she completes a commission from the Sullivan Association of Former Pupils to design a window for Sullivan Upper School in Holywood, County Down.

In 1981, the Ulster Society of Womens Artists elects Henry as President. A retrospective of her studio works is hosted by the Shambles Gallery in Hillsborough, County Down in 1986, some thirty years since her last solo exhibition. Henry shows at the Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition in 1987 for the last time.

Henry dies on November 8, 1989, at Crawfordsburn, County Down. Her paintings are held in the collections of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Ulster Museum, Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum, and the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts Diploma Collection.

(Pictured: “The Gardener,” watercolour by Olive Henry)


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Death of Myles Byrne, United Irishman & French Army Officer

Myles Byrne, United Irishman, French army officer, and author, dies at his house in the rue Montaigne (now rue Jean Mermoz, 8th arrondissement, near Champs-Élysées), Paris on January 24, 1862.

Byrne is born on March 20, 1780, at Ballylusk, Monaseed, County Wexford, the eldest son of Patrick Byrne, a middling Catholic farmer, and Mary (née Graham). He joins the United Irishmen in the spring of 1797 and, although only seventeen, becomes one of the organisation’s most active agents in north Wexford.

When rebellion engulfs his home district on May 27, 1798, Byrne assumes command of the local Monaseed corps and rallies them at Fr. John Murphy‘s camp on Carrigrew Hill on June 3. They fight at the rebel victory at Tubberneering on June 4 and the unsuccessful attempt to capture Arklow five days later. After the dispersal of the main rebel camp at Vinegar Hill on June 21, he accompanies Murphy to Kilkenny but begins the retreat to Wexford four days later. Heavily attacked at Scollagh Gap, he is one of a minority of survivors who spurn the proffered amnesty and join the rebel forces in the Wicklow Mountains. He is absent when the main force defeats a cavalry column at Ballyellis on June 30 but protects the wounded who are left in Glenmalure when the rebels launch a foray into the midlands the following week. He takes charge of the Wexfordmen who regain the mountains and fight a series of minor actions in the autumn and winter of 1798 under the militant Wicklow leader Joseph Holt. On November 10, he seizes an opportunity to escape into Dublin, where he works as a timber-yard clerk with his half-brother Edward Kennedy.

Byrne is introduced to Robert Emmet in late 1802 and immediately becomes a prominent figure in his insurrection plot. He is intended to command the many Wexford residents of the city during the planned rising of 1803. On July 23, 1803, he assembles a body of rebels at the city quays, which disperse once news is received that the rising has miscarried. At Emmet’s request, he escapes to Bordeaux in August 1803 and makes his way to Paris to inform Thomas Addis Emmet and William James MacNeven of the failed insurrection. In his Paris diary, the older Emmet recalls passing on “the news brought by the messenger” to Napoleon Bonaparte‘s military advisors.

Byrne enlists in the newly formed Irish Legion in December 1803 as a sub-lieutenant and is promoted to lieutenant in 1804 but only sees garrison duty. The regiment eventually moves to the Low Countries, and is renamed the 3rd Foreign Regiment in 1808, the year he is promoted to captain. He campaigns in Spain until 1812, participating in counterinsurgency against Spanish guerillas. He fights in Napoleon’s last battles and is appointed Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur on June 18, 1813. With Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the former Irish Legion, with its undistinguished and somewhat unfortunate history, is disbanded.

Though a supporter of Napoleon during the Hundred Days, Byrne is not involved in his return, yet he is included in an exclusion order from France which he successfully appeals. In November 1816, he swears the oath of loyalty to the now Royal Order of the Legion of Honour and becomes a naturalised French subject by royal decree on August 20, 1817. He becomes a half-pay captain but is recalled for active service in 1828 and serves as a staff officer in the French expeditionary force in Morea in support of Greek independence (1828–1830). His conduct on this campaign leads to his promotion as chef de bataillon (lieutenant-colonel) of the 56th Infantry Regiment in 1830.

After five years of service in garrisons around France, including counterinsurgency duty in Brittany, Byrne retires from the army in 1835. On December 24, 1835, he marries a Scottish woman, Frances “Fanny” Horner, at the British Embassy Chapel in Paris. They live in modest circumstances in various parts of Paris and remain childless. Though it is unclear when he is awarded the Chevalier de St Louis, having initially applied for it unsuccessfully in 1821, this distinction is mentioned in his tomb inscription, under his Legion of Honour. John Mitchel, who visits him regularly in Paris in the late 1850s, recalls Byrne sporting the rosette of the Médaille de Sainte Hélène, awarded in 1857 to surviving veterans of Napoleon’s campaigns.

An early list of Irish Legion officers describes Byrne as an upright and disciplined man, with little formal instruction but aspiring to improve himself. He becomes fully fluent in French but also learns Spanish and his language skills are a useful asset in various campaigns. Because of his suspected Bonapartist leanings, he is under police surveillance for some time after the Bourbon Restoration. He does, however, cultivate a wide social circle in Paris over the years. Various references throughout his writings testify to an inquisitive and cultured mind. He intended publishing a lengthy criticism of Gustave de Beaumont‘s Irlande, sociale, politique et religieuse (1840), claiming that it misrepresented the 1798 rebellion, but he withdraws it after meeting the author, not wishing to prejudice the reception of such an important French work on “the sufferings of Ireland.”

A lifelong nationalist, Byrne acts as Paris correspondent of The Nation in the 1840s and is a well-known figure in the Irish community there. He works in the 1850s on his notably unapologetic and candid Memoirs, an early and significant contribution to the Irish literature of exile. This autobiography is acclaimed by nationalists when published posthumously by his wife in 1863, with a French translation swiftly following in 1864. His detailed testimony of key battles of the 1798 rebellion in the southeast and Emmet’s conspiracy are written with the immediacy of an eyewitness and make them an invaluable contribution to that period of Irish history.

Byrne dies on January 24, 1862, in Paris, and is buried in Montmartre Cemetery. On November 25, 1865, John Martin writes of him: “In truth he was a beautiful example of those natures that never grow old. A finer, nobler, gentler, kindlier, gayer, sunnier nature never was than his, and to the last he had the brightness and quickness and cheeriness of youth”.

Byrne’s engaging and dispassionate Memoirs have ensured his special status among Irish nationalists. Because of his longevity he is the only United Irishman to have been photographed. His wife had sketched him in profile in middle age, and the photograph taken almost three decades later shows the same, strong features though those of a frail, but dignified man of 79 years.

(From: “Byrne, Miles” by Ruan O’Donnell and Sylvie Kleinman, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009, last revised August 2024 | Pictured: Photograph of Miles Byrne taken in Paris in 1859)


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Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, Becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland

Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, English nobleman and soldier, becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland under Queen Elizabeth I on January 21, 1600.

Blount is born in 1563, the second son of James, 6th Baron Mountjoy, and Catherine, only daughter of Sir Thomas Legh. He is among the most distinguished of the family, succeeding as 8th Baron Mountjoy on the death in 1594 of his unmarried elder brother William, 7th Baron Mountjoy. The good fortune of his youthful and handsome looks find favour with Queen Elizabeth I which arouses the jealousy of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, leading to a duel between the two courtiers, who later become close friends.

Blount is returned to the House of Commons as MP for St. Ives, Cornwall in 1584 and for Bere Alston in 1586 and 1593, before entering the House of Lords in 1594. Between 1586 and 1598, he spends most of his time on the Continent, serving in the Netherlands and Brittany. He joins Lord Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh in their expedition to the Azores in 1597, along with his distant cousin, Sir Christopher Blount.

The downfall of Lord Essex does not damage Blount’s career. After the failure of his rebellion, Essex shocks many by denouncing his sister Penelope, who is Blount’s mistress, as a traitor, which inevitably raises the question of his own possible involvement. But the Crown, anxious to retain Blount’s services, and also to show as much leniency as possible to the defeated rebels, simply ignore the accusation.

On February 24, 1600, Blount lands in Ireland as Lord Deputy following Lord Essex and in the ensuing years brings the Nine Years’ War to an end. The leader of the rebellion, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, writes about Blount’s “refined manners” that he would lose a whole season of campaigning “while waiting until breakfast is prepared to his mind!” Despite this, Blount proves that he is quite qualified to pursue the war.

In early 1600, Blount dispatches Sir Henry Docwra with an army of 4,200 troops to land at Culmore to erect a fortress commanding the shores of Lough Foyle in the northwest of Ulster. To prevent Hugh O’Neill from sending a strong force to repulse Dowcra’s forces, Blount advances in force from Dublin to Newry causing O’Neill to fear a southern advance into Tyrone.

Blount aims to avoid the mistakes of previous Lords-Deputy. After the Battle of Moyry Pass, he has it cleared, and a garrison is established there. It had long been a problem for English forces advancing into Ulster from the south. He also establishes posts with garrisons at Mountnorris and Armagh.

On July 13, 1601, Blount and his army along with Turlough McHenry O’Neill of the Fews who had recently switched to the English side in the war, have a stand-off with Hugh O’Neill’s forces at the River Blackwater. After a few shots in vain from either side, O’Neill’s forces withdraw, and Blount sends his forces to occupy the ruined Blackwater fort destroyed by O’Neill in 1595. Later O’Neill’s forces attack Blount’s camp before withdrawing. In response, the Lord-Deputy sends his forces across the river where they find strong artificially fortified fords, which would have held out against the English.

By July 15, 1601, the Lord-Deputy has secured the surrender of O’Neill’s ally Hugh Magennis. That month, he has a new fort near the old Blackwater fort erected.

Blount reports to the council in England that O’Neill is determined to prevent his forces from advancing into Tyrone and toward Dungannon. As such, he initiates a policy of burning large quantities of corn to induce a famine to drive the rebels out of their strongholds.

Blount sets about trying to entice Hugh’s forces to come out and attack by fetching some materials for the new fort from the Tyrone side of the river as well as burning more corn. Further skirmishes between Blount and O’Neill’s forces ensue during the summer of 1601.

Spanish forces land in Munster in August 1601, forcing Blount to send his forces southward leaving O’Neill remaining in his unbroken heartland of Tyrone. The Spanish arrival culminates in the Siege of Kinsale that December, which sees a major defeat of the rebels and their allies.

O’Neill during this time has also moved south to assist some of his allies, however, after some serious defeats at the hands of the forces of Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde of Connacht, he is in no place to offer any effective resistance once Blount marches once more to Tyrone in the summer of 1602.

Blount advances to the location he found the previous summer at the River Blackwater, which commands safe and secure passage into Tyrone, previously inaccessible, and sets about erecting a new fort. Having observed this, O’Neill burns his capital at Dungannon and flees to his last refuge in Glenconkeyne.

Advancing northward through Tyrone, Blount erects a fort in the townland of Magheralamfield, afterward known as Mountjoy Castle. He also christens the new fort at the Blackwater Charlemont Fort after himself.

Once in Tyrone, Blount carries out a campaign of devastation throughout it resulting in the mass hunting of rebels, spoiling of corn, the burning of houses and the killing of churls so as to force the submission of O’Neill and his remaining allies. Most symbolically, Blount has the inauguration site of the O’Neill’s at Tullyhogue Fort destroyed.

On March 30, 1603, six days after the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James I, O’Neill makes peace with Blount, signing the Treaty of Mellifont. Blount continues in office with the more distinguished title of Lord-Lieutenant. He declares amnesty for the rebels and grants them honourable terms, which causes some severe criticism from England. He shows similar moderation in putting down the abortive risings in Cork, Waterford and Wexford, where the aldermen, apparently with some vague idea of gaining greater toleration for Roman Catholics, refuse to proclaim the new King. In Cork, three insurgents are hanged after a summary trial, but the rest are acquitted or pardoned.

As part of the Plantation of Ulster, the majority of the barony of Loughinsholin is detached from County Tyrone and made part of the newly created County Londonderry. The rest of Loughinsholin along with the northern parts of Dungannon barony are merged to create the short-lived barony of Mountjoy. It is later amalgamated with the barony of Dungannon.

On his return to England, Blount serves as one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s judges in 1603, and in the same year King James I appoints him Master-General of the Ordnance as well as creating him Earl of Devonshire, granting him extensive estates. He is one of the founder members of the Spanish Company re-founded by royal charter in 1605.

Toward the end of Blount’s life, on December 26, 1605, at Wanstead House near London, in a ceremony conducted by his chaplain William Laud, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, he marries his long-time mistress Lady Penelope, formerly wife of Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich (later 1st Earl of Warwick) and sister of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

Blount leaves no legitimate children, and so his hereditary titles become extinct at his death on April 3, 1606, at Savoy House, London.


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Birth of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, Republican Political & Military Leader

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, Irish republican political and military leader, is born Peter Roger Casement Brady on October 2, 1932, in Longford, County Longford. He is Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from 1958 to 1959 and again from 1960 to 1962, president of Sinn Féin from 1970 to 1983, and president of Republican Sinn Féin from 1987 to 2009.

Ó Brádaigh is born into a middle-class republican family. His father, Matt Brady, is an IRA volunteer who is severely wounded in an encounter with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in 1919. His mother, May Caffrey, is a Cumann na mBan volunteer and a 1922 graduate of University College Dublin (UCD). His father dies when he is ten and is given a paramilitary funeral led by his former IRA colleagues. His mother, prominent as the Secretary for the County Longford Board of Health, lives until 1974. He is educated at Melview National School at primary level and attends secondary school at St. Mel’s College, leaving in 1950, and graduates from University College Dublin in 1954. That year he takes a job teaching Irish language at Roscommon Vocational School in Roscommon. He is a deeply religious Catholic who refrains from smoking or drinking.

Ó Brádaigh joins Sinn Féin in 1950. While at university, in 1951, he joins the Irish Republican Army. In September 1951, he marches with the IRA at the unveiling of the Seán Russell monument in Fairview Park, Dublin. A teacher by profession, he is also a Training Officer for the IRA. In 1954, he is appointed to the Military Council of the IRA, a subcommittee set up by the IRA Army Council in 1950 to plan a military campaign against Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks in Northern Ireland.

On August 13, 1955, Ó Brádaigh leads a ten-member IRA group in an arms raid on Hazebrouck Barracks, near Arborfield, Berkshire, England, a depot for the No. 5 Radar Training Battalion of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. It is the biggest IRA arms raid in Britain. Most, if not all, of the weapons are recovered in a relatively short period of time. A van, traveling too fast, is stopped by the police and IRA personnel are arrested. Careful police work leads to weapons that had been transported in a second van and stored in London.

The IRA Border Campaign commences on December 12, 1956. As an IRA General Headquarters Staff (GHQ) officer, Ó Brádaigh is responsible for training the Teeling Column in the west of Ireland. During the Campaign, he serves as second-in-command of the Teeling Column. On December 30, 1956, he partakes in the Teeling Column attack on RUC barracks in Derrylin, County Fermanagh. RUC Constable John Scally is killed in the attack and is the first fatality of the new IRA campaign. Ó Brádaigh and others are arrested by the Garda Síochána across the border in County Cavan the day after the attack. They are tried and jailed for six months in Mountjoy Prison. A leading abstentionist, upon his arrest he refuses to recognize the authority of the Irish government and refuses to renounce violence in exchange for his release.

Although a prisoner, Ó Brádaigh is elected a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Longford–Westmeath constituency at the 1957 Irish general election. Running on an abstentionist ticket, Sinn Féin wins four seats which go to Ó Brádaigh, Eighneachán Ó hAnnluain, John Joe McGirl and John Joe Rice. They refuse to recognise the authority of Dáil Éireann and state they will only take a seat in an all-Ireland parliament. He does not retain his seat at the 1961 Irish general election.

Upon completing his prison sentence, Ó Brádaigh is immediately interned at the Curragh Camp along with other republicans. On September 27, 1958, he escapes from the camp along with Dáithí Ó Conaill. While a football match is in progress, the pair cuts through a wire fence and escapes from the camp under a camouflage grass blanket. This is an official escape, authorised by the officer commanding (OC) of the IRA internees, Tomás Óg Mac Curtain. He is the first Sinn Féin TD on the run since the 1920s.

In October 1958, Ó Brádaigh becomes the IRA Chief of Staff, a position he holds until May 1959, when Seán Cronin is elected as his replacement. He is arrested in November 1959, refuses to answer questions, and is jailed in Mountjoy Prison under the Offences against the State Act. He is released in May 1960 and, after Cronin is arrested, again becomes Chief of Staff. Although he always emphasises that it is a collective declaration, he is the primary author of the statement ending the IRA Border Campaign in 1962. At the IRA 1962 Convention he indicates that he is not interested in continuing as Chief of Staff.

After Ó Brádaigh’s arrest in December 1956, he takes a leave from teaching at Roscommon Vocational School. He is re-instated and begins teaching again in late 1962, just after he is succeeded by Cathal Goulding in the position of Chief of Staff of the IRA. He remains an active member of Sinn Féin and is also a member of the IRA Army Council throughout the decade.

In the 1966 United Kingdom general election, Ó Brádaigh runs unsuccessfully as an Independent Republican candidate in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.

Ó Brádaigh opposes the decision of the IRA and Sinn Féin to drop abstentionism and to recognise the Westminster parliament in London, the Stormont parliament in Belfast and the Leinster House parliament in 1969/1970. On January 11, 1970, along with Seán Mac Stíofáin, he leads the walkout from the 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis after the majority votes to end the policy of abstentionism, although the vote to change the Sinn Féin constitution fails to receive the required two-thirds majority. The delegates who walk out reconvene at the Kevin Barry Hall in Parnell Square, Dublin, and establish Provisional Sinn Féin.

Ó Brádaigh is voted chairman of the Caretaker Executive of Provisional Sinn Féin. That October, he formally becomes president of the party. He holds this position until 1983. In his presidential address to the 1971 Provisional Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, he says that the first step to achieving a United Ireland is to make Northern Ireland ungovernable. He apparently also serves on the Army Council or the executive of the Provisional Irish Republican Army until he is seriously injured in a car accident on January 1, 1984.

On May 31, 1972, Ó Brádaigh is arrested under the Offences Against the State Act and immediately commences a hunger strike. A fortnight later the charges against him are dropped and he is released. With Dáithí Ó Conaill he develops the Éire Nua policy, which is launched on June 28, 1972. The policy calls for a federal Ireland.

On December 3, 1972, Ó Brádaigh appears on the London Weekend Television Weekend World programme. He is arrested by the Gardaí again on December 29, 1972, and charged in the newly established Special Criminal Court with Provisional IRA membership. In January 1973 he is the first person convicted under the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act 1972 and is sentenced to six months in the Curragh Camp.

In 1974, Ó Brádaigh testifies in person before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations regarding the treatment of IRA prisoners in Ireland. He also has a meeting with prominent Irish American congressman Tip O’Neill. The same year, the State Department revokes his multiple entry visa. Federal Bureau of Investigation documents in 1975 describe him as a “national security threat” and a “dedicated revolutionary undeterred by threat or personal risk” and show that the visa ban was requested by the British Foreign Office and supported by the Dublin government.

On December 10, 1974, Ó Brádaigh participates in the Feakle talks between the IRA Army Council and Sinn Féin leadership and the leaders of the Protestant churches in Ireland. Although the meeting is raided and broken up by the Gardaí, the Protestant churchmen pass on proposals from the IRA leadership to the British government. These proposals call on the British government to declare a commitment to withdraw, the election of an all-Ireland assembly to draft a new constitution and an amnesty for political prisoners.

The IRA subsequently calls a “total and complete” ceasefire intended to last from December 22, 1974, to January 2, 1975, to allow the British government to respond to proposals. British government officials also hold talks with Ó Brádaigh in his position as president of Sinn Féin from late December to January 17, 1975.

On February 10, 1975, the IRA Army Council, unanimously endorses an open-ended cessation of IRA “hostilities against Crown forces,” which becomes known as the 1975 truce. The IRA Chief of Staff at the time is Seamus Twomey of Belfast. It is reported in some quarters that the IRA leaders mistakenly believe they had persuaded the British Government to withdraw from Ireland and the protracted negotiations between themselves and British officials are the preamble to a public declaration of intent to withdraw. In fact, as British government papers now show, the British entertain talks with the IRA in the hope that this would fragment the movement further and score several intelligence coups during the talks. This bad faith embitters many in the republican movement, and another ceasefire does not happen until 1994.

In late December 1976, along with Joe Cahill, Ó Brádaigh meets two representatives of the Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee (ULCCC), John McKeague and John McClure, at the request of the latter body. Their purpose is to try to find a way to accommodate the ULCCC proposals for an independent Northern Ireland with the Sinn Féin’s Éire Nua programme. It is agreed that if this can be done, a joint Loyalist-Republican approach can then be made to request the British government to leave Ireland. Desmond Boal QC and Seán MacBride SC are requested and accepted to represent the loyalist and republican positions. For months they have meetings in various places including Paris. The dialogue eventually collapses when Conor Cruise O’Brien, then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and vociferous opponent of the Provisional IRA, becomes aware of it and condemns it on RTÉ Radio. As the loyalists had insisted on absolute secrecy, they feel unable to continue with the talks as a result.

In the aftermath of the 1975 truce, the Ó Brádaigh/Ó Conaill leadership comes under severe criticism from a younger generation of activists from Northern Ireland, headed by Gerry Adams, who becomes a vice-president of Sinn Féin in 1978. By the early 1980s, Ó Brádaigh’s position as president of Sinn Féin is openly under challenge and the Éire Nua policy is targeted in an effort to oust him. The policy is rejected at the 1981 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis and finally removed from the Sinn Féin constitution at the 1982 Ard Fheis. At the following year’s Ard Fheis, Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill resign from their leadership positions, voicing opposition to the dropping of the Éire Nua policy by the party.

On November 2, 1986, the majority of delegates to the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis vote to drop the policy of abstentionism if elected to Dáil Éireann, but not the British House of Commons or the Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont, thus ending the self-imposed ban on Sinn Féin elected representatives from taking seats at Leinster House. Ó Brádaigh and several supporters walk out and immediately assemble at Dublin’s West County Hotel and set up Republican Sinn Féin (RSF). As an ordinary member, he had earlier spoken out against the motion (resolution 162) in an impassioned speech. The Continuity IRA becomes publicly known in 1996. Republican Sinn Féin’s relationship with the Continuity IRA is similar to the relationship between Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA when Ó Brádaigh was Sinn Féin’s president.

Ó Brádaigh believes RSF to be the sole legitimate continuation of the pre-1986 Sinn Féin, arguing that RSF has kept the original Sinn Féin constitution. RSF readopts and enhances his Éire Nua policy. His party has electoral success in only a few local elections.

Ó Brádaigh remains a vociferous opponent of the Good Friday Agreement, viewing it as a programme to copperfasten Irish partition and entrench sectarian divisions in the north. He condemns his erstwhile comrades in Provisional Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA for decommissioning weapons while British troops remain in the country. In his opinion, “the Provo sell-out is the worst yet – unprecedented in Irish history.” He condemns the Provisional IRA’s decision to seal off a number of its arms dumps as “an overt act of treachery,” “treachery punishable by death” under IRA General Army Order Number 11.

In July 2005, Ó Brádaigh hands over a portion of his personal political papers detailing discussions between Irish Republican leaders and representatives of the British Government during 1974–1975 to the James Hardiman Library, National University of Ireland, Galway.

In September 2009, Ó Brádaigh announces his retirement as leader of Republican Sinn Féin. His successor is Des Dalton. He is also a long-standing member of the Celtic League, an organization which fosters cooperation between the Celtic people and promotes the culture, identity and eventual self-determination for the people, in the form of six sovereign states, for the Celtic nations – Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Scotland, Isle of Man and Ireland.

After suffering a period of ill-health, Ó Brádaigh dies on June 5, 2013, at Roscommon County Hospital. His funeral is attended by 1,800 mourners including Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan and is policed by the Garda Emergency Response Unit and Gardaí in riot gear, for “operational reasons,” a show of force believed to have been to deter the republican tradition of firing a three-volley salute of shots over the final place of rest during the graveyard oration. As a result, there are some minor scuffles between gardai and mourners.


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Birth of Luis de Lacy, Spanish Soldier of Irish Descent

Luis Roberto de Lacy, a Spanish professional soldier of Irish descent who serves in the Spanish and French Imperial armies, is born on January 11, 1775, in San Roque, Cádiz, Spain.

De Lacy is born to Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick de Lacy, an officer in the Ultonia or Ulster Regiment, a foreign unit or Infantería de línea extranjera of the Spanish army. Patrick dies sometime before 1785 and his wife, Antonia, remarries Jean Gautier, another Ultonia officer. His grandfather, General Patrick de Lacy y Gould, came from Limerick. Along with many relatives, he was part of the post-1691 Irish diaspora known as the Flight of the Wild Geese.

De Lacy is commissioned into the Ultonia regiment when he is ten, although his age is recorded as thirteen to satisfy minimum requirements. Issuing commissions to children is not unusual, as they are considered private investments and often used to provide pensions for orphans. Although by now the Ultonia is no longer “Irish,” many of the officers are Spanish-born descendants of the original Irish emigrants, including his uncle Francis and various cousins.

In 1789, de Lacy joins an expedition to Puerto Rico, accompanied by his stepfather. They apparently quarrel and, on their return, de Lacy walks to Porto, in Portugal, intending to take ship to the Maluku Islands, before his stepfather brings him home.

Promoted captain, de Lacy takes part in the War of the Pyrenees against France, which ends with the April 1795 Peace of Basel. He is posted to the Canary Islands in 1799, where he fights a duel with the local Capitán-General. Despite being transferred to El Hierro, he continues their feud. He is court-martialed as a result and sentenced to one year in the Royal Prison at the Concepción Arsenal at Cádiz.

De Lacy’s jailers allegedly consider him mentally unbalanced. As a result, he is stripped of his commission and barred from re-enlisting in the Spanish army. He moves to France in order to continue his career and is appointed captain in the Irish Legion, a French army unit formed in Brittany and intended to support an Irish rising. Although many of its officers are Irish exiles or of Irish descent, the rank and file are mostly Polish.

When the proposed rebellion fails to materialise, the Legion is posted to the Netherlands, where it remains until the War of the Third Coalition ends in 1806. De Lacy is appointed commandant of the second battalion, which participates in the 1807 Invasion of Portugal. In March 1808, Charles IV of Spain abdicates in favour of his son, Ferdinand, who is replaced in May by Joseph Bonaparte and held in France.

De Lacy arrives in Madrid shortly before the May 1808 revolt known as the Dos de Mayo. He deserts and is reinstated in the Spanish army as colonel of the Burgos regiment.

In July 1809, de Lacy is given command of the Isla de León, an important defensive position in Cádiz, home of the Regency Council that rules Spain in Ferdinand’s absence. He leads the 1st Division at the Battle of Ocaña on November 19, 1809. The collapse of the Spanish cavalry under Manuel Freire de Andrade exposes him to a flank attack that practically annihilates his division. A second defeat at Alba de Tormes on November 29 leaves the Spanish unable to confront the French in open battle and they resort to guerrilla tactics.

Although Cádiz is besieged by the French from February 1810 to August 1812, support from the Royal Navy allows the Council to send small amphibious expeditions intended to bolster resistance elsewhere. De Lacy leads landings in Algeciras, Ronda, Marbella and Huelva and although unable to hold them, this absorbs French resources. In March 1811, his troops support an Anglo-Spanish attempt to break the siege of Cádiz. The resulting Battle of Barrosa is a significant victory, although command failures mean the siege continues.

After the loss of Tarragona in June 1811, de Lacy replaces the Marquess of Campoverde as Capitán-General of Catalonia, a position held by his uncle Francis from 1789 to 1792. French efforts to capture Valencia weaken them elsewhere and provide the Spanish opportunities for partisan warfare. He leads a series of incursions into the French departments of Haute-Garonne and Ariège. These restore local morale and force the French to send reinforcements.

Most major towns, including Barcelona, Tarragona and Lleida, remain in French hands and in early 1812, Napoleon makes Catalonia part of France. The focus on guerrilla tactics lead to an increasingly bitter war of reprisals and executions by both sides, which severely impact the civilian population. Many of the partisan bands are beyond central control and their operations often indistinguishable from simple brigandage. This leads to conflict between de Lacy and local Catalan leaders and in January 1813, he moves to Santiago de Compostela as Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia. He assumes command of the Reserva de Galicia, which he focuses on disciplining and reorganising. Following Allied victory at Vitoria in June 1813, the French withdraw from Spain and Ferdinand returns to Madrid in April 1814.

Ferdinand rejects a previous commitment to accept the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and establishes an absolutist regime. Spain also faces colonial wars in the Americas, which begin in 1810 and continue until 1833. This destabilises the regime and leads to a series of attempted coups, by military officers like de Lacy backed by progressive civilian elements, often linked by Freemasonry.

Following failed attempts in 1815 and 1816, de Lacy returns to Barcelona and assisted by a former subordinate, Francisco Milans del Bosch, plan another. This begins on April 5, 1817, but quickly collapses. De Lacy is captured, court-martialed, and sentenced to death. Following public protests against the sentence, he is secretly taken to Palma de Mallorca, held at Bellver Castle and executed there by firing squad on July 5, 1817.

In 1820, a revolt led by Colonel Rafael del Riego forces Ferdinand to restore the 1812 Constitution. This begins the Trienio Liberal, a period of liberalisation that ends in 1823, when a French army allows Ferdinand to re-assert control. However, in 1820 the reconstituted Cortes Generales declares de Lacy a martyr. Along with others including Riego, he is commemorated on a plaque in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, which can still be seen today. De Lacy is buried at the Cementiri de Sant Andreu, in Barcelona.


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Founding of the Celtic League, American Branch

The Celtic League, American Branch (CLAB) is founded in New York City on October 11, 1974.

The Celtic League is a pan-Celtic organisation, founded in 1961, that aims to promote modern Celtic identity and culture in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall and the Isle of Man – referred to as the Celtic nations. It places particular emphasis on promoting the Celtic languages of those nations. It also advocates further self-governance in the Celtic nations and ultimately for each nation to be an independent state in its own right. The Celtic League is an accredited non-governmental organization (NGO) with roster consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The present Celtic League grows out of various other pan-Celtic organisations, particularly the Celtic Congress, but with a more political emphasis. Previously, Hugh MacDiarmid and others had suggested something along the same lines.

The Celtic League is started at the 1961 National Eisteddfod of Wales, which is held at Rhosllannerchrugog near Wrexham in northeast Wales. Two of the founding members are Gwynfor Evans and J. E. Jones, who are respectively president and secretary-general of the Welsh nationalist political party Plaid Cymru at the time. Interest is expressed by Scottish parties, and also by Breton nationalists.

There are six main, national branches of the Celtic League in the six Celtic countries, generally known by the Celtic language names of their countries: Ireland is known as Éire, Scotland as Alba, Wales as Cymru, Brittany as Breizh, Cornwall as Kernow and the Isle of Man as Mannin or Mann.

The Celtic League, American Branch (CLAB) is one of various diaspora branches, all of whom play little part in the annual general meetings. American author and linguist Alexei Kondratiev serves as president of the Celtic League, American branch. The CLAB prints its own quarterly newsletter, Six Nations, One Soul, which provides news of branch activities and events within the Celtic communities in the United States, publishes letters from members, and reviews books and recordings of Celtic interest. CLAB publishes at least six issues of a larger semi-annual magazine, Keltoi: A Pan-Celtic Review, from 2006 to 2008. CLAB also produces a wall calendar each year, with art from members, appropriate quotations, and anniversaries. Publication ceases with the 2008 issue.


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Death of James FitzMaurice

James FitzMaurice, a member of the 16th century ruling Geraldine dynasty in the province of Munster, dies on August 18, 1579. He rebels against the crown authority of Queen Elizabeth I of England in response to the onset of the Tudor conquest of Ireland. He leads the first of the Desmond Rebellions in 1569, spends a period in exile in continental Europe, but returns with an invasion force in 1579. He dies shortly after landing.

FitzMaurice is the son of Maurice Fitzjohn of Totane, a brother of John FitzGerald, de facto 12th Earl of Desmond, and Julia O’Mulryan of County Tipperary, cousin of Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond. Totane had been granted the barony of Kerricurrihy in County Cork, but Gerald fell out with Totane and wars are fought between the families.

After the Desmond defeat at Battle of Affane in 1565, the 14th Earl and his brother, John of Desmond, are detained in England. During their absence, FitzMaurice becomes captain general of County Desmond with the warrant of the Earl. This means he has authority over the soldiers retained in the service of the Desmond Fitzgeralds. In July 1568, he enters Clanmaurice, the territory of the lord of Lixnaw, to distrain for rent and assert the Desmond authority. Having seized 200 head of cattle and wasted the country, he is confronted by Lixnaw on the way home and utterly defeated.

At the end of 1568, the absent Earl of Desmond grants Sir Warham St. Leger a lease of the barony of Kerricurrihy, which cast FitzMaurice’s inheritance into confusion. In 1569 the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney, is informed by FitzMaurice that he has assembled the people of Desmond to tell them that the Lord Deputy was unable to procure the release of the captive earl, who would be executed or perpetually imprisoned, and that the people should proclaim a new earl or captain. With one voice, the people cry out for FitzMaurice to be captain. The earl’s wife, Eleanor Butler, writes to her husband in November that FitzMaurice is seeking to bring the earl into further disrepute and to usurp his inheritance, “by the example of his father.”

To reassert Geraldine authority, FitzMaurice then launches what becomes known as the first of the Desmond Rebellions. The southern part of Ireland erupts into a general rebellion, owing in part to attempts at establishing plantations. In June 1569, FitzMaurice and the Earl of Clancarty (MacCarthy Mor) invade Kerrycurrihy, spoil the inhabitants, take the castle-abbey of Tracton, hang the garrison, and refuse to depart without the surrender to them of the custody of Lady St. Leger and Lady Grenville, the wives of the principal English colonists. FitzMaurice then joins in league with the turbulent brothers of the Earl of Ormond and enters a bond with the Earl of Thomond and John Burke, son of the Earl of Clanricard. He writes to the mayor and corporation of Cork in July ordering the abolition of the new heresy of Protestantism, at a time when he appears to have been taking instruction from Irish Jesuits.

By September 1569, Sidney has broken the back of the rebellion and leaves Sir Humphrey Gilbert behind to suppress FitzMaurice, who seeks refuge in the woods of Aherlow, and after Gilbert’s departure FitzMaurice raises a new force in February 1570 and by a surprise night attack, takes Kilmallock and after hanging the chief townsmen at the market cross, plunders its wealth and burns the town. In February 1571, Sir John Perrot lands at Waterford as Lord President of Munster and challenges FitzMaurice to a duel, which FitzMaurice declines with the remark, “For if I should kill Sir John Perrot the Queen of England can send another president into this province; but if he do kill me there is none other to succeed me or to command as I do.”

FitzMaurice attacks Perrot but retires on mistaking a small cavalry company for the advance party of a larger force. After a second and successful siege by Perrot of the Geraldine stronghold of Castlemaine, FitzMaurice sues for pardon, which is granted in February 1573, after he prostrates himself in Kilmallock church with the president’s sword point next to his heart. He swears fealty to the crown and gives up his son as hostage.

On the return to Ireland of the Earl of Desmond in 1573, FitzMaurice leaves for the continent, offering his reasons variously as a desire to gain pardon from the Queen through the French court, and the unkindness of the earl. In March 1575 he and his family, along with the Geraldine Seneschal of Imokilly, James Fitzedmund Fitzgerald, and the White Knight, Edmund FitzGibbon, sail on the La Arganys for Saint-Malo, Brittany where they are received by the governor. He has several interviews with Catherine de’ Medici in Paris, offering to help make Henry III of France king of Ireland, and is granted a pension of 5,000 crowns in 1576.

Early in the following year FitzMaurice leaves for the Spanish court, where he offers the crown to the brother of King Philip II, Don John. The king is cautious, however. FitzMaurice leaves his sons Maurice and Gerald with Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, and travels to Italy to meet Pope Gregory XIII.

At the papal court FitzMaurice meets adventurer Captain Thomas Stukley, and together they persuade the pope to underwrite the cost of 1,000 troops to invade Ireland, most of whom, according to Philip O’Sullivan Beare, are desperadoes the pope wishes to get out of Italy. Fitzmaurice and Stukley are to rendezvous in Lisbon and proceed to Ireland, however, Stukley decides to throw his troops and support to King Sebastian‘s expedition to Morocco, where he dies.

Following the diversion of Stukley to Morocco, FitzMaurice sets out with the nuncio Nicholas Sanders, and Matthew de Oviedo from Ferrol in Galicia, Spain on June 17, 1579, with a few troops on his vessel and three Spanish shallops. They capture two English vessels in the channel and arrive at Dingle on July 16, 1579, launching the Second Desmond Rebellion.

On July 18 they cast anchor in Ard na Caithne, where they garrison at Dún an Óir (Fort of Gold), and are joined on July 25 by two galleys with 100 troops. Four days later their ships are captured by the English fleet under the command of Sir William Wynter. Having exhorted the Earl of Desmond and the Earl of Kildare, as Geraldine leaders, to fight the heretics, FitzMaurice leaves the fort to await the arrival of Stukley who, unknown to him, had been killed at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in the previous year, during a campaign by King Sebastian of Portugal.

FitzMaurice goes to make a vow at the monastery of the Holy Cross in County Tipperary but becomes caught in a skirmish with the forces of his cousin, Theobald Burke, during which he is shot with a ball in the hollow of the chest, but cuts his way through to Burke and his brother William, both of whom he kills with single strokes of his sword.

The battle is won, but close to the scene his injuries overcome him. He makes his will and orders his friends to cut off his head after death in order that his enemies might not mutilate his body. He begs his attendants to attest that he had not turned tail on the enemy. They assure him and wish him to be quiet because hostile soldiers are closing in, but he insists, “My wounds are clear, my wounds are clear.” Upon his death, a kinsman orders the decapitation and then wraps the head in cloth. An attempt is made to conceal his trunk under a tree, but it is discovered by a hunter and brought to the town of Kilmallock. For weeks, the trunk is nailed to the gallows, until it is shattered by musket fire and collapses.


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The Battle of Clontibret

The Battle of Clontibret is fought in County Monaghan in May 1595 during the Nine Years’ War, between the crown forces of England‘s Queen Elizabeth I and the Irish army of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone. It ends in victory for Tyrone on May 27, 1595, and is the first severe setback suffered by the English during the war.

The Nine Years War begins with a conflict over English efforts to maintain a string of garrisons along the southern border of Tyrone’s territory in Ulster. The Irish leader promptly besieges the English garrison at Monaghan Castle, and Sir Henry Bagenal, commander of the English forces, marches out to its relief on May 25 from Dundalk, via Newry. His army is made up of 1,750 troops, including some veterans and certain companies newly arrived from the Spanish campaign in Brittany, but there are many recruits in the ranks. Bagenal’s men are predominantly infantry, armed with muskets and pikes. There is also a small number of horsemen raised in the Pale.

The Battle of Clontibret is essentially a two day running battle, as Bagenal’s column is ambushed on its way to and from the castle at Monaghan town. The Irish fight sharply along the roads about Crossdall, around 4 miles from Monaghan, firing on the English column with calivers from the surrounding woodland. With the loss of 12 dead and 30 wounded the English reach the castle, which is re-supplied and reinforced with one company. Bagenal has misgivings about his supply of powder and lead, much of which had been used on the way, and can afford little for the garrison before he starts back.

Two days later, on May 27, Bagenal sets out for Newry in a column, but by another route, past the townland of Clontibret. The route lay through drumlin country, which abounds with hills, bogs and woods, making it ideal for an ambush. The column comes under fire from the outset, and then falls into a major ambush at a pass near Clontibret. Tyrone’s army, about 4,000 strong, consists of contingents from the O’Neill, MacMahon and Maguire clans, as well as Scottish mercenaries. The Irish also deploy a greatly enlarged force of cavalry and caliver-men. To Bagenal’s puzzlement, the caliver-men are turned out in red coats and acquitted themselves with expertise. Fire from the flanks is heavy, and many English troops are killed or wounded while the Irish cavalry plays around the fringes. Tyrone himself is almost killed in hand-to-hand combat with a Palesman named Seagrave, who leads a cavalry charge on the Irish position. Seagrave has his arm chopped off by Tyrone’s standard bearer O’Cahan, and is killed by Tyrone with a dagger thrust to the groin. Bagenal’s column is slowed to a crawl and, as night falls in the wilderness, the commander calls his men to a halt and camps at the hilltop of Ballymacowen. It seems that hundreds are missing, and there is fear that the Irish will renew the attack under cover of darkness. There is no further attack and, a little after first light, reinforcements from Newry arrive to relieve the column.

According to intelligence received in the days following, Tyrone’s failure to follow up is caused by a lack of powder, ironic given the state of Bagenal’s own supplies. The overall sense in government is of disquiet, and a bad job is made of hushing up the casualty figures. This gives fuel to the rumours of a severe defeat, and many people set greater store on the numbers put about by confederate supporters.

Sir Ralph Lane, the muster-master-general, informs the queen’s principal secretary, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, that “more men were hurt and killed in that late service than was convenient to declare.” The casualty figures for both sides vary depending on sources. Bagenal admits only 31 killed and 109 wounded on the second day of fighting, but his losses are almost certainly higher. The Irish annals claimed up to 700 English killed. Estimates of the confederate losses vary between 100 to 400 killed. Three years later, Bagenal leads an army into another ambush by Tyrone, at the Battle of the Yellow Ford. The English general is killed and his troops are routed with heavy losses.

(From: “Battle of Clontibret,” wikia.org, https://military.wikia.org | Pictured: The marker stone on the northern edge of the battlefield commemorating the Irish victory at Clontibret, 1595)


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Death of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert

jean-joseph-amable-humbert

General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert, French soldier and French Revolution participant who leads a failed invasion of Ireland to assist Irish rebels in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, dies on January 3, 1823, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Born in the townland of La Coâre Saint-Nabord, outside Remiremont Vosges, Humbert is a sergeant in the National Guard of Lyon. He rapidly advances through the ranks to become brigadier general on April 9, 1794, and fights in the Western campaigns before being allocated to the Army of the Rhine.

In 1794, after serving in the Army of the Coasts of Brest, Humbert serves under Louis Lazare Hoche in the Army of the Rhin-et-Moselle. Charged to prepare for an expedition against Ireland, he takes command of the Légion des Francs under Hoche, sailing in the ill-fated Expédition d’Irlande against Bantry Bay in 1796, and is engaged in actions at sea against the Royal Navy. Contrary weather and enemy action force this expedition to withdraw. The trip home ends in a naval battle, the Action of 13 January 1797, during which Humbert, on the French ship Droits de l’Homme (1794), narrowly escapes death. As the ship is destroyed and sinks, hundreds of men perish, but Humbert is among the last to escape.

On his return to France, Humbert serves in the Army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, before being appointed to command the troops in another attempt to support a rising in Ireland in 1798. His command chiefly consists of infantry of the 70th demi-brigade with a few artillerymen and some cavalry of the 3rd Hussars, however by the time he arrives off the Irish coast the United Irish rising has already suffered defeat. The expedition is able to land in Ireland at Killala on Thursday August 23, 1798, meeting with initial success in the Battle of Castlebar where he routs the Irish Militia. Humbert subsequently declares a Republic of Connacht, with hopes of taking Dublin. However, Humbert’s small force is defeated at the Battle of Ballinamuck by the Irish Royal Army, and he is taken as a prisoner of war by the authorities. The British send the French officers home in two frigates and then massacre their Irish supporters. Humbert makes no attempt to save the Irish who bravely supported him.

Humbert is shortly repatriated in a prisoner exchange and appointed in succession to the Armies of Mayence, Danube and Helvetia, with which he serves at the Second Battle of Zurich. He then embarks for Santo Domingo and participates in several Caribbean campaigns for Napoleon Bonaparte before being accused of plundering by General Brunet. It is also rumored that he engages in an affair with Pauline Bonaparte, the wife of his commanding officer Charles Leclerc. He is returned to France by order of General Leclerc in October 1802, for “prevarications, and liaison relationships with organisers of the inhabitants and with leaders of brigands.” A committed Republican, his displeasure at Napoleon’s Imperial pretensions lead to him being dismissed in 1803 and he retires to Morbihan in Brittany.

In 1810, after brief service in the Army of the North, Humbert emigrates to New Orleans, where he makes his acquaintance with French pirate Jean Lafitte. In 1813, Humbert joins the revolutionary Juan Bautista Mariano Picornell y Gomila in an unsuccessful attempt to foment rebellion in Spanish Mexico, but the effort fails. In 1814, Humbert again leaves New Orleans and joins the rebelling forces of Buenos Aires, briefly commanding a corps, before returning home. Humbert last fights the British at the Battle of New Orleans, as a volunteer private soldier in U.S. ranks, in the War of 1812, wearing his Napoleonic uniform. General Andrew Jackson thanks him for his assistance there after the American victory in January 1815. Thereafter Humbert lives peacefully as a schoolteacher until his death on January 3, 1823.

A monument to General Humbert depicting Mother Ireland stands on Humbert Street, Ballina, County Mayo. In 1989, sculptor Carmel Gallagher unveils a bust of General Humbert in Killala, Ireland, to mark the upcoming bicentennial of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.


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Death of Poet & Barrister Samuel Ferguson

sir-samuel-ferguson

Sir Samuel Ferguson, Irish poet, barrister, antiquarian, artist, and public servant, dies in Howth, County Dublin on August 9, 1886. Ferguson is perhaps the most important Irish poet of the 19th century. Due to his interest in Irish mythology and early Irish history he is seen as a forerunner of William Butler Yeats and the other poets of the Irish Literary Revival.

Ferguson is born in Belfast on March 10, 1810. He lives at a number of addresses, including Glenwhirry, where he acquires the love of nature that informs his later work. He is educated at the Belfast Academy and the Belfast Academical Institution and then moves to Dublin to study law at Trinity College, obtaining his bachelor’s degree in 1826 and his master’s degree in 1832.

Because his father has exhausted the family property, Ferguson is forced to support himself through his student years. He turns to writing and is a regular contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine by the age of 22. He is called to the bar in 1838, but continues to write and publish, both in Blackwood’s and in the newly established Dublin University Magazine.

Ferguson settles in Dublin, where he practises law. In 1848, he marries Mary Guinness, a great-great-niece of Arthur Guinness and the eldest daughter of Robert Rundell Guinness, founder of Guinness Mahon bank. At the time he is defending the Young Irelander poet Richard Dalton Williams.

In addition to his poetry, Ferguson contributes a number of articles on topics of Irish interest to antiquarian journals. In 1863, he travels in Brittany, Ireland, Wales, England, and Scotland to study megaliths and other archaeological sites. These studies are important to his major antiquarian work, Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, which is edited after his death by his widow and published in 1887.

His collected poems, Lays of the Western Gael is published in 1865, resulting in the award of a degree LL.D. honoris causa from Trinity College. He writes many of his poems in both Irish and English translations. In 1867, Ferguson retires from the bar to take up the newly created post of Deputy Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland. As reward for his services, he receives a knighthood in 1878.

Ferguson’s major work, the long poem Congal is published in 1872 and a third volume, Poems, in 1880. In 1882, he is elected President of the Royal Irish Academy, an organisation dedicated to the advancement of science, literature, and antiquarian studies. His house in North Great George’s St., Dublin, is open to everyone interested in art, literature or music.

Ferguson dies on August 9, 1886, in Howth, just outside Dublin city, and is buried in Donegore near Templepatrick, County Antrim.