Smith is born at 174 South Street, New York City, on December 30, 1873, and raised in the Fourth Ward on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He resides there for his entire life. His mother, Catherine (née Mulvihill), is the daughter of Maria Marsh and Thomas Mulvihill, who are immigrants from County Westmeath, Ireland. His father, baptised Joseph Alfred Smith in 1839, is a Civil War–veteran and the son of Emanuel Smith, an Italian marinaro.
Although Smith remains personally untarnished by corruption, he — like many other New York Democrats — is linked to the notorious Tammany Hallpolitical machine that controls New York City politics during his era. He serves in the New York State Assembly from 1904 to 1915 and holds the position of Speaker of the Assembly in 1913. He also serves as sheriff of New York County from 1916 to 1917. He is first elected governor of New York in 1918, loses his 1920 bid for re-election, and is elected governor again in 1922, 1924, and 1926. He is the foremost urban leader of the efficiency movement in the United States and is noted for achieving a wide range of reforms as the New York governor in the 1920s.
Smith is the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for president of the United States by a major party. His 1928 presidential candidacy mobilizes both Catholic and anti-Catholic voters. Many Protestants, including German AmericanLutherans and Southern Baptists, fear his candidacy, believing that the Pope in Rome would dictate his policies. He is also a committed “wet” (i.e., an opponent of Prohibition in the United States) and as New York governor, he repeals the state’s prohibition law. As a “wet,” he attracts voters who want beer, wine and liquor without having to deal with criminal bootleggers, along with voters who are outraged that new criminal gangs have taken over the streets in most large and medium-sized cities. Incumbent RepublicanSecretary of CommerceHerbert Hoover is aided by national prosperity, the absence of American involvement in war and anti-Catholic bigotry, and he defeats Smith in a landslide in 1928.
Smith then enters business in New York City and becomes involved in the construction and promotion of the Empire State Building. He seeks the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination but is defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt, his former ally and successor as governor of New York. During the Roosevelt presidency, he becomes an increasingly vocal opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Smith is an early and vocal critic of the Nazi regime in Germany. He supports the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933 and addresses a mass-meeting at Madison Square Garden against Nazism in March 1933. His speech is included in the 1934 anthology Nazism: An Assault on Civilization. In 1938, he takes to the airwaves to denounce Nazi brutality in the wake of Kristallnacht. His words are published in The New York Times article “Text of the Catholic Protest Broadcast” of November 17, 1938.
Like most New York City businessmen, Smith enthusiastically supports American military involvement in World War II. Although he is not asked by Roosevelt to play any role in the war effort, he is an active and vocal proponent of FDR’s attempts to amend the Neutrality Act in order to allow “Cash and Carry” sales of war equipment to be made to the British. He speaks on behalf of the policy in October 1939, to which FDR responds directly: “Very many thanks. You were grand.”
Smith is memorialized by The Alfred E. Smith Foundation, founded by CardinalFrancis Spellman. Today it is a significant fund raiser for charity. Each election year, presidential candidates are expected to attend, make witty remarks, and profound commentary about Smith. In 2008, then candidate Barack Obama speaks eloquently of “a man who fought for many years to give Americans nothing more than fair shake and a chance to succeed. He touched the lives of millions as a result.”
(Pictured: Official Gubernatorial portrait of Alfred E. “Al” Smith by Douglas Volk)
Leventhal is born Abraham Jacob Leventhal in Lower Clanbrassil Street, Dublin, on May 9, 1896. His parents are Moses (Maurice) Leventhal and Rosa (née Levenberg). His father is a draper, and his mother is a poet. She is a Zionist, who is a founding member of the Women’s Zionist Society. He lives in the “Little Jerusalem” area of Dublin, the area around the South Circular Road, in his youth. He attends Wesley College, Dublin, and then Trinity College Dublin (TCD) to study modern languages. He edits the TCD student magazine in 1918. It is in TCD that he acquires the nickname “Con,” an allusion to his father’s job as a “Continental” agent. He joins the first Zionist commission and travels to Palestine after World War I and helps to found the newspaper Palestine Weekly. He is then invited to join the Jewish National Fund‘s London office and begins working on the Zionist Review. He returns to Dublin to complete his degree in 1920, and in 1921 travels to Paris where he meets James Joyce.
Leventhal marries Gertrude Zlotover in October 1922. He works with his father-in-law, Joseph Zlotover, at the family furniture business on Mary Street for a time. After, he starts a number of unsuccessful businesses of his own, including the Irish Book Shop on Dawson Street from 1924 to 1925. It is possibly his business failures that inspire the idea of the TCD Students Appointment Association, which would give students pragmatic business skills. TCD accepts this proposal and employes him as the first administrator.
Leventhal completes a PhD in contemporary French literature, and in 1932 is appointed to the staff of the French department at TCD. He replaces his friend Samuel Beckett. During his time in TCD, he is an assistant editor to Hermathena, to which he also contributes his translations of French poetry. He is associated with a number of progressive cultural movements in Dublin of the 1920s and 1930s. He is a regular attendee at meetings held to promote Jewish culture and nationalism and lectures this group on Joyce. Through his interest in Joyce, he becomes an associate of Seumas O’Sullivan, and The Dublin Magazine. When the printers refuse to set his review of Ulysses in 1923 for The Dublin Magazine, he is moved to found his own magazine, The Klaxon, in response to the censorship. The only issue of the magazine publishes a shortened version of the review under the pseudonym “Lawrence K. Emery.” He is also associated with Francis Stuart‘s Tomorrow magazine. He is also interested in drama and is a member of the avant-garde Dublin Drama League, occasionally performing with them. Among his close friends are Daisy Bannard Cogley, Micheál Mac Liammóir, and Lennox Robinson. From 1943 to 1958 his column, “Dramatic commentary”, is published in The Dublin Magazine. He is also published in The Irish Times, The Irish Press, The Listener, Westminster Weekly, Financial Times, and International Herald Tribune. He is a regular contributor to Radio Éireann and BBC broadcasts.
Leventhal begins a long-term relationship with Ethna MacCarthy, marrying her after the death of his first wife in 1956. She dies in 1959. He retires from TCD in 1963 and moves to Paris, where he becomes Beckett’s literary assistant. He lives on Boulevard du Montparnasse with his partner Marion Leigh.
Leventhal dies of cancer in Paris on October 3, 1979. There are two known portraits of Leventhal, one by John Russell (1920) and a second by Avigdor Arikha. The Leventhal Scholarship at TCD is founded in his memory. TCD and the Harry Ransom Center hold papers relating to Leventhal.
Charles Brady, American-born painter who spends most of his life in Ireland, dies in Dublin on August 1, 1997.
Brady is born on July 27, 1926, in New York City, the son of Arthur Brady, an industrial hardware merchant. He is best known for small-scale paintings of still life and landscape. At the end of World War II, while serving with the United States Navy, he suffers an accident which results in his discharge. As a result of this, he has the opportunity of pursuing further study. In 1948, he enrolls at the Art Students League of New York. Founded in 1875 and distinguished by its progressive approach to art education, it is one of the most important art schools in the United States in the early twentieth century.
Initially, Brady studies design and fashion before studying fine art under John Groth and Morris Kantor. In 1949, he becomes Groth’s assistant. In 1950, his work is included in the exhibition “American Painting 1950,” held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where he is employed as a guard at the time. Around this time, he meets artists associated with abstract expressionism such as Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock, and exhibits with them in exhibitions such as the “9th Street Show” (1951). Four years later, his first solo exhibition is held at the Urban Gallery, New York. By this time, his father, mother, and a younger brother have all died. In 1956 he decides to leave New York and spend some time in Ireland.
On his arrival, Brady bases himself in Lismore, County Waterford, where the landscapes he begins to paint are in contrast to the abstract style he had developed in New York. In May 1956, he joins his aunt and uncle on a tour that include London and Paris. He remains in Ireland until early in 1958 and during this time becomes acquainted with such figures as Camille Souter, Frank Morris and Desmond McAvock. Though he spends the next year in the United States, he soon decides to return to Ireland. In 1959 he is living in Dublin, where, along with artists such as Noel Sheridan and Patrick Pye, he is involved in founding the Independent Artists group. His work is included in the group’s first exhibition in 1960.
Also in 1960, Brady marries Eelagh Noonan, and the couple go to live in Spain. On their return to Ireland in 1961, they settle in Dún Laoghaire, where he begins to produce still lifes of objects such as envelopes and boxes painted in muted tones. Though figurative, the painterly quality of these works and the way in which they assert the flat nature of the picture plane suggest something of his experience of postwar American abstract art. Soft, hazy light, another key characteristic of his work, can also be seen in his paintings of Sandymount Strand, which might be compared with the work of Nathaniel Hone the Younger, whose work Brady had seen on his first trip to Ireland. He also works in other media, producing lithographs and, from the mid-1980s, small bronzes of such mundane objects as discarded bus tickets.
From 1976 to 1983 Brady lectures in painting at the National College of Art and Design. In 1981 he becomes a member of Aosdána and in 1994 he is elected an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). He exhibits regularly in Ireland at venues such as the RHA. He receives a number of awards including the P. J. Carroll award at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art as well as the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal and the landscape award at the Oireachtas exhibitions of 1973 and 1989 respectively.
(From: “Brady, Charles” by Rebecca Minch, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: “Charles Brady, 1967,” oil on board by Koert Delmonte)
Frazer grows up in the village of Whitecross, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, as one of nine children, with his parents Bertie and Margaret. He is an ex-member of the Territorial Army and a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. He attends a local Catholic school and plays Gaelic football up to U14 level. He describes his early years as a “truly cross-community lifestyle.” Growing up, he is a fan of the American actor John Wayne and wrestling. His father, who is a part-time member of the British Army‘s Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and a council worker, is killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on August 30, 1975. The family home had previously been attacked with petrol bombs and gunfire which Frazer claims were IRA men, due to his father’s UDR membership. He states that his family is well respected in the area including by “old-school IRA men” and receives Mass cards from Catholic neighbours expressing their sorrow over his father’s killing. Over the next ten years, four members of Frazer’s family who are members or ex-members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) or British Army are killed by the IRA. An uncle who is also a member of the UDR is wounded in a gun attack.
Soon after his father’s death, the IRA begins targeting Frazer’s older brother who is also a UDR member. Like many South Armagh unionists, the family moves north to the village of Markethill. After leaving school, he works as a plasterer for a period before serving in the British Army for nine years. Following this he works for a local haulage company, then sets up his own haulage company, which he later sells.
During the Drumcree conflict, Frazer is a supporter of the PortadownOrange Order who demand the right to march down the Garvaghy Road against the wishes of local residents. He is president of his local Apprentice Boys club at the time.
For a brief period after selling his haulage firm, Frazer runs “The Spot,” a nightclub in Tandragee, County Armagh, which closes down after two Ulster Protestant civilians who had been in the club, Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine, are stabbed to death in February 2000 by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), after one of them had allegedly made derogatory remarks about dead UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade leader Richard Jameson. Frazer is confronted in an interview on BBC Radio Ulster about the murders by the father of one of the victims, Paul McIlwaine. During the Smithwick Tribunal, set up to investigate allegations of collusion in the 1989 Jonesborough ambush, it is alleged by a member of Garda Síochána that Frazer is a part of a loyalist paramilitary group called the Red Hand Commando. Frazer denies this allegation, saying they put his life in danger.
Frazer applies for a licence to hold a firearm for his personal protection and is turned down, a chief inspector says, in part because he is known to associate with loyalist paramilitaries.
FAIR, founded by Frazer in 1998, claims to represent the victims of IRA violence in South Armagh. It has been criticised by some for not doing the same for victims of loyalist paramilitary organisations or for those killed by security forces.
In February 2006, Frazer is an organiser of the Love Ulster parade in Dublin that has to be cancelled due to rioting. In January 2007, he protests outside the Sinn FéinArd Fheis in Dublin that votes to join policing structures in Northern Ireland. He expresses “outrage at the idea that the ‘law-abiding population’ would negotiate with terrorists to get them to support democracy, law and order.”
In January 2007, Frazer dismisses Police OmbudsmanNuala O’Loan‘s report into security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.
In March 2010, Frazer claims to have served a civil writ on deputy First MinisterMartin McGuinness, of Sinn Féin, seeking damages arising from the killing of his father by the Provisional IRA. Both Sinn Féin and the courts deny that any such writ had been served, but in June 2010 Frazer announces that he will seek to progress his claim in the High Court. There has since been no report of any such litigation. He previously pickets McGuinness’s home in Derry in 2007 to demand support for calls for Libya to compensate victims of IRA attacks. Accompanied by two other men, he attempts to post a letter to the house but is confronted by local residents and verbally abused. When McGuinness stands for election in the 2011 Irish presidential election, Frazer announces that he and FAIR will picket the main Sinn Féin election events, however, no such pickets take place.
In September 2010, the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) revokes all funding to FAIR due to “major failures in the organisation’s ability to adhere to the conditions associated with its funding allocation” uncovered following a “thorough audit” of the tendering and administration procedures used by FAIR.
In November 2011, the SEUPB announces that it is seeking the return of funding to FAIR and another Markethill victims’ group, Saver/Naver. FAIR is asked to return £350,000 while Saver/Naver is asked to return £200,000. Former Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Reg Empey demands that the conclusions about FAIR’s finances be released into the public domain.
In January 2012, Frazer announces a protest march to be held on February 25 through the mainly Catholic south Armagh village of Whitecross, to recall the killing of ten Protestant workmen by the South Armagh Republican Action Force (SARAF) in January 1976 in the Kingsmill massacre. He also names individuals whom he accuses of responsibility for the massacre. He later announces that the march is postponed “at the request of the Kingsmills families.” A 2011 report by the Historical Enquiries Team finds that members of the Provisional IRA carried out the attack despite the organisation being on ceasefire.
A delegation including Frazer, UUP politician Danny Kennedy and relatives of the Kingsmill families travel to Dublin in September 2012 to seek an apology from the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny. The apology is sought for what they describe as the Irish government‘s “blatant inaction” over the Kingmills killings. The Taoiseach says he cannot apologise for the actions of the IRA but assures the families there is no hierarchy for victims and their concerns are just as important as any other victims’ families. The families express disappointment although Frazer states he is pleased to have met the Taoiseach.
On November 16, 2012, Frazer announces that he is stepping down as director of FAIR, after he had reviewed a copy of the SEUPB audit report which, he claims, shows no grounds for demanding the reimbursement of funding. He adds, “I will still be working in the victims sector.”
In 2019, the BBC investigative journalism programme Spotlight reports that Frazer distributed assault rifles and rocket launchers from Ulster Resistance to loyalist terror groups who used them in more than 70 murders. A police report on the activities of the former Ulster Defence Association (UDA) boss Johnny Adair states he was receiving weapons from Ulster Resistance in the early 1990s and his contact in Ulster Resistance was Frazer.
In addition to his advocacy for Protestant victims, Frazer contests several elections in County Armagh. He is not elected and, on most occasions, loses his deposit. He runs as an Ulster Independence Movement candidate in the 1996 Forum Elections and the 1998 Assembly elections, and as an independent in the 2003 Assembly elections and a council by-election.
In the 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election Frazer is listed as a subscriber for the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) candidate for the Newry and Armagh constituency, Barrie Halliday, who secures 1.8% of the vote. At Newry Crown Court on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, Pastor Barrie Gordon Halliday is sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for eighteen months, when he pleads guilty to seventeen counts of VAT repayment fraud.
In November 2012, Frazer announces his intention to contest the 2013 Mid Ulster by-election necessitated by Martin McGuinness’s decision to resign the parliamentary seat to concentrate on his Assembly role. He is quoted in The Irish News in January 2013 as stating that he will not condemn any paramilitary gunman who shoots McGuinness.
Despite his earlier advocacy of Ulster nationalism, in 2013 Frazer declares himself in favour of re-establishing direct rule in Northern Ireland.
Frazer dies of cancer in Craigavon, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, on June 28, 2019. Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister and DUP Assembly member Jim Wells pay tribute to his memory.
Bedford then mainly works in theatre in the United States, on both coasts, but mainly in New York City both on and off Broadway. He is in the premiere of Tennessee Williams‘s last play Small Craft Warnings at the New Theatre in New York in 1972. Other stage appearances include Brian Friel’s The Mundy Scheme in New York in 1969 and as John Adams in the nationwide tour of the musical 1776. He appears in over 200 stage productions throughout his career.
Bedford dies at the age of 67 on November 20, 1999, in Manhattan, New York City, of cancer six weeks after entering the hospital.
Following Fine Gael’s defeat at the 1977 Irish general election, the new leader, Garret FitzGerald, appoints Bruton to the front bench as Spokesperson on Agriculture. He is later promoted as Spokesperson for Finance. He plays a prominent role in Fine Gael’s campaign in the 1981 Irish general election, which results in another coalition with the Labour Party, with FitzGerald as Taoiseach. He receives a personal vote in Meath of nearly 23%, and at the age of only 34 is appointed Minister for Finance, the most senior position in the cabinet. In light of overwhelming economic realities, the government abandons its election promises to cut taxes. The government collapses unexpectedly on the night of January 27, 1982, when Bruton’s budget, that was to impose an unpopular value-added tax (VAT) on children’s shoes, is defeated in the Dáil.
The minority Fianna Fáil government which follows only lasts until November 1982, when Fine Gael once again returns to power in a coalition government with the Labour Party. However, when the new government is formed, Bruton is moved from Finance to become Minister for Industry and Energy. After a reconfiguration of government departments in 1983, he becomes Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism. In a cabinet reshuffle in February 1986, he is appointed again as Minister for Finance. Although he is Minister for Finance, he never presents his budget. The Labour Party withdraws from the government due to a disagreement over his budget proposals leading to the collapse of the government and another election.
Following the 1987 Irish general election, Fine Gael suffers a heavy defeat. Garret FitzGerald resigns as leader immediately, and a leadership contest ensues between Alan Dukes, Peter Barry and Bruton himself, with Dukes being the ultimate victor. Dukes’s term as leader is lackluster and unpopular. The party’s disastrous performance in the 1990 Irish presidential election, in which the party finishes in a humiliating and then unprecedented third in a national election, proves to be the final straw for the party and Dukes is forced to resign as leader shortly thereafter. Bruton, who is the deputy leader of Fine Gael at the time, is unopposed in the ensuing leadership election.
Bruton’s election is seen as offering Fine Gael a chance to rebuild under a far more politically experienced leader. However, his perceived right-wing persona and his rural background are used against him by critics and particularly by the media. However, to the surprise of critics and of conservatives, in his first policy initiative he calls for a referendum on a Constitutional amendment permitting the enactment of legislation allowing for divorce in Ireland.
By the 1992 Irish general election, the anti-Fianna Fáil mood in the country produces a major swing to the opposition, but that support goes to the Labour Party, not Bruton’s Fine Gael, which actually loses a further 10 seats. Even then, it initially appears that Fine Gael is in a position to form a government. However, negotiations stall in part from Labour’s refusal to be part of a coalition which would include the libertarian Progressive Democrats, as well as Bruton’s unwillingness to take Democratic Left into a prospective coalition. The Labour Party breaks off talks with Fine Gael and opts to enter a new coalition with Fianna Fáil.
In late 1994, the government of Fianna Fáil’s Albert Reynolds collapses. Bruton is able to persuade Labour to end its coalition with Fianna Fáil and enter a new coalition government with Fine Gael and Democratic Left. He faces charges of hypocrisy for agreeing to enter government with Democratic Left, as Fine Gael campaigned in the 1992 Irish general election on a promise not to enter government with the party. Nevertheless, on December 15, 1994, aged 47, he becomes the then youngest ever Taoiseach. This is the first time in the history of the state that a new government is installed without a general election being held.
Bruton’s politics are markedly different from most Irish leaders. Whereas most leaders had come from or identified with the independence movement Sinn Féin (in its 1917–22 phase), Bruton identifies more with the more moderate Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) tradition that Sinn Féin had eclipsed at the 1918 Irish general election.
Continued developments in the Northern Ireland peace process and Bruton’s attitude to Anglo-Irish relations come to define his tenure as Taoiseach. In February 1995, he launches the Anglo-Irish “Framework Document” with the British prime ministerJohn Major. It foreshadows the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which, among other things, establishes an elected, power-sharing executive authority to be run by these onetime adversaries, ending 30 years of bloodletting that had claimed more than 3,000 lives. However, he takes a strongly critical position on the British Government‘s reluctance to engage with Sinn Féin during the Irish Republican Army‘s 1994–1997 ceasefire. He also establishes a working relationship with Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin; however, both are mutually distrustful of each other.
The coalition remains in force to contest the 1997 Irish general elections, which are indecisive, and Bruton serves as acting taoiseach until the Dáil convenes in late June and elects a Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats government. He retires from Irish politics in 2004 and serves as the European Union Ambassador to the United States (2004–09).
Bruton dies at the age of 76 on February 6, 2024, at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin, following a long bout with cancer. A state funeral is held on February 10 at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Church in Dunboyne.
Frederick Edward McWilliamCBERA, Northern Irish surrealistsculptor, dies in London on May 13, 1992. He works chiefly in stone, wood and bronze. His style of work consists of sculptures of the human form contorted into strange positions, often described as modern and surreal.
McWilliam is born in Banbridge, County Down,on April 30, 1909, the son of Dr. William McWilliam, a local general practitioner. Growing up in Banbridge has a great influence on his work. He makes references to furniture makers such as Carson the Cooper and Proctors in his letters to his friend, Marjorie Burnett.
McWilliam attends Campbell College in Belfast and later attends Belfast College of Art from 1926. After 1928, he continues to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He originally intends to become a painter, but influenced by Alfred Horace Gerrard, head of the sculpture department at the Slade, and by Henry Moore whom he meets there, he turns to sculpture. He receives the Robert Ross Leaving Scholarship which enables him and his wife, Beth (née Crowther), to travel to Paris where he visits the studio of Constantin Brâncuși.
During the first year of World War II, he joins the Royal Air Force and is stationed in England for four years where he is engaged in interpreting aerial reconnaissance photographs. He is then posted to India. While there he teaches art in the Hindu Art School in New Delhi.
After his return from India, McWilliam teaches for a year at the Chelsea School of Art. He is then invited by A. H. Gerrard to teach sculpture at the Slade. He continues in this post until 1968.
During the Northern IrelandTroubles McWilliam produces a series of bronzes in 1972 and 1973 known as Women of Belfast in response to the bombing at the Abercorn Tea-Rooms.
In 1964 McWilliam is awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Queen’s University Belfast. In 1966 he is appointed CBE and in 1971 he wins the Oireachtas Gold Medal. He is represented in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and Tate Britain in London. In 1984 the National Self-Portrait Gallery purchases a McWilliam self-portrait amongst acquisitions from fellow Northerners Brian Ballard, Brian Ferran and T. P. Flanagan.
In 1970, McKeown becomes a reporter for The Irish Times, then later works for The Irish Press, as their Belfast correspondent. Given his experience of reporting on the emergence of The Troubles, he supports the 1976 creation of “Women for Peace,” a Northern Ireland-based movement, by Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan. When his involvement becomes more widely known, the movement changes its name to “Community of Peace People,” or simply “Peace People.” After the events of 1976-77, he finds it difficult to return to full-time journalism.
Although McKeown becomes known as a thoughtful and calm presence in the leadership of the organisation, his criticisms of the reluctance of church authorities to speak out on sectarian issues causes some tensions. Corrigan and Williams win the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize, but he is not made a party to it. However, the Ford Foundation makes a grant to the group, which includes a salary for him, enabling him to become full-time editor of Peace by Peace, the group’s newspaper, also completing a year as editor of Fortnight in 1977.
McKeown, Corrigan and Williams all step down from the leadership posts in 1978, although he continues to edit Peace by Peace. His articles bring him into conflict with the group’s new leadership, while financial disagreements massively reduce the group’s membership. Ultimately, his belief that the group should call for special status for paramilitary prisoners leads to a split, with Williams and her leading supporter, Peter McLachlan, resigning in February 1980. He can no longer survive on the group’s salary, nor can he find work as a journalist, so he retrains as a typesetter.
In 1984, McKeown publishes his autobiography, The Passion of Peace. This is almost immediately withdrawn following a claim that it libels a journalist, although it is later reissued with an additional note.
In addition to his activism and his work in journalism, McKeown is deeply involved in the Belfast theater scene. He serves in a number of offices, including executive secretary and chairman, at the city’s renowned Lyric Theatre.
McKeown dies peacefully at his home in Belfast on September 1, 2019, following a battle with cancer.
Donal Donnelly, Irish theatre and film actor, dies in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 2010. Perhaps best known for his work in the plays of Brian Friel, he has a long and varied career in film, on television and in the theatre. He lives in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States at various times, and his travels lead him to describe himself as “an itinerant Irish actor.”
Donnelly gets his start in an amateur group calling itself the Globe Theatre Players. It is organised and run by Jim Fitzgerald and Monica Brophy. He then later tours with Anew McMaster‘s Irish repertory company before moving to England where he stars with Rita Tushingham in the film The Knack …and How to Get It.
For many years, Donnelly tours a one-man performance of the writings of George Bernard Shaw, adapted and directed by Michael Voysey and entitled My Astonishing Self.
On television, Donnelly plays the lead role of Matthew Browne in the 1970s ITV sitcom Yes, Honestly, opposite Liza Goddard. But from the late 1950s onwards, he often appears in such British TV programs as The Avengers, Z-Cars and The Wednesday Play.
In 1968, Donnelly records an album of Irish songs, Take the Name of Donnelly, which is arranged, produced and conducted by Tony Meehan formerly of the Shadows.
Donnelly, who is a heavy smoker all his life, dies from cancer at the age of 78 in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 2010. He is survived by his wife, Patricia ‘Patsy’ Porter, a former dancer he met working on Finian’s Rainbow, and two sons, Jonathan and Damian. Their only daughter, Maryanne, predeceases him after being killed in a riding accident. A brother, Michael Donnelly, is a Fianna Fáil senator and councillor, and Lord Mayor of Dublin (1990–91).
Cole starts his career in print journalism in 1945, joining the Belfast Telegraph as a reporter and industrial correspondent. He subsequently works as a political reporter for the paper. He gains a scoop when he interviews the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, who is holidaying in Ireland.
Cole joins The Guardian, then The Manchester Guardian, in 1956, reporting on industrial issues. He transfers to the London office in 1957 as the paper’s labour correspondent. Appointed news editor in 1963, succeeding Nesta Roberts, he takes on the task of reorganising the paper’s “amateurish” system for gathering news. He heads opposition to a proposed merger with The Times in the mid-1960s, and later serves as deputy editor under Alastair Hetherington. When Hetherington leaves in 1975, Cole is in the running for the editorship, but fails to secure the post, for reasons which may include his commitment to the cause of unionism in Northern Ireland, as well as what is seen by some as inflexibility and a lack of flair. Unwilling to continue at The Guardian, he then joins The Observer as deputy editor under Donald Trelford, remaining there for six years.
After Tiny Rowland takes over as proprietor of The Observer in 1981, Cole gives evidence against him at the Monopolies Commission. The following day he receives a call from the BBC offering him the job of political editor, succeeding John Simpson. He has little previous television experience but proves a “natural broadcaster.” Reporting through most of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, he becomes a familiar figure on television and radio.
Cole’s health is put under strain by the workload, and he suffers a heart attack in February 1984. Returning to report on that year’s conference season, he covers the Brighton hotel bombing, getting a “memorable” interview with Thatcher on the pavement in its immediate aftermath, in which she declares that the Tory conference will take place as normal. An astute observer of the political scene, he is one of the earliest to forecast Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister in 1990, in what colleague David McKie refers to as “perhaps his greatest exclusive.”
Cole establishes a strong reputation for his “gentle but probing” interviewing style, for his political assessments, and for presenting analysis rather than “bland reporting.” Held in enormous affection by viewers, he is trusted by both politicians and the public. He is known for speaking in the language used by ordinary people rather than so-called Westminster experts. His distinctive Northern Irish accent leads the way for BBC broadcasters with regional accents.
Cole retires as political editor in 1992 at the age of 65, compulsory at the time, but continues to appear on television, including making programmes on golf and travel. He also continues to appear on the BBC programme Westminster Live for several years after he retired as political editor.
In addition to his journalistic writing, Cole authors several books. The earliest are The Poor of the Earth, on developing countries, and The Thatcher Years (1987). After his retirement as BBC political editor, he spends more time writing. His political memoir, As It Seemed to Me, appears in 1995 and becomes a best-seller. He also publishes a novel, A Clouded Peace (2001), set in his birthplace of Belfast in 1977.
In 2007, Cole writes an article for the British Journalism Review, blaming both politicians and the media for the fact that parliamentarians are held in such low esteem, being particularly scathing of Alastair Campbell‘s influence during Tony Blair‘s premiership.
In 1966, the Eisenhower Fellowships selects Cole to represent Great Britain. He receives the Royal Television Society‘s Journalist of the Year award in 1991. After his retirement in 1992, he is awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University and receives the Richard Dimbleby Award from BAFTA in 1993. He turns down a CBE in 1993, citing the former The Guardian newspaper rule that journalists can only accept gifts which can be consumed within 24 hours.
In his private life Cole is a supporter of the Labour Party and is a believer in the trades union movement. He considers that the combating of unemployment is one of the most important political issues. He is a British Republican and a committed Christian, associating in the latter part of his life with the United Reformed Church at Kingston upon Thames.
Cole suffers health problems in retirement including heart problems and two minor strokes. In 2009, he is diagnosed with cancer. He subsequently develops aphasia. He dies at his home at Claygate in the county of Surrey on November 7, 2013.
Tributes are paid by journalists, broadcasters and politicians across the political spectrum. Prime Minister David Cameron calls Cole a “titan at the BBC” and an “extraordinary broadcaster.” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband says that “my generation grew up watching John Cole. He conveyed the drama and importance of politics.” The Scottish First MinisterAlex Salmond says that Cole is “an extremely able journalist but also extraordinarily helpful and generous to a young politician.” The BBC’s political editor at the time, Nick Robinson, writes that Cole “shaped the way all in my trade do our jobs.”
seamus dubhghaill 