D’Alton is born to Joseph D’Alton and his wife Mary Brennan, at the height of the Land Wars in Ireland. He is baptised four days later, on October 15, 1882, with Michael and Mary Brennan acting as his godparents. His mother has a daughter, Mollie Brennan, from a previous marriage, she remarries again after the Cardinal’s father dies in 1883.
D’Alton occupies important roles at the National Seminary and is successively Professor of Ancient Classics (1912), Greek (1922), Vice-President (1934), and President (1936). He is raised to the rank of Monsignor on June 27, 1938.
D’Alton is named Archbishop of Armagh and thus Primate of All Ireland on June 13, 1946, and is created Cardinal Priest of Sant’ Agata de’ Goti in Rome by Pope Pius XII in the consistory of January 12, 1953. As a cardinal elector in the 1958 papal conclave, he gives a hint of the difficulties involved in that papal conclave and achieving unanimity in the voting.
One highlight of D’Alton’s time in Armagh is the Patrician Year Celebrations in 1961, marked by the Irish Catholic hierarchy as the 1,500th anniversary of the death of Saint Patrick and as such an opportunity to promote the “spiritual empire” created by the Irish Catholic church in the wider anglophone world. He writes a pastoral letter to mark the occasion.
Cardinal D’Alton is seen to be more ecumenical in outlook than other members of the Irish hierarchy. He tries to broker talks between the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom to ease the tensions between both countries, even going so far as to address the situation regarding the Irish ports, but to little avail.
In 1952, D’Alton becomes the first individual from the Republic of Ireland to receive an honorary degree from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), when he is conferred with a Doctorate in Literature. He already possesses a Doctor of Divinity, so this degree is a recognition of his earlier works such as Horace and His Age: A Study in Historical Background (1917), Roman Literary Theory and Criticism: A Study in Tendencies (1931), and Selections from St. John Chrysostom (1940).
In D’Alton’s hometown of Claremorris, the Dalton Inn Hotel and Dalton Street (formerly Church Street) are named after him. A plaque commemorating him is unveiled at the Dalton Inn Hotel on September 28, 2023. Plans to canonise him have been discussed.
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)
Patrick J. Killoran, Irish traditional fiddle player, bandleader and recording artist is born on September 21, 1903, in Emlaghgissan (also spelled “Emlagation”), a townland in the civil parish of Emlaghfad near the town of Ballymote, County Sligo. He is regarded, along with James Morrison and Michael Coleman, as one of the finest exponents of the south Sligo fiddle style in the “golden age” of the ethnic recording industry of the 1920s and 1930s.
Killoran’s father Patrick plays the flute and his mother Mary the concertina, but he is also influenced by local fiddle master Philip O’Beirne, who had earlier tutored Michael Coleman. As a teenager, he is a volunteer with the Ballymote-based 3rd Battalion of the south Sligo Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence.
In 1925, Killoran emigrates to New York City, arriving on May 19 on the Cunard liner Scythia. Within a few months, he officially declares his intention to become a citizen of the United States, listing his address as 227 East 126th Street in east Harlem and his occupation as “laborer.” He later lodges with fellow Sligo fiddler James Morrison in a Columbus Avenue apartment on Manhattan‘s Upper West Side. A 1927 newspaper ad for “Morrison’s Orchestra” offers “Irish music by P. Killoran and J. Morrison, celebrated violinists,” giving 507 West 133d Street in west Harlem as the contact address. He soon launches his own career as a soloist and bandleader. A publicity photo of his quartet c. 1928 includes button accordionist D. Casey, tenor banjo player Richard Curran and second fiddler Denis Murphy. By the next year, he is performing on a weekly radio program sponsored by the Pride of Erin Ballrooms, located at the corner of Bedford and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn. He also tries another side occupation as his 1931 naturalization petition lists his occupation as “Music store owner.”
At the Pride of Erin, and later at the Sligo Ballroom at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, Killoran’s “Irish Orchestra” provides music for Irish dancing, while Jack Healy, another Ballymote native, leads a group for “American” dancing. Healy, as a singer and tenor saxophone player, also performs and records with Killoran’s group, the membership of which over the course of the 1930s includes fiddler Paddy Sweeney, another Sligo native, fiddle and clarinet player Paul Ryan, Ryan’s brother Jim on the C Melody saxophone, pianists Eileen O’Shea, Edmund Tucker and Jim McGinn, drummer Mickey Murphy, button accordionists Tommy Flanagan and William McElligott and tenor banjo/tenor guitar player Michael “Whitey” Andrews.
Killoran’s band is variously billed as his “Pride of Erin Orchestra,” “Radio Dance Orchestra,” “Sligo Ballroom Orchestra,” “Lakes of Sligo Orchestra” and “Irish Barn Dance Boys.” The group is a popular choice for county association functions, particularly those of Sligo and Roscommon. In 1932, he leads a band that accompanies CardinalWilliam Henry O’Connell of Boston to the Eucharistic Congress in Ireland and briefly bills his group as the “Pride of Erin Eucharistic Congress Orchestra.” He regularly performs at Irish beach resorts on the Rockaway peninsula and in East Durham in the Catskill Mountains.
Uniquely among the major New York Irish musicians of the pre-World War II era, Killoran continues his musical career through the 1950s. He issues new recordings, including duets with flute player Mike Flynn and some fiddle-and-viola sides with Paul Ryan, and leads an active dance band. Age and illness eventually force him to retire, and in 1962 he turns over leadership of the band, a fixture at the City Center Ballroom, to button accordionist Joe Madden, father of Cherish the Ladies flute player Joanie Madden.
In 1956, Killoran is a co-founder of the Dublin Recording Company, later better known simply as Dublin Records, which is organized to record new Irish discs in New York.
Killoran is a founding member of the Emerald Irish Musicians Benevolent Society, a group that stages “Night of Shamrocks” concerts to raise money for the benefit of sick and deceased Irish musicians in New York. He is also a member of the Irish Musicians Association of America, and a New York branch of that organization, which later merges with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann, is named for him.
In addition to the 1932 trip to the Eucharistic Congress, Killoran returns to Ireland at least twice. In 1949, he plays on a Radio Éireann program hosted by piper and folklorist Séamus Ennis. Some selections from that broadcast are recorded on a private disc and are later released on CD. On a 1960 visit, he visits Sligo and Clare and performs at a concert in County Longford.
Killoran is married twice. His first wife, Anna Gorman, a native of County Roscommon, dies in 1935. His second wife is Betty (Bridget) Hayes, an immigrant from Shanaway West, County Clare, who survives him. He dies in New York City on April 24, 1965.
A “Paddy Killoran Traditional Festival” is celebrated in the third week of June in Ballymote, where a monument in Killoran’s honor is erected in 2012.
Connell is ordained priest by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid on May 19, 1951. He takes up a teaching post at the Department of Metaphysics at the University College Dublin. He is appointed Professor of General Metaphysics in 1972 and in 1983 becomes the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology. The College’s Department of Metaphysics is abolished after his departure.
Connell is appointed Archbishop of Dublin by the Holy See in early 1988. He is consecrated at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin on March 6, 1988. He is created Cardinal-Priest by Pope John Paul II at the Consistory in Rome on February 21, 2001, with the TitulusS. Silvestri in Capite. Archbishops of Armagh, who hold the higher title of Primate of All Ireland, are more frequently appointed Cardinal than Archbishops of Dublin. The last Archbishop of Dublin to have been a cardinal is Cardinal Edward MacCabe, who was appointed in 1882. A large Irish contingent from Church and State, along with family and friends of the Cardinal, attend the installation which for the first time takes place at the front of the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica.
On April 26, 2004, Connell retires as archbishop, handing the diocese to the coadjutor bishop, Diarmuid Martin. All bishops submit their resignation to the Pope on their 75th birthday. Connell’s is accepted shortly after his 78th birthday.
It is Connell’s failure, when Archbishop of Dublin in 1988–2004, to address adequately the abuse scandals in Dublin that lead the Vatican to assign Archbishop Martin as his replacement in the country’s largest diocese. The Murphy Report finds that Connell had handled the affair “badly” as he was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation.” It does praise him for making the archdiocesan records available to the authorities in 2002 and for his 1995 actions in giving the authorities the names of 17 priests who had been accused of abuse, although it says the list is incomplete as complaints were made against at least 28 priests in the archdiocese.
From 1988 Connell also continues to insure his archdiocese against liability from complainants, while claiming to the Murphy Commission that the archdiocese is “on a learning curve” in regard to child abuse. He arranges for compensation payments to be made from a “Stewardship Trust” that is kept secret from the archdiocese’s parishioners until 2003. In 1996 he refuses to help a victim of Paul McGennis and does not pass on what he knows about McGennis to her, or to the police. He apologises for this in 2002.
Desmond Connell dies in Dublin at the age of 90 on February 21, 2017, exactly sixteen years after his creation as Cardinal.
Allen is born on July 6, 1936, in a nursing home at 37 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, the youngest of three sons of (Gerard John) Cullen Tynan Allen, journalist, manager of The Irish Times, and raconteur, and his wife Jean Ballantyne (née Archer), an English-born nurse. His paternal grandmother, Nora Tynan O’Mahony, is the first women’s features editor of the Freeman’s Journal, and the poet Katharine Tynan is his great-aunt. Allen loses half a finger on his left hand in a childhood accident which becomes a favourite theme (and occasional prop) in his shows.
After initially attending Beaumont convent school, Allen goes to Firhousenational school, County Dublin, near the family residence outside Templeogue. For a period during World War II, he lives with his mother and brothers at Keenagh, County Longford, where they had moved for fear that Dublin might be targeted by air raids. On returning to Dublin, he goes to Terenure College, run by the Carmelite fathers. His reminiscences in later life often centre on memories of frequent and sadistic corporal punishment, and warnings from priests that adolescent male sexuality is a device of Satan leading straight to hell. His resentment is formative in his lifelong and outspoken atheism.
Allen, who is close to his father, is severely affected emotionally by his death in 1948, after which his relations with the school deteriorate further. The discovery that his father’s drinking and gambling had left the family heavily indebted means that, notwithstanding assistance from journalistic friends, his elder brothers are obliged to leave school and work as journalists to support the family. Restless and even more discontented at school than previously, he often plays truant to visit museums and art galleries. Expelled from Terenure College, he briefly attends the Catholic University School before leaving school at the age of 16. After working as a clerk for the Irish Independent, in 1954 he becomes a journalist on the Drogheda Argus, reporting weddings and gymkhanas. He later attributes this career path to the contemporary tradition of following a family profession.
Moving to London but failing to secure a job on a Fleet Street newspaper, Allen follows his brother John by becoming a “redcoat” attendant at Butlin’s holiday camps in Filey (Yorkshire), Skegness, Margate, and Brighton, performing various functions and telling jokes and stories during intervals between stage acts. In the winters he sells educational toys in Sheffield. Acquiring an agent, he becomes a professional comedian, adopting the stage name Dave Allen. He initially works the declining club and variety circuit, later claiming that he had toured with the last old-style nude tableaux show. In 1959, he makes his first television appearance on the BBC talent show New Faces and realises that television is the medium of the future. He tours with pop singer Helen Shapiro in 1963 and 1964, joined in the latter year by an emerging support band, the Beatles. At this period, he models himself on American stand-up comedians such as Jerry Lewis, focusing his act on discrete gags leading up to a punchline.
While performing in support of the singer Helen Traubel in Australian nightclubs, Allen often reminisces to her off stage about his early life. Traubel suggests that he incorporate such material into his act. Such is the genesis of his mature style of rambling absurdist monologues, which he describes as influenced by the Irish storytelling tradition in general, and his father’s stories in particular. After appearing in Melbourne and Sydney, he becomes the host of a ninety-minute chat show, Tonight with Dave Allen, on Sydney-based Channel 9. Eighty-four episodes are recorded of what becomes one of Australian television’s most successful programmes ever, its popularity boosted by the rumour that he is having an affair with singer Eartha Kitt, his hilarious interviews with eccentrics, and the frequent deployment of dangerous animals onstage.
Allen marries the English actress Judith Stott in Australia on March 9, 1964, a divorcée with one son. They have two children, including the comedian Ed Allen (Edward James Allen). After separating in 1980, the couple divorces in 1983. Returning to England in December 1964 to be with his wife, he establishes a reputation there through well-received performances as a compère at the televised Sunday Night at the London Palladium (1967) and The Blackpool Show (1966). After a slot as resident comedian on The Val Doonican Show (1965–67), he obtains his first stand-alone show, Tonight with Dave Allen, in 1967 on ITV, a mixture of sketches with the monologues for which he becomes best known. He usually performs seated on a barstool, smoking a cigarette, and sipping from a presumed glass of whiskey (actually ginger ale), while musing on the oddities of life, often expressing his suspicion of authority figures. His signature farewell phrase is “Goodnight, and may your God go with you.”
On BBC television Allen headlines two programmes: The Dave Allen Show (1968–69), and Dave Allen at Large (1971–79). He writes much of his own material, compulsively scouring newspapers for items that he can work into his act. He resists suggestions that he should move to an early evening slot, as this would entail restrictions on his material. In the 1970s and 1980s he tours widely with a one-man stage show, “An evening with Dave Allen,” containing more “adult” material than would be allowed on television at the time. His stage performances are less well-received in the United States than elsewhere.
Allen’s treatment of sex and religion involves him in frequent controversies. Priests and the confessional are frequent targets. In 1975, he provokes widespread protests from Catholics over a sketch in which the pope, played by Allen himself, and his cardinals perform a striptease on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. In 1977, his shows are banned from RTÉ. In 1984, the British anti-indecency campaigner Mary Whitehouse formally complains about his televised act, with particular reference to a simulated post-coital conversation. As with many stage comedians, his angry and outspoken stage persona contrasts with a reserved offstage life. He keeps his stage persona distinct from his private life and does not allow his children to attend his shows.
Allen gives occasional straight performances, notably in Edna O’Brien‘s plays A Pagan Place (1972) and Flesh and Blood (1985); in the dual roles of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in a production of Peter Pan (1973); and in Alan Bennett‘s television play One Fine Day (1979). He has a supporting role in the Australian comedy film Squeeze a Flower (1970). He also presents several documentaries, notably Dave Allen in the Melting Pot (1969); surveying life in New York City, he discusses racism and drug addiction and conducts one of the first television interviews with openly gay men. Other documentaries for ITV include Dave Allen in Search of the Great English Eccentric (1974), and Dave Allen (1978), which deals with American eccentrics. Long fascinated with ghost stories, he publishes an anthology of horror stories, A Little Night Reading (1974).
In the 1980s, Allen is regarded by many fans of the new, politically engaged “alternative comedians” as old-fashioned. His leisurely style contrasts with their quick-fire delivery, and some of his references to the Irish and other ethnic groups are seen as demeaning. He makes a partial television comeback with a six-part BBC One series, Dave Allen (1990), using considerably more outspoken material than he had previously deployed on television.
In 1993, Allen appears in a six-part series for the new ITV London franchise, Carlton Television. Thereafter he moves into semi-retirement, partly because of health problems, while continuing to make guest television appearances. At the British Comedy Awards he is named best comedy performer (1993) and is granted a lifetime achievement award (1996). He occasionally releases videos of older material “to keep myself in the style to which I had become accustomed – a bit of an Irish retirement, actually.” He maintains tight editorial control over his recordings, having been annoyed when his first television shows were chopped and changed when re-broadcast by American networks. They are released on DVD after his death. He presents a six-part BBC series based on his old material, The Unique Dave Allen (1998). After giving his last performance on BBC Radio 4 in 1999, he retires and devotes himself to his hobby as an amateur painter.
After a seventeen-year relationship, Allen marries secondly Karin Stark, a theatrical producer, on December 9, 2003. Their one son is born three weeks after Allen dies peacefully in his sleep as a result of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome on March 10, 2005, in Kensington, London.
A selection of his routines, edited by Graham McCann, is published as The Essential Dave Allen (2005). His obituarists see him as prefiguring the aggressive mocking of authority by the alternative comedians who had once criticised him, and as paving the way for such irreverent and anti-deferential satire of political and religious authority as Not the Nine O’Clock News and Father Ted. The widespread use of the monologue by Irish dramatists such as Conor McPherson in the first decade of the twenty-first century also owes something to his influence.
(From: “Allen, Dave” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, June 2011)
Among those to welcome the new organisation is Sinn Féin President, Éamon de Valera, who promises all the support he can offer. CardinalMichael Logue, CatholicPrimate of Ireland, also offers his assistance: “Even if peace were restored, of which there seems little prospect at present, all the help which can be obtained shall be necessary, to restore the country from the wreck to which it has been reduced, and to help those who have been left destitute by the murder of those on whom they depended, or ruined by the destruction of their property.”
The Irish White Cross is managed by the Quaker businessman, and later Irish Free Statesenator, James G. Douglas. The organisation continues to operate until the Irish Civil War and its books are officially closed in 1928. From 1922, its activities are essentially wound down and remaining funds divested to subsidiary organisations. The longest running of these aid committees is the Children’s Relief Association which distributes aid to child victims of this troubled period, north and south of the border, until 1947. The head of the Children’s Relief Association is Áine Ceannt, the widow of Éamonn Ceannt who is perhaps one of the least known signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
Hume does not complete his clerical studies but does obtain an M.A. degree in French and history from the college in 1958. He then returns home to his native Derry, where he becomes a teacher at his alma mater, St. Columb’s College. He is a founding member of the Credit Union movement in the city and is chair of the University for Derry Committee in 1965, an unsuccessful fight to have Northern Ireland’s second university established in Derry in the mid-1960s.
Hume becomes the youngest ever President of the Irish League of Credit Unions at age 27. He serves in the role from 1964 to 1968. He once says that “all the things I’ve been doing, it’s the thing I’m proudest of because no movement has done more good for the people of Ireland, north and south, than the credit union movement.”
Hume becomes a leading figure in the civil rights movement in the late 1960s along with people such as Hugh Logue. He is a prominent figure in the Derry Citizens’ Action Committee. The DCAC is set up in the wake of the October 5, 1968, march through Derry which had caused much attention to be drawn towards the situation in Northern Ireland. The purpose of the DCAC is to make use of the publicity surrounding recent events to bring to light grievances in Derry that had been suppressed by the Unionist Government for years. The DCAC, unlike the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), is aimed specifically at a local campaign, improving the situation in Derry for everyone, and maintaining a peaceful stance. The committee also has a Stewards Association that is there to prevent any violence at marches or sit-downs.
In October 1971, Hume joins four Westminster MPs in a 48-hour hunger strike to protest at the internment without trial of hundreds of suspected Irish republicans. State papers that have been released under the 30-year rule that an Irish diplomat eight years later in 1979 believes Hume supported the return of internment.
Hume is directly involved in secret talks with the British government and Sinn Féin, in an effort to bring Sinn Féin to the discussion table openly. The talks are speculated to lead directly to the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985.
The vast majority of unionists reject the agreement and stage a massive and peaceful public rally in Belfast City Centre to demonstrate their distaste. Many Republicans and nationalists also reject it, as they see it as not going far enough. Hume, however, continues dialogue with both governments and Sinn Féin. The “Hume–Adams process” eventually delivers the 1994 Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire which ultimately provides the relatively peaceful backdrop against which the Good Friday agreement is brokered.
In 2015, Hume is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, of which he had first displayed symptoms in the late 1990s. He dies in the early hours of August 3, 2020, at a nursing home in Derry, at the age of 83. On his death, former Labour Party leader and prime ministerTony Blair says, “John Hume was a political titan; a visionary who refused to believe the future had to be the same as the past.” The Dalai Lama says on Twitter, “John Hume’s deep conviction in the power of dialogue and negotiations to resolve conflict was unwavering… It was his leadership and his faith in the power of negotiations that enabled the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to be reached. His steady persistence set an example for us all to follow.”
(Pictured: John Hume with U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1995)
Browne is an important and outspoken member of the Irish hierarchy. His time as Bishop has been described by the historian James S. Donnelly Jr. as “far-reaching and … controversial,” while the historian of Irish CatholicismJohn Henry Whyte claims that Browne’s “readiness to put forward his views bluntly is welcome at least to the historian.”
On August 6, 1937, at the relatively young age of 41, Browne is appointed Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh by Pope Pius XI, receiving his episcopal consecration from Archbishop Thomas Gilmartin on the following August 10. He supports TaoiseachÉamon de Valera‘s defence of arrests and police searches for cached Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms, declaring, “Any Irishman who assists any foreign power to attack the legitimate authority of his own land is guilty of the most terrible crime against God’s law, and there can be no excuse for that crime – not even the pretext of solving partition or of securing unity.”
In 1939, Browne is selected by Éamon de Valera to chair the Commission on Vocational Organisation.
Browne is attentive to the state of public morality in the diocese, and James S. Donnelly Jr. has noted his role in directing episcopal and clerical censorship of newsagents and county librarians. He is also concerned about public intoxication and other misconduct at the Galway Races, controversies over dancing and the commercial dance halls, as well as immodesty in dress and the closely related issue of so-called “mixed bathing” in Galway and Salthill.
In 1957, in response to a growing tension between Catholics and Protestants at Fethard-on-Sea, including the Fethard-on-Sea boycott, Browne says, “non-Catholics do not protest against the crime of conspiring to steal the children of a Catholic father, but they try to make political capital when a Catholic people make a peaceful and moderate protest.”
The most enduring monument or physical legacy of Browne’s time as Bishop is the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas, commonly known as Galway Cathedral, which is dedicated in 1965 by CardinalRichard James Cushing of Boston, Massachusetts. The site of the old jail had come into the possession of the diocese in 1941 and Browne leads the campaign to construct a new Cathedral. This includes a 1957 audience with Pope Pius XII where the plans are approved.
Browne attends the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 and retires in 1976. He dies four years later, at the age of 84, on February 24, 1980.
Browne is parodied in Breandán Ó hÉithir`s novel Lig Sinn i gCathu, which fictionalises late 1940s Galway as “Baile an Chaisil” and Browne as “An tEaspag Ó Maoláin.”
The Irish cabinet minister Noël Browne (no known relation) in his 1986 memoir Against the Tide describes the physical attributes of his episcopal namesake:
“The bishop had a round soft baby face with shimmering clear cornflower-blue eyes, but his mouth was small and mean. Around his great neck was an elegant glinting gold episcopal chain with a simple pectoral gold cross. He wore a ruby ring on his plump finger and wore a slightly ridiculous tiny scullcap on his noble head. The well-filled semi-circular scarlet silk cummerbund and sash neatly divided the lordly prince into two.”
The BBC‘s Northern Ireland correspondent says the historic trip is intended as a gesture to reassure the province’s unionists, while at the same time trying not to alienate the nationalist population.
The Queen is invited to Armagh by the authorities to present the royal charter renewing Armagh’s status as a city.
In her speech, the Queen addresses all the people of Northern Ireland. She says, “For many difficult years the people of Northern Ireland have shown courage and compassion of an extraordinary kind. Today as they begin to look towards a more peaceful future, Armagh with its two great cathedrals standing so close together presents a powerful symbol of the strength spirit and hopes of people across Northern Ireland.”
Cardinal Cahal Daly says the Queen’s visit is a tribute to the progress made in the peace process since the IRA ceasefire came into effect on August 31, 1994.
Archbishop Robin Eames says, “Look how far we’ve come in a year. It’s a message of symbolism. Be patient, we’ve a long, long way to go but today is one little part of that jigsaw.”
Hendron says, “Things are different now. People must stand up and be counted. You can’t hide in your home. There are two communities here and I think it’s important to go out and shake hands with people like the Queen and from my point of view, she’s very welcome.”
Ryan is Professor of Oriental Languages at University College Dublin before his appointment by Pope Paul VI as Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland on December 29, 1971. Maintaining his connection and interest in oriental studies, he serves as chairman of the trustees of the Chester Beatty Library from 1978 to 1984.
During his term, Ryan consolidates much of the expansion of the archdiocese which had taken place during the term of his predecessor. He also oversees the fuller implementation of the reforms of Vatican II. He is particularly interested in liturgical reform.
Ryan also takes a traditional stand on social issues, including poverty, family life and opposition to abortion. He strongly promotes the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland in 1983, granting the equal right to life to mother and unborn.
As Archbishop, Ryan gives the people of Dublin a public park on a site earmarked by his predecessors for a proposed cathedral. It is named “Archbishop Ryan Park” in his honour. The land, at Merrion Square, is a gift from the archbishop to the city of Dublin.
Ryan is named in the Murphy Report, released in 2009, on sexual abuse of children in Dublin. His actions in respect of complaints against priest Fr. McNamee are described in the report as “an example of how, throughout the 1970s, the church authorities were more concerned with the scandal that would be created by revealing Fr. McNamee’s abuse rather than any concern for the abused.” He also does not act on complaints against other priests who are also subsequently confirmed to be abusers.
In January 2010, after Ryan has been criticised in the Murphy Report the previous year, Dublin City Council seeks public views on renaming “Archbishop Ryan Park.” Later that same year it is renamed “Merrion Square Park” by the City Council.
seamus dubhghaill 