Actor Liam John Neeson is born on June 7, 1952, in Ballymena, County Antrim. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Neeson is named Liam after the local priest. He says growing up as a Catholic in a predominately Protestant town made him cautious. At age nine, he begins boxing lessons at the All-Saints Youth Club and later becomes Ulster’s amateur senior boxing champion.
Neeson first steps on stage at age eleven after his English teacher offers him the lead role in a school play, which he accepts because the girl he is attracted to is starring in it. He continues to act in school productions over the following years.
Neeson’s interest in acting and decision to become an actor is also influenced by minister Ian Paisley, into whose Free Presbyterian church Neeson would sneak. Neeson says of Paisley, “He had a magnificent presence, and it was incredible to watch him just Bible-thumping away… it was acting, but it was also great acting and stirring too.”
The college is established on June 5, 1795, as The Royal College of St. Patrick, by act of the Parliament of Ireland, to provide “for the better education of persons professing the popish or Roman Catholic religion.” The College in Maynooth is originally established to provide a university education for Catholic lay and ecclesiastical students and is based in Riverstown House on the south campus from 1802. With the opening of Clongowes Wood College in 1814, the lay college is closed and the college functions solely as a Catholic seminary for almost 150 years.
The college is particularly intended to provide for the education of Catholic priests in Ireland, who until this Act have to go to the continent for training. The added value in this is the reduction of the number of priests returning from training in revolutionary France, with whom Great Britain is at war, thus hindering potential revolution. The value to the government is proved by the condemnation by the Catholic Church hierarchy of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and later support for the Act of Union.
In 1800, John Butler, 12th Baron Dunboyne, dies and leaves a substantial fortune to the College. Butler had been a Roman Catholic, and Bishop of Cork, who had embraced Protestantism in order to marry and guarantee the succession to his hereditary title. However, there are no children to his marriage, and it is alleged that he had been reconciled to the Catholic Church at his death. Were this the case, a Penal law demands that the will is invalid, and his wealth will pass to his family. Much litigation follows before a negotiated settlement in 1808 that leads to the establishment of a Dunboyne scholarship fund.
The land is donated by William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, who has argued in favour of Catholic emancipation in the Irish House of Lords. He lives nearby at Carton House and also at Leinster House. The building work is paid for by the British Government and parliament continues to give it an annual grant until the Irish Church Act 1869. When this law is passed the College receives a capital sum of £369,000. The trustees invest 75% of this in mortgages to Irish landowners at a yield of 4.25% or 4.75% per annum. This is considered a secure investment at the time but agitation for land reform and the depression of the 1870s erodes this security. The largest single mortgage is granted to the Earl of Granard. Accumulated losses on these transactions reached £35,000 by 1906.
The first building to go up on the site is designed by, and named after, John Stoyte. Stoyte House, which can still be seen from the entrance to the old campus, is a well-known building to Maynooth students and stands very close to the very historic Maynooth Castle. Over the next 15 years, the site at Maynooth undergoes rapid construction so as to cater to the influx of new students, and the buildings which now border St. Joseph’s Square are completed by 1824.
The Rev. Laurence F. Renehan (1797–1857), a noted antiquarian, church historian, and cleric, serves as president of St. Patrick’s from 1845 until 1857. Under Renehan, many of the college’s most important buildings are constructed by Augustus Pugin.
In 2015–16 there are approximately 80 men studying for the priesthood at Maynooth, 60 resident seminarians and approximately 20 non-residents.
Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to approve same-sex marriage by a popular vote on May 23, 2015, sweeping aside the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in a resounding victory for the gay rights movement and placing the country at the vanguard of social change.
With the final ballots counted, the vote is 62.1% in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, and 37.9% opposed. The turnout is large with more than 60% of the 3.2 million eligible voters casting ballots. Only one of the 43 districts, Roscommon-South Leitrim, votes the measure down.
With early vote counts suggesting a comfortable victory, crowds begin to fill the courtyard of Dublin Castle, a government complex that was once the center of British rule. By late morning, the leader of the opposition, David Quinn, director of the Iona Institute, concedes the outcome on Twitter: “Congratulations to the Yes side. Well done.”
Cheers break out among the crowd of supporters in the courtyard of Dublin Castle when Returning Officer Riona Ni Fhlanghaile announces in the evening that the ballot has passed.
In recent history a vote such as this would have been unthinkable. Ireland decriminalizes homosexuality only in 1993, the church dominates the education system, and abortion remains illegal except when a mother’s life is at risk. But the influence of the church has waned amid scandals in recent years, while attitudes, particularly among the young, have shifted.
“Today Ireland made history,” TaoiseachEnda Kenny says at a news conference, adding that “in the privacy of the ballot box, the people made a public statement.” He also adds, “This decision makes every citizen equal, and I believe it will strengthen the institution of marriage.”
Alex White, the government’s Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, says, “This didn’t change Ireland — it confirmed the change. We can no longer be regarded as the authoritarian state we once might have been perceived to be. This marks the true separation of church and state.”
Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Féin, says, “There are two Irelands, the elite Ireland and the hidden Ireland. And today the hidden Ireland spoke.”
Nick O’Connell, who is from a rural area in County Kilkenny, cradles a celebratory drink in a Dublin pub. He says he had been too afraid to come out as gay until his mid-20s. “Today I’m thinking of all those young people over the years who were bullied and committed suicide because of their sexuality. This vote was for them, too.” He adds, “This is different from other countries because it was the people who gave it to us, not a legislature.”
Raymond Peter McCreesh, the seventh in a family of eight children, is born in St. Malachy’s Park, Camlough, on February 25, 1957. He is born into a strong Irish republican family and is active in the republican movement from the age of sixteen. He attends the local primary school in Camlough, St. Malachy’s, and later attends St. Colman’s College, Newry.
McCreesh first joins Fianna Éireann, the IRA’s youth wing, in 1973, and later that year he progresses to join the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. He works for a short time as steelworker in a predominately Protestant factory in Lisburn. However, as sectarian threats and violence escalate, he switches professions to work as a milk roundsman in his local area of South Armagh, an occupation which greatly increases his knowledge of the surrounding countryside, as well as enables him to observe the movements of British Army patrols in the area.
On June 25, 1976, McCreesh and three other IRA volunteers attempt to ambush a British Army observation post in South Armagh. It lay opposite the Mountain House Inn, on the Newry–Newtonhamilton Road. As the armed, masked and uniformed IRA volunteers approached the observation post, they are spotted by British paratroopers on a hillside. The paratroopers open fire on the volunteers, who scatter. Two of them, McCreesh and Paddy Quinn, take cover in a nearby farmhouse. The paratroopers surround the house and fire a number of shots into the building. After some time, McCreesh and Quinn surrender and are taken to Bessbrook British Army base. Local Catholic priests facilitate their surrender. The third volunteer, Danny McGuinness, takes cover in a disused quarry outhouse but is captured the following day. The fourth member of the unit manages to escape despite being shot in the leg, arm and chest.
On March 2, 1977, McCreesh and Quinn are sentenced to fourteen years in prison for the attempted murder of British soldiers, possession of a rifle and ammunition, and an additional five years for IRA membership. The rifle that McCreesh has in his possession when captured is one of the rifles used in the Kingsmill massacre on January 5, 1976, when ten Protestant civilians are shot dead.
McCreesh is sent to the Maze Prison. He joins the blanket protest and takes part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. He dies on 21 May, after 61 days on hunger strike.
The Royal University of Ireland is founded by Royal Charter on April 27, 1880, in accordance with the University Education (Ireland) Act 1879 as an examining and degree-awarding university based on the model of the University of London. The first chancellor is the Irish chemist, Robert Kane.
The university becomes the first university in Ireland that can grant degrees to women on a par with those granted to men, granting its first degree to a woman on October 22, 1882. In 1888 Letitia Alice Walkington has the distinction of becoming the first woman in Great Britain or Ireland to receive a degree of Bachelor of Laws. Among the honorary degree recipients of the university is Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League and later President of Ireland, who is awarded a DLitt in 1906.
The Royal University of Ireland is the successor to the Queen’s University of Ireland, dissolved in 1882, and the graduates, professors, students and colleges of that predecessor are transferred to the new university. In addition to the Queen’s Colleges, Magee College, University College Dublin, Cecillia St. Medical School, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth and Blackrock College present students for examinations as well, and no special status is accorded to the colleges of the former Queen’s University. After the 1880 reforms Catholic Colleges such as St. Patrick’s, Carlow College, Holy Cross College and Blackrock College come under the Catholic University, and with a number of other seminaries present students for examination by the RUI.
External students not of approved colleges can sit examinations of the Royal University although they are seen as being at a disadvantage to those of designated colleges whose professors are part of the university. In fact, many schools, including convent schools prepare students for the examinations of the Royal University.
Like the Queen’s University, the Royal University is entitled to grant any degree, similar to that of any other university in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, except in theology. The colleges themselves award degrees in theology and divinity.
The professorships and Senate of the Royal University are shared equally between Roman Catholics and Protestants. However, colleges of the university maintain full independence except in the awarding of degrees, and the compilation and enforcement of academic regulations and standards.
Casey is educated in Limerick and in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. He is ordained a priest for the Diocese of Limerick on June 17, 1951, and appointed Bishop of Kerry on July 17, 1969. He holds this position until 1976, when he is appointed Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh and apostolic administrator of Kilfenora. While in Galway, he is seen as a progressive. It is a significant change in a diocese that has been led for nearly forty years by the very conservative Michael Browne.
Casey is well known for his work aiding Irish emigrants in Britain. In addition, he supports the Dunnes Stores‘ staff, who are locked out from 1982 to 1986 for refusing to sell goods from apartheidSouth Africa.
Casey attends the funeral of the murdered Archbishop of San Salvador, MonsignorÓscar Romero. He witnesses firsthand the massacre of those attending the funeral by government forces. He then becomes a vocal opponent of United States foreign policy in Central America, and, as a result, opposes the 1984 visit of United States President Ronald Reagan to Ireland, refusing to meet him when he comes to Galway.
Casey is highly influential in the Irish Catholic hierarchy and serves as bishop until his resignation in 1992. He is a friend and colleague of another highly prominent Irish priest, Father Michael Cleary.
In 1992, newspapers discover that Casey has had a sexual relationship with Annie Murphy, an American divorcée. Together they have a son, Peter, born in 1974 in Dublin. Murphy later claims that Casey had attempted to persuade her to give the child up for adoption at birth. She chooses not to do so and raises him with the help of her parents. When Murphy decides to go public about the relationship and informs The Irish Times, Casey tenders his resignation and leaves the country.
Casey’s resignation is regarded as a pivotal moment when the Roman Catholic hierarchy begins to lose its considerable influence over the society and politics of Ireland. He is succeeded by his Secretary, Bishop James McLoughlin, who serves in the post until his own retirement on July 3, 2005.
Casey opts to embrace the life of a foreign missionary in South America. He works with members of the Missionary Society of St. James in a rural parish in Ecuador, despite his lack of knowledge of the Spanish language. During this time, he travels long distances to reach the widely scattered members of his parish. After his missionary period is completed, instead of returning to Ireland, Casey takes a position in the parish of St. Pauls, Haywards Heath, in South East England. He returns to Ireland in 2006.
Casey suffers four mini strokes in 2002 and begins to experience memory issues. In August 2011, he is admitted to a nursing home in County Clare. Eamonn Casey dies on March 13, 2017, at the age of 89.
The second surviving son of Charles I, James ascends the throne upon the death of his brother, Charles II. There is little initial opposition to his accession, and there are widespread reports of public rejoicing at the orderly succession. The new Parliament that assembles in May 1685, which gains the name of “Loyal Parliament,” is initially favourable to James, and the new King sends word that even most of the former exclusionists will be forgiven if they acquiesce to his rule.
Members of Britain’s Protestant political elite increasingly suspect him of being pro-French and pro-Catholic and of having designs on becoming an absolute monarch. When he produces a Catholic heir, leading nobles call on his Protestant son-in-law and nephew William of Orange to land an invasion army from the Dutch Republic, which he does in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James flees England and thus is held to have abdicated. He is replaced by his eldest, Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange.
James is best known for his struggles with the English Parliament and his attempts to create religious liberty for English Roman Catholics and Protestant nonconformists, against the wishes of the Anglican establishment. This tension makes James’s four-year reign a struggle for supremacy between the English Parliament and the Crown, resulting in his deposition, the passage of the Bill of Rights, and the accession of his daughter and her husband as king and queen.
The American Civil War begins on April 12, 1861. There is perhaps no other ethnic group so closely identified with the Civil War years and the immediate aftermath of the war as Irish Americans.
Of those Irish who come over much later than the founding generations, fully 150,000 of them join the Union army. Unfortunately, statistics for the Confederacy are sketchy at best. Still, one has but to listen to the Southern accent and listen to the sorts of tunes Southern soldiers love to sing to realize that a great deal of the South is settled by Irish immigrants. But because the white population of the Confederate states is more native-born than immigrant during the Civil War years, there does not seem as much of a drive in the Southern army to recognize heritage in the names and uniforms of regiments as there is in the Union forces.
In the Union army there is the fabled Irish Brigade, likely the best known of any brigade organization, organized in 1861 and led by the flamboyant General Thomas Francis Meagher. They go into battle with an emerald green flag with a large golden harp in its center, celebrating their heritage even in the midst of death. The Irish Brigade makes an unusual reputation for dash and gallantry. It belongs to the First Division of the Second Corps and is numbered as the Second Brigade. The Irish Brigade loses over 4,000 men in killed and wounded during the war; more men than ever belong to the brigade at any given time. The Irish Brigade is commanded, in turn, by General Thomas Francis Meagher, Colonel Patrick Kelly (killed), General Thomas A. Smyth (killed), Colonel Richard Byrnes (killed), and General Robert Nugent.
In the North, centers of Irish settlement are Boston and New York, both of which have sizeable Irish neighborhoods. There are major immigration periods in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. The numbers steadily increase until, according to the 1860 census, well over one and a half million Americans claimed to have been born in Ireland. The majority of these live in the North. There are periods of severe economic difficulties both before and after the war when the immigrant Irish are singled out for the distrust and hatred of their fellow Americans. “No Irish Need Apply” is a frequently seen placard sign above the doors of factories, shops, warehouses, and farms.
The Irish are chiefly distrusted because they are Catholic, and there is much opposition in the United States to the Church of Rome. The frustration this prejudice causes leads indirectly to the boil-over of tempers in July 1863, when the first official draft is held. A mob of mostly immigrant laborers gather at the site of the draft lottery, and as names are called and those not wealthy enough to purchase a substitute are required to join up, the mob’s temper flares.
The situation escalates into full-scale rioting. For three days, cities like New York and Boston are caught up in a rampage of looting, burning, and destruction. Many of the rioters are frustrated Irish laborers who cannot get jobs, and their targets are draft officials, as well as free blacks living in the North, who seem able to get jobs that the Irish are denied. It takes the return of armed troops from the fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg to bring the cities back to peace and quiet.
Such events do little to help the image of the Irish in America, until many years after the war. Despite their wartime heroics, many Irish veterans come home to find the same ugly bias they faced before going off to fight for the Union. Many of them choose to go into the post war army.
Still others follow Thomas Meagher into Canada, where they join up in an attempt to free Canada from British domination. Many simply choose to remain in the Eastern cities, hoping matters will improve as time goes by. Eventually things do get better for the Irish, but it is many long years before ugly anti-Irish prejudice fades.
Kerr is Roman Catholic, a group which at the time constitutes approximately 30% of PSNI officers, and is 25 years old at the time of his death. He is a member of a Gaelic Athletic Association club, the Beragh Red Knights. The guard of honour at Kerr’s funeral is formed of club members and PSNI officers, a funeral also attended by the leaders of Ireland’s four main churches.
Kerr’s murder is condemned by almost all sections of Northern Irish politics and society as well as bringing international condemnation. On April 6, a Peace Rally is organised in Belfast by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which is reported to be attended by up to 7,000 persons. Similar events are held in Omagh, Enniskillen, and London.
BBC Ireland correspondent Mark Simpson comments, in relation to the unified response of the community, “A murder designed to divide people has actually brought them closer together.” Graffiti praising the murder is daubed on walls in predominantly republican areas of Derry.
On July 26, 2011 five men are arrested in connection with the investigation. They are later released. On November 26, 2012, investigating detectives announce the arrest of a 22-year-old man in Milton Keynes. On November 27, a 39-year-old man in County Tyrone is arrested and questioned. However, as of 2017 no persons have been charged with Constable Kerr’s murder.
Ring establishes many championship records, including career appearances (65), scoring tally (33-208), and number of All-Ireland medals won (8), however, these records are subsequently bested by Brendan Cummins, Eddie Keher, and Henry Shefflin respectively. Ring is widely regarded as one of the greatest hurlers in the history of the game, with many former players, commentators, and fans rating him as the number one player of all time.
Born near Cloyne, County Cork, Ring first excels at hurling following encouragement from his local national schoolteachers Michael O’Brien and Jerry Moynihan. He first appears on the Cloyne GAA minor team at the age of twelve before later winning a county minor championship medal with the nearby St. Enda’s team. A Cork Junior Hurling Championship medal with Cloyne follows, however, a dispute with club officials sees Ring join Glen Rovers GAA in Blackpool in 1941. Over the next twenty-six years with the club, Ring wins one Munster Senior Club Hurling Championship medal and fourteen county senior championship medals. As a Gaelic footballer with the Glen’s sister club, St. Nicholas’ GAA, he also wins a county senior championship medal. He retires from club hurling at the age of forty-six following a victory over University College Cork GAA in the 1967 championship quarter final. Over the course of his senior championship career Ring estimates that he played in 1,200 games.
Ring makes his debut on the inter-county scene at the age of sixteen when he is picked on the Cork minor panel for the All-Ireland final. In spite of victory, he is denied an All-Ireland Minor Hurling Championship medal as he is Cork’s last non-playing substitute. Still eligible for the grade in 1938, Ring collects a set of All-Ireland and Munster Minor Hurling Championship medals as a member of the starting fifteen. An unsuccessful year with the Cork junior hurlers follows before he makes his senior debut during the 1939-40 league. Over the course of the next quarter century, Ring wins eight All-Ireland medals, including a record four consecutive championships from 1941 to 1944, a lone triumph in 1946 and three additional consecutive championships from 1952 to 1954. The only player to lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup three times as captain, he is denied a record-breaking ninth All-Ireland medal in 1956, his last All-Ireland final appearance. Ring also wins nine Munster medals, four National Hurling League medals, and is named Hurler of the Year at the age of thirty-eight. He plays his last game for Cork in June 1963. After indicating his willingness to line out for the team once again in 1964, Ring fails to be selected for the Cork team, a move which effectively brings his inter-county career to an end.
After being chosen as a substitute on the Munster GAA inter-provincial team in 1941, Ring is an automatic choice on the starting fifteen for the following twenty-two years. He scores 42-105 as he wins a record eighteen Railway Cup medals during that period, in an era when his skill and prowess draw crowds of up to 50,000 to Croke Park for the annual final on Saint Patrick’s Day. Ring’s retirement from the game is often cited as a contributory factor in the decline of the once prestigious championship.
In retirement from playing Ring becomes involved in team management and coaching. As a mentor to the St. Finbarr’s College senior team, he guides them to their first two All-Ireland and Harty Cup triumphs in 1963 and 1969. At club level Ring is instrumental as a selector with Glen Rovers when they claim their inaugural All-Ireland title in 1973, having earlier annexed the Munster and county senior championship titles. It is with the Cork senior team that he enjoys his greatest successes as a selector. After an unsuccessful campaign in his first season on the selection panel in 1973, Ring is dropped the following year before being reinstated in 1975. Over the next three years Cork claims three successive All-Ireland titles.
Ring is most famous for his scoring prowess, physical strength, and career longevity. He remains the only player to have competed at inter-county level in four different decades. Often the target of public attention for his hurling exploits, in private Ring is a shy and reserved individual. A teetotaller and non-smoker throughout his life, he is also a devout Roman Catholic.
On Friday, March 2, 1979, Ring has a scheduled appointment with his doctor and former teammate Dr. Jim Young in Cork city centre. As he is walking past the Cork College of Commerce on Morrisson’s Island at 3:30 PM he suffers a massive heart attack and collapses. He is taken by ambulance to the South Infirmary Hospital but is pronounced dead on arrival.
seamus dubhghaill 