seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

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Birth of Cara Dillon, Irish Folk Singer

Cara Elizabeth Dillon, Irish folk singer, is born in Dungiven, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland on July 21, 1975.

Dillon comes from an area steeped in Irish traditional music. Since she was a schoolgirl she has sung and performed. She learns local folk songs from teachers and workshops held in the town. She can also play the fiddle and whistles. At the age of 14 she wins the All-Ireland Singing Trophy at Fleadh Cheoil.

In 1991 Dillon forms a band called Óige (an Irish word meaning ‘youth’) with school friends Murrough and Ruadhrai O’Kane, bringing her take on Irish traditional songs to Ireland, Scotland and further afield. During this time she also performs with big names such as De Dannan and Phil Coulter. Óige records two albums with Dillon, a studio and a live album. Inspiration is recorded in 1992 to sell at concerts in Europe. The live album, simply called Live, is recorded at a concert in Glasgow on August 15, 1993.

Dillon leaves Óige in 1995 and joins the folk supergroup Equation, replacing Kate Rusby, and signs a record deal with Warner Music Group. She leaves Equation with original band member Sam Lakeman because of musical differences and together they immediately signed a separate deal with the same label as a duo named Polar Star. In 2001, she releases her first solo album, Cara Dillon, which features traditional songs and two original Dillon/Lakeman compositions. The album is an unexpected hit in the folk world, with Dillon receiving four nominations at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Lakeman and Dillon marry in December 2002.

Dillon’s second album, Sweet Liberty (2003), enters the Irish Albums Chart and UK Independent Albums Chart. In 2004, she receives the Meteor Irish Music Award for Best Irish Female. Her third album, After the Morning, is released in 2006. The album’s opening track “Never in a Million Years” gains BBC Radio 2 airplay, while other tracks feature the Czech Philharmonic orchestra and Paul Brady. Also in 2006, she sings at the opening of the Ryder Cup in Ireland.

In 2009, Dillon releases her fourth album, the award-winning Hill of Thieves. The record marks a return to Dillon’s traditional roots with a purer production and arrangement style. The titular track “Hill of Thieves,” a Dillon\Lakeman original, is voted by BBC listeners as one of the “Top 10” original songs to have come out of Northern Ireland. In 2012, she performs two concerts with the Ulster Orchestra.

Dillon’s fifth solo album, A Thousand Hearts, is released in 2014. Prior to the album’s release, she discovers that her music enjoys a dedicated following in China, where her first album is featured in English curriculums. She has since embarked on several popular Chinese tours. As of 2017, she continues to tour regularly and work with her husband, who backs her on piano and guitar. Her most recent release is the album, Wanderer (2017).

Dillon is the sister of fellow folk singer Mary Dillon, formerly of Déanta. Dillon and Lakeman live in Frome, Somerset, England with their three children, twin sons born in 2006 and a daughter born in 2010.


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Birth of Sean Scully, Painter, Printmaker, Sculptor & Photographer

Sean Scully, Irish-born American-based artist working as a painter, printmaker, sculptor and photographer, is born in Dublin on June 30, 1945. His work is held in museum collections worldwide and he has twice been named a Turner Prize nominee.

Four years after his birth, Scully’s family moves to London where they live in a working-class part of South London, moving from lodging to lodging for a number of years. By the age of 9, he knows he wants to become an artist. From the age of 15 until he is 17, he is apprenticed at a commercial printing shop in London as a typesetter, an experience that greatly influences his future artwork.

Scully studies at Croydon School of Art between 1965-67 and at Newcastle University between 1967-71. He is awarded the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship in 1972 to attend Harvard University. It is during this first stay in the United States that he begins to experiment with new techniques such as tape and spray paint. In 1975 he is awarded a Harkness Fellowship and establishes a studio in New York, where he settles, becoming an American citizen in 1983.

Over the years, Scully develops and refines his own recognisable style of geometric abstraction and most notably his characteristic motif of the ‘stripe.’ Although he is predominately known for his monumental paintings, he is also a gifted printmaker who has made a notable body of woodcuts and etchings.

Scully has his first solo exhibition at the Rowan Gallery, London in 1973. He has his first retrospective at the Ikon Gallery in Brindleyplace, Birmingham, in 1981, which travels throughout the United Kingdom. In 1989 his first solo exhibition in a European museum travels from the Whitechapel Gallery in London to Palacio Velázquez in Madrid and Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich. He has further solo exhibitions at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen in Düsseldorf (2001) which travels to Haus der Kunst in Munich and the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern in Valencia; The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. (2005) travels to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas, the Cincinnati Art Museum in Ohio and finally the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. A major retrospective tours multiple venues in China between 2015 and 2017.

Scully’s paintings and prints are held in the collections of Tate in London, the Albertina in Vienna, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Instituto Valencia d’Arte Modern in Valencia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas, Guangzhou Museum of Art in Guangzhou, China, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China.

Scully has held teaching positions at Chelsea College of Arts and Goldsmith’s College of Art and Design, both in London, Princeton University in New Jersey, Parsons School of Design in New York, and most recently at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. He is shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1989 and in 1993, and is elected a Royal Academician in 2013. He participates for the first time at the Venice Biennale in 2014.

Sean Scully lives and works in New York and in Bavaria, Germany.


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Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Steps Down

Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, unexpectedly announces on March 19, 2001 that she will not seek a second term in the post. The former President of Ireland says that she believes she can achieve more outside the “constraints” of the UN.

Robinson describes the resources available to her office as inadequate and says there was a striking contrast between the fine words used at the annual United Nations Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva and the realities on the ground.

Robinson’s announcement comes as a surprise to senior staff and diplomats who had believed she might follow the example of other UN chiefs and seek a second term. Only the second person to serve in the post, she is scheduled to step down in September at the conclusion of her four-year term.

“I will continue to work wholeheartedly for human rights in the way that I know best, as an advocate,” Robinson says. “I believe that I can, at this stage, achieve more outside of the constraints that a multilateral organisation inevitably imposes.”

Robinson tells the 53-member nation commission at the start of its six-week session, “I know some will feel that I should have sought to continue working from within the United Nations and I ask them to respect my decision.”

“Racism and xenophobia, manifesting themselves through discrimination and all forms of intolerance, are the wellspring of many of the world’s conflicts,” Robinson says in her address to the commission.

The 2001 forum in Geneva focuses on alleged human rights abuses in hotspots including China, the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Robinson has been a high-profile and outspoken UN commissioner, on occasion angering governments with criticism of their human rights record. She says Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, had advised her to “stay an outsider” while working within the organisation in as far as she could. And this, she says, had at times made her “an awkward voice,” both for colleagues in the UN and governments. “I make no apology for this,” she adds.

Robinson’s mandate expires after the World Conference against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 7, 2001.

(From: “Sideswipe as UN envoy steps down,” BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk), March 19, 2001)


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Birth of James Patrick Mahon, Journalist, Barrister & Parliamentarian

Charles James Patrick Mahon, Irish nationalist journalist, barrister, parliamentarian and international mercenary, is born into a prominent Roman Catholic family in Ennis, County Clare, on March 17, 1800.

Mahon, the eldest of four children, is the son of Patrick Mahon of New Park, who took part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and Barbara, a considerable heiress and the only daughter of James O’Gorman of Ennis. He studies at Clongowes Wood College, where he is one of the earliest pupils, and at Trinity College Dublin, where he takes his BA in 1822 and his MA in law in 1832. Following his father’s death in 1821, he inherits half the family property and becomes a magistrate for Clare.

In 1830, Mahon marries Christina, the daughter of John O’Brien of Dublin. She is an heiress and has property valued at £60,000 in her own right, which gives him the resources to seek election to parliament. The couple spends little time together, and she dies apart from him in Paris in 1877. They have one son who dies in 1883.

In 1826, Mahon joins the newly formed Catholic Association. He encourages fellow member Daniel O’Connell to stand for election at the 1828 Clare by-election. O’Connell’s election, in which Mahon plays a large role, persuades the British Government to pass the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, which finalises the process of Catholic Emancipation and permitted Roman Catholics to sit in the British Parliament.

As a result, when Mahon is elected for Clare at the 1830 United Kingdom general election, he is entitled to take his seat. However, during the election campaign he quarrels with O’Connell, and after his election he is unseated for bribery. He is subsequently acquitted, and stands again at the 1831 United Kingdom general election, but is defeated by two O’Connell-backed candidates, one of whom is his old schoolfriend Maurice O’Connell, Daniel O’Connell’s son. He gives up on politics, becomes deputy lieutenant of Clare, and captain of the local militia.

Mahon becomes a barrister in 1834, but the following year, he leaves for Paris. There he associates with Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, becoming a favourite at Louis Philippe‘s court and working as a journalist. He travels the world, spending time in both Africa, where he befriends Ferdinand de Lesseps, engineer of the Suez Canal, and South America, before returning to Ireland in 1846.

At the 1847 United Kingdom general election, Mahon is elected for Ennis, and declares himself a Whig in favour of Irish Repeal. However, he opposes the Young Irelanders, and narrowly loses his seat at the 1852 United Kingdom general election.

Following his defeat in the 1852 election, Mahon returns to Paris, then travels on to Saint Petersburg, where he serves in the Imperial Bodyguard. During this period, he journeys through lands from Finland to Siberia. He then travels across China, India and Arabia. His finances largely exhausted, he serves as a mercenary in the Ottoman and Austrian armies before returning to England in 1858. Late that year, he leaves for South America, where he attempts to finance the construction of a canal through Central America.

After exploits abroad Mahon returns to Ireland in 1871 and is a founding member of the Home Rule League. Nearly ruined by his ventures, he even ends up at the Old Bailey as a consequence of his dealings, but is acquitted. He is defeated in Ennis at the 1874 United Kingdom general election, and also at the 1877 Clare by-election. Finally, he wins the 1879 Clare by-election and holds the seat at the 1880 United Kingdom general election.

Mahon is a close associate of Charles Stewart Parnell, who he successfully nominates for the leadership of the League in 1880, but is dropped in 1885 as a party candidate because of his age and his tendency to vote with the Liberal Party in Parliament. He is also embroiled in a court case disputing the will of his son.

Parnell personally ensures Mahon is a candidate at the 1887 County Carlow by-election, which he wins at the age of 87 as a Liberal. By this point, he is the oldest MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. He dies at his home in South Kensington, London on June 15, 1891 while still in office.

Mahon had served alongside William O’Shea as an MP, and the two were close friends. He introduced him and Katharine O’Shea, his wife, to Parnell. After Parnell is named in the O’Sheas’ divorce case in 1890, Mahon splits with Parnell, siding with the Irish National Federation. However, Parnell attends Mahon’s funeral in Glasnevin Cemetery a few months later.

(Pictured: Caricature of James Patrick Mahon by Sir Leslie Matthew Ward under the pseudonym “Spy” published in Vanity Fair in 1885)


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Mary Robinson Inaugurated 7th President of Ireland

Mary Robinson, Irish lawyer, independent politician, and diplomat born Mary Teresa Winifred Bourke, is inaugurated as the seventh President of Ireland on December 3, 1990, becoming the first woman to hold the office. She later serves as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) from September 1997 – September 2002.

Robinson is born on May 21, 1944 in Ballina, County Mayo. She is educated at Trinity College and the King’s Inns in Dublin and at Harvard Law School in the United States. She serves at Trinity College (University of Dublin) as Reid Professor of penal legislation, constitutional and criminal law, and the law of evidence (1969–1975) and lecturer in European Community law (1975–1990). In 1988 she and her husband establish the Irish Centre for European Law at Trinity College.

A distinguished constitutional lawyer and a renowned supporter of human rights, Robinson is elected to the Royal Irish Academy and is a member of the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva (1987–1990). She sits in Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas, for the University of Dublin constituency (1969–1989) and serves as whip for the Labour Party until resigning from the party over the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, which she feels ignores unionist objections. She is also a member of the Dublin City Council (1979–1983) and runs unsuccessfully in 1977 and 1981 for Dublin parliamentary constituencies.

Nominated by the Labour Party and supported by the Green Party and the Workers’ Party, Robinson becomes Ireland’s first woman president in 1990 by mobilizing a liberal constituency and merging it with a more conservative constituency opposed to the Fianna Fáil party. As president, she adopts a much more prominent role than her predecessors and she does much to communicate a more modern image of Ireland. Strongly committed to human rights, she is the first head of state to visit Somalia after it suffers from civil war and famine in 1992 and the first to visit Rwanda after the genocide in that country in 1994.

Shortly before her term as president expires, Robinson accepts the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR). As high commissioner, she changes the priorities of her office to emphasize the promotion of human rights at the national and regional levels. She was the first UNHCHR to visit China, and she also helps to improve the monitoring of human rights in Kosovo. In 2001 she serves as secretary-general of the World Conference against Racism held in Durban, South Africa. In 1998 she is elected chancellor of Trinity College, a post she holds until 2019.

After stepping down as UNHCHR, Robinson founds the nongovernmental organization Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative (2002–2010). Its central concerns include equitable international trade, access to health care, migration, women’s leadership and corporate responsibility. She is also a founding member of the Council of Women World Leaders, serves as honorary president of Oxfam International, a private organization that provides relief and development aid to impoverished or disaster-stricken communities worldwide, and is a member of the Club of Madrid, which promotes democracy. She also holds various posts at the United Nations and, in 2010, she establishes the Mary Robinson Foundation—Climate Justice, which operates until 2019.

Robinson is the recipient of numerous honours. In 2004 Amnesty International awards her its Ambassador of Conscience Award for her human rights work. In 2009 she receives the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Her memoir, Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice (cowritten with Tessa Robinson), is published in 2012.

(Pictured: Mary Robinson during her inauguration as president in 1990, photograph by Matt Kavanagh)


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Birth of Actor Colin Farrell

colin-farrellIrish actor Colin James Farrell is born on May 31, 1976 in Castleknock, Dublin.

Farrell is educated at St. Brigid’s National School, followed by secondary school at Castleknock College, an exclusive all boys private school and then Gormanston College in County Meath. He unsuccessfully auditions for the Irish musical group Boyzone around this time.

Farrell is inspired to try acting when Henry Thomas‘ performance in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial moves him to tears. With his brother’s encouragement, he attends the Gaiety School of Acting, dropping out in 1998 when he is cast as Danny Byrne on Ballykissangel, a BBC drama about a young English priest who becomes part of an Irish rural community.

Farrell makes his film debut in the Tim Roth-directed drama The War Zone in 1999, and is discovered by Hollywood when Joel Schumacher casts him as the lead in the war drama Tigerland in 2000. He then stars in Schumacher’s psychological thriller Phone Booth (2003) where he plays a hostage in a New York City phone booth, and the American thrillers S.W.A.T. (2003) and The Recruit (2003), establishing his international box-office appeal. During this time, he also appears in Steven Spielberg‘s science fiction thriller Minority Report (2002) and as the villain Bullseye in the superhero film Daredevil (2003).

After starring in the independent films Intermission (2003) and A Home at the End of the World (2004), Farrell heads Oliver Stone‘s biopic Alexander (2004) and Terrence Malick‘s The New World (2005). Roles in Michael Mann‘s Miami Vice (2006), the adaptation of John Fante‘s Ask the Dust (2006), and Woody Allen‘s Cassandra’s Dream (2007) follow, underscoring his popularity among Hollywood writers and directors. However, it is his role in Martin McDonagh‘s In Bruges (2008) that earns him a Hollywood Foreign Press Association Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Farrell stars in the black comedy film Horrible Bosses (2011), for which he receives critical praise, along with the comedy-horror film Fright Night (2011) and the science fiction action film Total Recall (2012), both remakes, and McDonagh’s second feature, the black comedy crime film Seven Psychopaths (2012). He also stars in the Niels Arden Oplev action film Dead Man Down (2013), and as Travers Goff in the period drama Saving Mr. Banks (2013). In 2014, he stars as Peter Lake in the supernatural fable Winter’s Tale, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Mark Helprin. In 2015, he stars as Detective Ray Velcoro in the second season of HBO‘s True Detective, and also stars in the film The Lobster, for which he is nominated for his second Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 2016, he plays Percival Graves in the Harry Potter spin-off film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

In December 2005, Farrell checks into a rehabilitation treatment centre for addictions to recreational drugs and painkillers. He speaks about it on the Late Show with David Letterman after coming out of rehab and continues to do so in the years following. “There was an energy that was created,” he says of the time when he was addicted, “a character that was created, that no doubt benefited me. And then there was a stage where it all began to crumble around me.”

In 2007, Farrell joins other celebrities as a spokesman for the Special Olympics World Games in Shanghai, China. He has also lent his support to the anti-bullying campaign Stand Up! organised by the Irish LGBT youth organisation BeLonG To in March 2012. He appears on The Ellen DeGeneres Show two years earlier to increase awareness of the subject. In 2015 he becomes an official Ambassador of the Homeless World Cup which uses street football to inspire homeless people to change their lives.


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OHCHR Mary Robinson Criticises U.S. for Violating Human Rights

mary-robinsonOn August 30, 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, criticises the United States for violating human rights in its war on terrorism and of trying to scale back plans to save the world’s poorest people.

Robinson becomes the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on September 12, 1997, following her nomination to the post by Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan and the endorsement of the General Assembly.

She assumes responsibility for the UN human rights programme at the time when the Office of the High Commissioner and the Centre for Human Rights are consolidated into a single Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

As High Commissioner, Robinson gives priority to implementing the Secretary-General’s reform proposal to integrate human rights into all the activities of the United Nations. During her first year as High Commissioner, she travels to Rwanda, South Africa, Colombia and Cambodia, among other countries. In September 1998, she becomes the first High Commissioner to visit China and signs an agreement with the Government for OHCHR to undertake a wide-ranging technical-cooperation programme to improve human rights in that country. She also strengthens human rights monitoring in such conflict areas as Kosovo in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Her term of office expires in 2002 after sustained pressure from the United States leads her to declare she is no longer able to continue her work.

Robinson comes to the United Nations after a distinguished, seven-year tenure as President of Ireland. She is the first Head of State to visit Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide there. She is also the first Head of State to visit Somalia following the crisis there in 1992, and receives the CARE Humanitarian Award in recognition of her efforts for that country.

Before she is elected President of Ireland in 1990, Robinson serves as Senator for 20 years. Born on May 21, 1944 in Ballina, County Mayo, she is called to the bar in 1967 and two years later becomes the youngest Reid Professor of Constitutional Law at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1973, she becomes a member of the English Bar (Middle Temple). She becomes a Senior Counsel in 1980, and serves as a member of the Advisory Commission of Inter-Rights (1984-1990) and as a member of the International Commission of Jurists (1987-1990).

Educated at Trinity College, Robinson holds law degrees from the King’s Inns in Dublin and from Harvard University. She has been awarded numerous honorary degrees, medals and prizes from universities and humanitarian organizations around the world. In July 2009, she is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour awarded by the United States, by U.S. President Barack Obama.


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Frederick A. Sterling’s Ambassadorship to Ireland Ends

frederick-a-sterlingFrederick Augustine Sterling, United States diplomat and first U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, completes his mission in Ireland on March 7, 1934. He later serves as U.S. minister to Bulgaria and Sweden.

Sterling is born in St. Louis, Missouri on August 13, 1876 and is an 1898 graduate of Harvard University. After working on a ranch in Texas and manufacturing woolen goods, he becomes a career Foreign Service Officer in 1911. Assignments include work in Peru, China, Russia, and England.

On July 27, 1927, Sterling is the first person appointed U.S. minister to the Irish Free State. After confirmation by the United States Senate, and presentation of his credentials to Irish leaders W. T. Cosgrave and Timothy Healy in July, he holds the formal title of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.

Sterling’s post in Ireland ends on March 7, 1934, when he becomes U.S. minister to Bulgaria, a position he remains in until 1936. In 1937, he is appointed to minister roles for both Latvia and Estonia, however he does not accept the post. In 1938, he becomes U.S. minister to Sweden and remains in that role until 1941.

For years Sterling owns a summer house in Newport, Rhode Island, which he shares with his wife, two sons and one daughter. He dies in Washington, D.C., on August 21, 1957, and is buried in Falls Church, Virginia.


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Birth of Brigadier General James Lawlor Kiernan

James Lawlor Kiernan, Irish-born Brigadier General in the American Civil War, is born in Mountbellew, County Galway, on October 26, 1837.

Kiernan’s father is a retired British navy surgeon. Kiernan attends Trinity College, Dublin, before emigrating to the United States around 1854. He studies medicine at New York University and practices law in New York until 1861. Upon the outbreak of American Civil War in 1861 he joins the 69th New York State Infantry Regiment as Assistant Surgeon and serves as such through the First Battle of Bull Run. When the 69th returns to Manhattan, he moves west and becomes the surgeon of the 6th Missouri Volunteer Infantry.

After the Battle of Pea Ridge, Kiernan insists on joining the fighting ranks, and in that capacity is seemingly appointed a Major in the 6th Missouri Volunteer Infantry. In May 1863 at Port Gibson, Mississippi, he is wounded in the left lung and left on the battlefield for dead. Recovered and imprisoned, he effects an escape back to Union forces and resigns his commission. On August 1, 1863 he is commissioned a Brigadier General of the United States Volunteers by President Abraham Lincoln, commanding a post at Miliken’s Bend on the Mississippi River. However, ill-health as a result of his battlefield wounds force him to resign on February 3, 1864.

In May 1865 Kiernan gains a U.S. consular post at Chinkiang, China. He manages to make the trip there but his health does not allow him to perform the duties. He returns to New York where he becomes an examining physician for the Bureau of Pensions, a position he holds until his death.

James Lawlor Kiernan dies on November 26, 1869. The official cause of death is “congestion of the lungs.” Perhaps he is killed by that Confederate ball that wounded him six years earlier. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.