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Tag Archives: Clann na Poblachta


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Birth of Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, Political Activist & Publisher

Gearóid Seán Caoimhín Ó Cuinneagáin, political activist and publisher, is born John Gerald Cunningham in Belfast on January 2, 1910.

Ó Cuinneagáin Is the third child of Sean Cunningham and his wife Caitlín. He is educated in Belfast, at St. Brigid’s school, Malone Road, and the St. Patrick’s Christian Brothers school on Donegall Street. His political views are permanently influenced by memories of the sectarian violence of 1920–22. In 1927, he enters the Irish civil service as a tax clerk, stationed first at Athlone and then at Castlebar. He is promoted to junior executive officer in the Department of Defence, but resigns in July 1932 after his superiors refuse to allow him six months unpaid leave to study the Irish language in the Donegal Gaeltacht. He turns down a promotion to the Department of Finance, a decision partly motivated by disillusion with Fianna Fáil. He subsequently works as an accountant and lives in the south Dublin suburbs. In 1934, he establishes his own publishing company, Nuachtáin Teoranta, which he boasts is the first company to be registered in the Irish language, and he also contributes to an Irish language socialist paper, An t-Éireannach, under the pen name “Bruinneal gan Smal.”

In 1940–41, Ó Cuinneagáin is active in the Friends of Germany, a pro-Nazi organisation which disintegrates after some of its leading members are interned. On September 26, 1940, he founds Craobh na h-Aiséirighe, a branch of the Gaelic League aimed at attracting dynamic young enthusiasts frustrated by the older activists who dominate established branches. It makes a point of using modern publicity methods to get its message across, a trait which is carried over into Ailtirí na hAiséirghe (Architects of Resurrection), a political movement made up of branch members, which Ó Cuinneagáin founds in 1942. This move leads to the expulsion of Craobh na h-Aiséirighe from the Gaelic League and the establishment of Glún na Buaidhe by branch members who disapprove of his political ambitions and wish to concentrate on the promotion of the Irish language.

Members of Ailtirí wear an informal uniform of a green shirt, tweed suit, and báinín jacket. In private Ó Cuinneagáin reveals that the organisation is modeled on the Hitler Youth. His own title of “ceannaire” (leader) equates with “Führer” and “duce.” Features of the movement copied from Nazism include an emphasis on propaganda based on a few simple concepts and phrases. The claim that party politics allow statesmen to evade individual responsibility, whereas a single leader is necessarily more responsive to public opinion; and the belief that all difficulties can be overcome through willpower.

Ó Cuinneagáin takes to extremes contemporary Catholic advocacy of a corporate state based on vocational principles as the solution to the problems of modernity. While venerating António de Oliveira Salazar‘s Portugal as a role model, he believes that Ireland can surpass it and create a Catholic social model that will redeem the whole world. He takes a quasi-racial view of Irishness and comes close to saying that the only true Irish Catholics are of Gaelic race. When Seán Ó’Faoláin comments acidly in The Bell on the paradox of “Celtophiles” who bear such Celtic names as Blackham and Cunningham, Ó Cuinneagáin protests that he can prove his pure Gaelic descent. The Ailtirí state forces all male citizens to undertake a year’s compulsory military service, which is also used as a means of Gaelicisation, and the resulting citizen army of 250,000 would mount a lightning invasion of Northern Ireland, modeled on the blitzkrieg, with a favourite slogan being “Six Counties, Six Divisions, Sixty Minutes.” In 1943, the Stormont government excludes Ó Cuinneagáin from Northern Ireland.

Ailtirí attracts considerable attention. Its leaders address numerous meetings around the country, attracting large crowds to demonstrations at Dublin and Cork. Ó Cuinneagáin, who is by no means unintelligent, is capable of shrewd observations on the restrictions imposed on most Irish-language bodies by government subsidies, and the impact of the snobbery shown toward the poor by their middle class co-religionists. Several of his lieutenants are academics or engineers. In the 1970s he praises modernist architecture as breaking with the hated Georgian past, and denounces conservationists who oppose plans to build an oil refinery in Dublin Bay. Bilingual pamphlets produced by the group sell thousands of copies. Ó Cuinneagáin is the author of several, including Ireland’s twentieth century destiny (1942), Aiséirí says . . .(1943), Partition: a positive policy (1945), and Aiséirí for the worker (1947). Hus attempts to launch a party paper are stifled until the end of the war. Some of the interest attracted by the group is derived from curiosity or amusement. It also functions to some extent as a front organisation for the banned Irish Republican Army (IRA), with Ó Cuinneagáin declaring that Jews and freemasons should be locked up instead of IRA men. Aiséirí members are involved in the bombing of the Gough memorial in Phoenix Park in July 1957, with the stolen head concealed for a time in the party’s offices.

The party runs four candidates, including Ó Cuinneagáin in Dublin North-West, in the 1943 Irish general election and seven in 1944, but all lose their deposits. Ó Cuinneagáin does not actually vote for himself. Throughout his life he demands Irish language ballot papers. When given English language ones he tears them up, claiming that they disenfranchise him and that this invalidates the election. In 1946, Ailtirí na h-Aiséirí elects eight members to local bodies in counties Louth and Cork. This helps to bring about the decline of the party, as the Cork activists rebell against the rigid Führerprinzip upheld by the electorally unsuccessful ceannaire and his Dublin acolytes. Most of the party’s local support is absorbed by Clann na Poblachta. Ó Cuinneagáin retains a small group of followers centred on his newspaper Aiséirighe.

Ó Cuinneagáin keeps himself in the public gaze by driving around the country in a van painted with slogans, and by regularly appearing in court for refusing to respond to official documents (rates demands, car insurance, court summonses) unless they are supplied in Irish. He enjoys some success in securing the provision of Irish language versions of such documents, and he contrasts the state’s niggardliness on this point with its professed commitment to the revival of Irish. In 1954, he founds an Irish language women’s artistic and social paper, Deirdre, which operates successfully for over a decade without government subsidy.

Ó Cuinneagáin continues to write sympathetically about IRA activities, at one point offering a £1,000 reward for the capture of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Basil Brooke. He maintains surprisingly extensive international neo-fascist contacts. He regularly reprints in Aiséirighe material by the American antisemite and racial segregationist Gerald L. K. Smith. He cites praise for Aiséirighe from Der Stahlhelm, a far-right German veterans’ paper, and notes Oswald Mosley‘s support for Irish reunification. He denounces Hugh Trevor-Roper‘s Last days of Hitler as typical British slander of a fallen enemy. He compares the sacrificial ideology of the Hungarian Nazi collaborator Ferenc Szálasi to that of Patrick Pearse. He praises Juan Perón as a model whom Ireland should imitate and he follows the electoral fortunes of Italian neo-fascism with interest. He also maintains contacts with the radical right-wing fringes of Breton, Scottish, and Welsh nationalism. He declares that Ireland’s grievance is against England alone and bemoans the Dublin government’s failure to encourage the break-up of the United Kingdom.

Ó Cuinneagáin denounces the Soviet Union and United States alike as controlled by Zionists and freemasons. He points to illegitimacy and divorce rates in the United States as proof of the folly of those who regard “progressive” American education as superior to the sound Irish teaching methods embodied by the Christian Brothers, and bemoans the increasing flow of “immoral” American comics and paperback books into Ireland. While noting with pride that he has been described as “Ireland’s foremost Jew-baiter,” He claims that his frequent diatribes against Robert Briscoe and the state of Israel are merely anti-Zionist, and that he has nothing against Jews, whom he defines as ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists. He hopes that a Europe united on national–Christian principles might fend off the influence of the super powers. He echoes Mosleyite calls for European unity and is an early and determined advocate of Irish membership of the European Community. However, he dissents from the Mosleyite view that such a union should be based on African empire. He is generally anti-imperialist, though somewhat more lenient toward Portuguese than British imperialism, and from 1956 the President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, becomes one of his heroes. While supporting European unity as a defensive strategy, he also warns that unless Ireland adopts mass conscription the country might be conquered by a regiment of Russian paratroopers landing on Dollymount Strand. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he regularly calls for the Irish Army to mount a military coup, hinting that it should install him as leader in the same way that the Portuguese army had installed Salazar.

Ó Cuinneagáin gives up contesting elections but regularly cites those who do not vote in elections as indicating the extent of political support for Ailtirí na hAiséirghe. He regularly laments that the safety valve of emigration had taken the steam out of radical politics. In his later years he notes the growth of anti-clericalism and the beginnings of a permissive society in Dublin. He attributes this to the church’s failure to implement its own social teaching and its encouragement of West British snobbery at the expense of the truly Catholic traditions of the Gael.

On April 4, 1945, Ó Cuinneagáin marries Sile Ní Chochláin. They have four sons and two daughters, some of whom become active in left-wing politics. He dies on June 13, 1991. He tends to be remembered as a figure of fun, but this view demands some qualification. He possesses genuine abilities and dedication. His fantasies are an extreme development of the official ideology of the state, and part of his appeal stems from his ability to point out the hypocrisy involved in paying it lip service while failing to push it to its logical conclusion. The blindness and cruelty involved in imposing his world view at a personal level has their counterparts in the institutions of official Ireland. Ailtirí na hAiséirghe may have been a marginal millennial cult, but in Europe during the 1940s such groups were often raised to power by circumstances. Had the World War II taken a different direction after 1940, he might be remembered not as a parody of Pearse but as an Irish Szálasi.

(From: “Ó Cuinneagáin, Gearóid Seán Caoimhín” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.e, October 2009)


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Death of Josephine McNeill, First Irish Female Diplomat

Josephine McNeill, Irish diplomat, dies in Dublin on November 19, 1969. She is the first Irish female diplomat appointed to represent Ireland abroad in a ministerial capacity.

McNeill is born Josephine Ahearne on March 31, 1895, in Fermoy, County Cork, the daughter of shopkeeper and hotelier, James Ahearne, and his wife Ellen Ahearne (née O’Brien). She attends the Loretto Convent, Fermoy, and goes on to graduate from University College Dublin (UCD) with a BA,  H.Dip.Ed. in French and German. With this she begins a teaching career, at St. Louis’ Convent, Kiltimagh, at the Ursuline Convent, Thurles, and at Scoil Íde. Scoil Íde, the female counterpart to St. Enda’s School, had been established by her friend, Louise Gavan Duffy. She is fluent in the Irish language and takes an active part in the cultural elements of the Irish independence movement, such as literature and music. She is a member of Cumann na mBan, serving as a member of the executive committee in 1921.

McNeill becomes engaged to Pierce McCan, but he dies of influenza in Gloucester Gaol in March 1919. She marries James McNeill in 1923, while he is serving as Irish High Commissioner in London. Despite her reservations, she becomes a noted hostess, both in London and later in Dublin when her husband becomes the Governor-General of the Irish Free State from 1928 to 1932.

After the death of her husband in 1938, McNeill becomes the honorary secretary of the council of the Friends of the National Collections, as well as serving as chair of the executive committee of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association until 1950. As a member of the Department of External Affairs advisory committee on cultural relations, she writes on economic, social and cultural issues. She represents Ireland at the UNESCO general assembly in Paris in 1949.

McNeill is an active member of Clann na Poblachta from its foundation in 1946. She is appointed the minister to the Netherlands in 1950 by Seán MacBride, making her the first Irish female diplomat to represent the Republic of Ireland abroad in a ministerial capacity. This appointment is not well received by diplomats in the Department of External Affairs. Her reports from The Hague focus on the issues the Netherlands faces with decolonisation. In 1955, she becomes the minister to Sweden, going on to hold the joint appointment to Austria and Switzerland from 1956 to 1960, after which she retires. While serving in Switzerland she puts aside the resentment she feels towards Éamon de Valera based on how he had treated her husband, to sit with him during a convalescence while de Valera recovers from an eye operation.

McNeill is an amateur pianist and collects paintings and porcelains. In 1933, she publishes the Irish language book, Finnsgéalta ó India.

McNeill dies in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, on November 19, 1969. She is buried in Kilbarrack Cemetery. Her papers are held in the UCD Archives.


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Birth of Des Hanafin, Fianna Fáil Politician

Desmond A. Hanafin, Fianna Fáil politician who serves for over 30 years as a member of Seanad Éireann, is born in Thurles, County Tipperary, on September 9, 1930. He opposes social liberalisation, particularly the legalisation of abortion, divorce and same-sex marriage, and is one of the founders of the anti-abortion advocacy group, Pro Life Campaign (PLC).

Hanafin is the son of John Hanafin (1890–1953), a draper and newsagent who serves for many years as a Fianna Fáil councillor for North Tipperary County Council and previously is a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and an elected Sinn Féin councillor.

Hanafin marries Mona Brady, daughter of J. P. Brady, on August 2, 1958, in Clonmel, County Tipperary. The wedding is followed by a reception at the Galtee Hotel, Cahir, which is attended by various notables including Rev. Father J. J. Hampson, president of Blackrock College. Their first child, Mary Hanafin, is born in June 1959, followed by John Hanafin in September 1960. Mary Hanafin is a former Fianna Fáil TD and government minister, and John Hanafin is a former Fianna Fáil senator.

Hanafin operates the Anner Hotel, located in Thurles during the 1960s. Initially successful, the business fails in 1967, which Mary Hanafin later blames on her father’s excess drinking. Subsequently, Hanafin is a director of the Transinternational Oil Company.

Hanafin’s first attempt for election to public office proves unsuccessful. In 1953, he seeks to be co-opted to fill the vacancy on North Tipperary County Council created by the death of his father. In the event councillors co-opt a Labour Party nominee, Michael Treacy, by eleven votes to seven.

Hanafin is elected a member of North Tipperary County Council in 1955, polling 934 first preference votes. Subsequently, in 1956, drawing support from the Clann na Poblachta representatives, he is elected Chairman of the County Council.

In 1957, Hanafin conducts a three-month tour of the United States, during which he is commissioned a Kentucky colonel by then Kentucky Governor Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, Sr.. He is also awarded the freedom of Louisville, Kentucky, and is received by Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago.

Hanafin is re-elected to North Tipperary County Council in 1960, polling 797 first preference votes. In 1961, he votes against the Fianna Fáil nominee for Chair of the County Council, Thomas F. Meagher, and in favour of the Clann na Poblachta nominee, Michael F. Cronin, who is elected by 10 votes to 9. In 1964, he controversially votes in favour of Jeremiah Mockler, “a former school mate,” who is elected by 10 votes to 9 to the office of Rate Collector for Borrisokane, County Tipperary.

Hanafin holds the seat until 1985. He is first elected to Seanad Éireann in 1969 and retains his seat until the 1993 Seanad election at which he loses his seat by one vote. He regains his seat in the 1997 elections, and in 2002 announces his retirement from politics. He unsuccessfully contests the 1977 and 1981 Irish general elections for the Tipperary North constituency. He is a chief fundraiser of the Fianna Fáil party for many years.

In May 2015, Hanafin accuses “Yes” campaigners in the same-sex marriage referendum of spreading a “palpable climate of fear,” and calls for a “No” vote.

Hanafin opposes the legalisation of divorce, which is introduced in 1995, and attempts to overturn the referendum result in the Supreme Court, but is refused by the court.

An opponent of abortion, Hanafin is one of the promoters of the constitutional amendment that enshrines the legal ban on abortion in the Constitution of Ireland. He is co-founder, chairman and later honorary president of the Pro Life Campaign.

Hanafin dies in County Tipperary at the age of 86 on June 22, 2017. A Requiem Mass is held at the Cathedral of the Assumption, Thurles, on June 25, with burial afterward in St. Patrick’s Cemetery.


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Birth of Richard Mulcahy, Fine Gael Politician & Army General

Richard James Mulcahy, Irish Fine Gael politician and army general, is born in Manor Street, Waterford, County Waterford, on May 10, 1886, the son of post office clerk Patrick Mulcahy and Elizabeth Slattery. He is educated at Mount Sion Christian Brothers School and later in Thurles, County Tipperary, where his father is the postmaster.

Mulcahy joins the Royal Mail (Post Office Engineering Dept.) in 1902, and works in Thurles, Bantry, Wexford and Dublin. He is a member of the Gaelic League and joins the Irish Volunteers at the time of their formation in 1913. He is also a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Mulcahy is second-in-command to Thomas Ashe in an encounter with the armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at Ashbourne, County Meath, during the 1916 Easter Rising, one of the few stand-out victories won by republicans in that week and generally credited to Mulcahy’s grasp of tactics. In his book on the Rising, Charles Townshend principally credits Mulcahy with the defeat of the RIC at Ashbourne, for conceiving and leading a flanking movement on the RIC column that had engaged with the Irish Volunteers. Arrested after the Rising, he is interned at Knutsford and at the Frongoch internment camp in Wales until his release on December 24, 1916.

On his release, Mulcahy immediately rejoins the republican movement and becomes commandant of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. He is elected to the First Dáil in the 1918 Irish general election for Dublin Clontarf. He is then named Minister for Defence in the new government and later Assistant Minister for Defence. In March 1918, he becomes Irish Republican Army (IRA) chief of staff, a position he holds until January 1922.

Mulcahy and Michael Collins are largely responsible for directing the military campaign against the British during the Irish War of Independence. During this period of upheaval in 1919, he marries Mary Josephine (Min) Ryan, sister of Kate and Phyllis Ryan, the successive wives of Seán T. O’Kelly. Her brother is James Ryan. O’Kelly and Ryan both later serve in Fianna Fáil governments.

Mulcahy supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. Archive film shows that Mulcahy, as Minister of Defence, is the Irish officer who raises the Irish tricolour at the first hand-over of a British barracks to the National Army in January 1922. He is defence minister in the Provisional Government on its creation and succeeds Collins, after the latter’s assassination, as Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government’s forces during the subsequent Irish Civil War.

Mulcahy earns notoriety through his order that anti-Treaty activists captured carrying arms are liable for execution. A total of 77 anti-Treaty prisoners are executed by the Provisional Government. He serves as Minister for Defence in the new Free State government from January 1924 until March 1924, but resigns in protest because of the sacking of the Army Council after criticism by the Executive Council over the handling of the “Army Mutiny,” when some National Army War of Independence officers almost revolt after he demobilises many of them at the end of the Irish Civil War. He re-enters the cabinet as Minister for Local Government and Public Health in 1927.

During Mulcahy’s period on the backbenches of Dáil Éireann his electoral record fluctuates. He is elected as TD for Dublin North-West at the 1921 and 1922 Irish general elections. He moves to Dublin North for the election the following year and is re-elected there in four further elections: June 1927, September 1927, 1932, and 1933.

Dublin North is abolished for the 1937 Irish general election, at which Mulcahy is defeated in the new constituency of Dublin North-East. However, he secures election to Seanad Éireann as a Senator, the upper house of the Oireachtas, representing the Administrative Panel. The 2nd Seanad sits for less than two months, and at the 1938 Irish general election he is elected to the 10th Dáil as a TD for Dublin North-East. Defeated again in the 1943 Irish general election, he secures election to the 4th Seanad by the Labour Panel.

After the resignation of W. T. Cosgrave as Leader of Fine Gael in 1944, Mulcahy becomes party leader while still a member of the Seanad. Thomas F. O’Higgins is parliamentary leader of the party in the Dáil at the time and Leader of the Opposition. Facing his first general election as party leader, Mulcahy draws up a list of 13 young candidates to contest seats for Fine Gael. Of the eight who run, four are elected. He is returned again to the 12th Dáil as a TD for Tipperary at the 1944 Irish general election. While Fine Gael’s decline had been slowed, its future is still in doubt.

Following the 1948 Irish general election Mulcahy is elected for Tipperary South, but the dominant Fianna Fáil party finishes six seats short of a majority. However, it is 37 seats ahead of Fine Gael, and conventional wisdom suggests that Fianna Fáil is the only party that can possibly form a government. Just as negotiations get underway, however, Mulcahy realises that if Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan band together, they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil and, if they can get support from seven independents, they will be able to form a government. He plays a leading role in persuading the other parties to put aside their differences and join forces to consign the then Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Éamon de Valera, to the opposition benches.

Mulcahy initially seems set to become Taoiseach in a coalition government. However, he is not acceptable to Clann na Poblachta’s leader, Seán MacBride. Many Irish republicans had never forgiven him for his role in the Irish Civil War executions carried out under the Cosgrave government in the 1920s. Consequently, MacBride lets it be known that he and his party will not serve under Mulcahy. Without Clann na Poblachta, the other parties would have 57 seats between them — 17 seats short of a majority in the 147-seat Dáil. According to Mulcahy, the suggestion that another person serve as Taoiseach comes from Labour leader William Norton. He steps aside and encourages his party colleague John A. Costello, a former Attorney General of Ireland, to become the parliamentary leader of Fine Gael and the coalition’s candidate for Taoiseach. For the next decade, Costello serves as the party’s parliamentary leader while Mulcahy remained the nominal leader of the party.

Mulcahy goes on to serve as Minister for Education under Costello from 1948 until 1951. Another coalition government comes to power at the 1954 Irish general election, with Mulcahy once again stepping aside to become Minister for Education in the Second Inter-Party Government. The government falls in 1957, but he remains as Fine Gael leader until October 1959. In October the following year, he tells his Tipperary constituents that he does not intend to contest the next election.

Mulcahy dies from natural causes at the age of 85 in Dublin on December 16, 1971. He is buried in Littleton, County Tipperary.


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Birth of Simon Donnelly, Irish Republican Army Volunteer

Simon John Donnelly, a member of the Irish Republican Army is born at 7 Aungier Street, Dublin, on January 7, 1891. He is a founder member of both Córas na Poblachta and Clann na Poblachta, Irish republican political parties formed in 1940 and 1946 respectively.

Donnelly is the son of Timothy Donnelly, a master plumber, and Mary Brennan. He is the sixth of eight surviving children. The 1911 Census lists him living with his family at 34 Wexford Street. Apprenticed as a plumber, he becomes involved in the Irish Volunteers. During the Easter Rising of 1916 he is the commander of C Company of Éamon de Valera‘s command in Boland’s Mill.

Donnelly is Vice-Commandant of the 3rd Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA during the Irish War of Independence. On February 10, 1921, he is arrested. Four days later he escapes from Kilmainham Gaol along with Ernie O’Malley and Frank Teeling. Returning to his command in the IRA, he is appointed chief of the Irish Republican Police (IRP) in mid-1921 as part of an attempt to enforce law and order in those areas of the country where the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) have been forced out.

Donnelly takes the anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War and takes part in the Battle of Dublin (June 28 – July 5, 1922).

Donnelly founds the National Association of the Old IRA in an attempt to mend some of the rifts in the Republican Movement. He is a member of the provisional National Executive of the Republican Prisoners’ Release Association.

On March 2, 1940, Donnelly is one of the founders of Córas na Poblachta and serves as its president. He becomes a founding member of Clann na Poblachta in 1946.

As one of the most senior surviving veterans of the Easter Rising, Donnelly plays a prominent role in the 50th anniversary commemorations in 1966. He dies in Dublin on December 7 of that year.


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Death of John Costello, Fine Gael Politician & 3rd Taoiseach

John Aloysius Costello, Fine Gael politician who serves as Taoiseach from 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957, Leader of the Opposition from 1951 to 1954 and from 1957 to 1959, and Attorney General of Ireland from 1926 to 1932, dies in Ranelagh, Dublin, on January 5, 1976. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1933 to 1943 and from 1944 to 1969.

Costello is born on June 20, 1891, in Fairview, Dublin, the younger son of John Costello senior, a civil servant, and Rose Callaghan. He is educated at St. Joseph’s, Fairview, and then moves to O’Connell School, for senior classes, and later attends University College Dublin (UCD), where he graduates with a degree in modern languages and law. He studies at King’s Inns to become a barrister, winning the Victoria Prize there in 1913 and 1914. He is called to the Irish Bar in 1914, and practises as a barrister until 1922.

In 1922, Costello joins the staff at the office of the Attorney General in the newly established Irish Free State. Three years later he is called to the inner bar, and the following year, 1926, he becomes Attorney General of Ireland, upon the formation of the Cumann na nGaedheal government, led by W. T. Cosgrave. While serving in this position he represents the Free State at Imperial Conferences and League of Nations meetings.

Costello is also elected a Bencher of the Honourable Society of King’s Inns. He loses his position as Attorney General of Ireland when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932. The following year, however, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD. Cumann na nGaedheal soon merges with other parties to form Fine Gael.

During the Dáil debate on the Emergency Powers Act 1939, Costello is highly critical of the Act’s arrogation of powers, stating that “We are asked not merely to give a blank cheque, but to give an uncrossed cheque to the Government.” He loses his seat at the 1943 Irish general election but regains it when Éamon de Valera calls a snap election in 1944. From 1944 to 1948, he is the Fine Gael front-bench Spokesman on External Affairs.

In 1948, Fianna Fáil has been in power for sixteen consecutive years and has been blamed for a downturn in the economy following World War II. The 1948 Irish general election results show Fianna Fáil short of a majority, but still by far the largest party, with twice as many seats as the nearest rival, Fine Gael. It appears that Fianna Fáil is headed for a seventh term in government. However, the other parties in the Dáil realise that between them, they have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil, and if they band together, they would be able to form a government with the support of seven Independent deputies. Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan join to form the first inter-party government in the history of the Irish state.

While it looks as if cooperation between these parties will not be feasible, a shared opposition to Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera overcomes all other difficulties, and the coalition government is formed.

Since Fine Gael is the largest party in the government, it has the task of providing a suitable candidate for Taoiseach. Naturally, it is assumed that its leader, Richard Mulcahy, will be offered the post. However, he is an unacceptable choice to Clann na Poblachta and its deeply republican leader, Seán MacBride. This is due to Mulcahy’s record during the Irish Civil War. Instead, Fine Gael and Clann na Poblachta agree on Costello as a compromise candidate. Costello had never held a ministerial position nor was he involved in the Civil War. When told by Mulcahy of his nomination, Costello is appalled, content with his life as a barrister and as a part-time politician. He is persuaded to accept the nomination as Taoiseach by close non-political friends.

During the campaign, Clann na Poblachta had promised to repeal the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936 but does not make an issue of this when the government is being formed. However, Costello and his Tánaiste, William Norton of the Labour Party, also dislike the act. During the summer of 1948, the cabinet discusses repealing the act, however, no firm decision is made.

In September 1948, Costello is on an official visit to Canada when a reporter asks him about the possibility of Ireland leaving the British Commonwealth. For the first time, he declares publicly that the Irish government is indeed going to repeal the External Relations Act and declare Ireland a republic. It has been suggested that this is a reaction to offence caused by the Governor General of Canada at the time, Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, who is of Northern Irish descent and who allegedly arranges to have placed symbols of Northern Ireland in front of Costello at an official dinner. Costello makes no mention of these aspects on the second reading of the Republic of Ireland Bill on November 24 and, in his memoirs, claims that Alexander’s behaviour had in fact been perfectly civil and could have had no bearing on a decision which had already been made.

The news takes the Government of the United Kingdom and even some of Costello’s ministers by surprise. The former had not been consulted and following the declaration of the Republic in 1949, the UK passes the Ireland Act that year. This recognises the Republic of Ireland and guarantees the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom for so long as a majority there want to remain in the United Kingdom. It also grants full rights to any citizens of the Republic living in the United Kingdom. Ireland leaves the Commonwealth on April 18, 1949, when The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 comes into force. Frederick Henry Boland, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, says caustically that the affair demonstrates that “the Taoiseach has as much notion of diplomacy as I have of astrology.” The British envoy, John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby, is equally critical of what he calls a “slipshod and amateur” move.

Many nationalists now see partition as the last obstacle on the road to total national independence. Costello tables a motion of protest against partition on May 10, 1949, without result.

In 1950, the independent-minded Minister for Health, Noël Browne, introduces the Mother and Child Scheme. The scheme would provide mothers with free maternity treatment and their children with free medical care up to the age of sixteen, which is the normal provision in other parts of Europe at that time. The bill is opposed by doctors, who fear a loss of income, and Roman Catholic bishops, who oppose the lack of means testing envisaged and fear the scheme could lead to birth control and abortion. The cabinet is divided over the issue, many feeling that the state cannot afford such a scheme priced at IR£2,000,000 annually. Costello and others in the cabinet make it clear that in the face of such opposition they will not support the Minister. Browne resigns from the government on April 11, 1951, and the scheme is dropped. He immediately publishes his correspondence with Costello and the bishops, something which had hitherto not been done. Derivatives of the Mother and Child Scheme are introduced in Public Health Acts of 1954, 1957 and 1970.

The Costello government has a number of noteworthy achievements. A new record is set in housebuilding, the Industrial Development Authority and Córas Tráchtála are established, and the Minister for Health, Noel Browne, with the then new Streptomycin, bring about an advance in the treatment of tuberculosis. Ireland also joins a number of organisations such as the Organization for European Economic Co-operation and the Council of Europe. However, the government refuses to join NATO, allegedly because the British remain in Northern Ireland. The scheme to supply electricity to even the remotest parts of Ireland is also accelerated.

While the “Mother and Child” incident does destabilise the government to some extent, it does not lead to its collapse as is generally thought. The government continues; however, prices are rising, a balance of payments crisis is looming, and two TDs withdraw their support for the government. These incidents add to the pressure on Costello and so he decides to call a general election for June 1951. The result is inconclusive but Fianna Fáil returns to power. Costello resigns as Taoiseach. It is at this election that his son Declan is elected to the Dáil.

Over the next three years while Fianna Fáil is in power a dual-leadership role of Fine Gael is taking place. While Richard Mulcahy is the leader of the party, Costello, who has proved his skill as Taoiseach, remains as parliamentary leader of the party. He resumes his practice at the Bar. In what is arguably his most celebrated case, the successful defence of The Leader against a libel action brought by the poet Patrick Kavanagh, dates from this period. Kavanagh generously praises Costello’s forensic skill, and the two men become friends.

At the 1954 Irish general election Fianna Fáil loses power. A campaign dominated by economic issues results in a Fine Gael-Labour Party-Clann na Talmhan government coming to power. Costello is elected Taoiseach for the second time.

The government can do little to change the ailing nature of Ireland’s economy, with emigration and unemployment remaining high, and external problems such as the Suez Crisis compounding the difficulty. Measures to expand the Irish economy such as export profits tax relief introduced in 1956 would take years have sizable impact. Costello’s government does have some success with Ireland becoming a member of the United Nations in 1955, and a highly successful visit to the United States in 1956, which begins the custom by which the Taoiseach visits the White House each Saint Patrick’s Day to present the U.S. President with a bowl of shamrock. Although the government has a comfortable majority and seems set for a full term in office, a resumption of Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity in Northern Ireland and Great Britain causes internal strains. The government takes strong action against the republicans.

In spite of supporting the government from the backbenches, Seán MacBride, the leader of Clann na Poblachta, tables a motion of no confidence, based on the weakening state of the economy and in opposition to the government’s stance on the IRA. Fianna Fáil also tables its own motion of no confidence, and rather than face almost certain defeat, Costello again asks President Seán T. O’Kelly to dissolve the Oireachtas. The general election which follows in 1957 gives Fianna Fáil an overall majority and starts another sixteen years of unbroken rule for the party. Some of his colleagues questioned the wisdom of his decision to call an election. The view is expressed that he was tired of politics and depressed by his wife’s sudden death the previous year.

Following the defeat of his government, Costello returns to the bar. In 1959, when Richard Mulcahy resigns the leadership of Fine Gael to James Dillon, he retires to the backbenches. He could have become party leader had he been willing to act in a full-time capacity. He remains as a TD until 1969, when he retires from politics, being succeeded as Fine Gael TD for Dublin South-East by Garret FitzGerald, who himself goes onto to become Taoiseach in a Fine Gael-led government.

During his career, Costello is presented with a number of awards from many universities in the United States. He is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy from 1948. In March 1975, he is made a freeman of the city of Dublin, along with his old political opponent Éamon de Valera. He practises at the bar until a short time before his death at the age of 84, in Ranelagh, Dublin, on January 5, 1976. He is buried at Dean’s Grange Cemetery in Dublin.


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Birth of Uinseann MacEoin, Architect & Republican Campaigner

Uinseann Ó Rathaille MacEoin, Irish architect, journalist, republican campaigner and historian, is born in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, on July 4, 1920.

MacEoin is born Vincent O’Rahilly McGuone to Malachy McGuone, owner of the Central Hotel in Pomeroy and a wine and spirit merchant, and Catherine (née Fox). He has three siblings. Both of his parents are nationalists, and name all their children after leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Under the First Dáil in 1918, his father is appointed a judge. This results in him being interned on the prison ship Argenta on Larne Lough from 1922 to 1923. The family moves to Dublin after his release. His father dies in 1933, which leads to his wife running a workingmen’s café in East Essex Street. The family later lives on Marlborough Road, Donnybrook.

MacEoin attends boarding school at Blackrock College and is then articled to the architectural practice of Vincent Kelly in Merrion Square. As an active republican, he lives in a house on Northumberland Road from late 1939 to May 1940 where he helps in the production and distribution of an Irish Republican Army (IRA) weekly newspaper, War News. The IRA is banned by the Irish government in 1936, and its bombing campaign in Britain in 1939 is viewed by the government as a threat to Irish neutrality. MacEoin is among a group of republicans arrested in June 1940 and imprisoned in Arbour Hill Prison for a year. Once released, he is rearrested and interned at the Curragh for three years. He is sentenced to 3-months imprisonment in October 1943 for possession of incriminating documents. He is also charged with possession of ammunition, but testifies he was given the rounds against his will and never appears to have engaged in any violence. During his internment, he is taught the Irish language by Máirtín Ó Cadhain and is exposed to the socialist views of his fellow inmates. It is at this time that he adopts the Irish form of his name, Uinseann MacEoin.

While imprisoned in the 1940s, MacEoin continues his studies by correspondence and qualifies as an architect in 1945 at University College Dublin (UCD). His designs for a memorial garden in 1946 to those who died during the Irish War of Independence are commended. In 1959, he designs the site in Ballyseedy, County Kerry, for a monument by Yann Goulet commemorating those killed in the Irish Civil War and members of the IRA from Kerry who died. In 1948, he qualifies in town planning and takes up a position with Michael Scott‘s architectural practice. He works for a short time with Dublin Corporation, with their housing department, before establishing his own practice in 1955.

During the 1950s, MacEoin is a contributing editor on interior design in Hugh McLaughlin‘s magazine Creation, becoming editor of Irish Architect and Contractor in 1955. He enters into a partnership with Aidan Kelly in 1969 as MacEoin Kelly and Associates. In the early 1970s, he designs a shopping and housing development outside Dundalk, called Ard Easmuinn. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he continues as an influential architectural journalist, founding and editing Build from 1965 to 1969, and later Plan. His company, Pomeroy Press, publishes Plan along with other serials such as Stream and Field. He writes a large proportion of the copy in these periodicals, much under his own name, but he also uses pseudonyms, in particular in Plan as “Michael O’Brien.” He writes about his strong views on social housing, national infrastructure, and foreign and slum landlords, often libelously.

Despite his republican and socialist views, MacEoin is a staunch advocate for the preservation of Georgian Dublin, and campaigns for their preservation. On this topic, he writes letters to newspapers, takes part in television and radio discussions, writes comment pieces and editorials, speaks at public hearings, and takes part in direct protests such as sit-ins in buildings including those on Baggot Street, Pembroke Street, Hume Street, and Molesworth Street. He is also an active member of the Irish Georgian Society, and he campaigns actively against the road widening schemes in Dublin the 1970s and 1980s.

MacEoin and his wife purchase five Georgian houses on Mountjoy Square and three on Henrietta Street in the 1960s, all almost derelict. They refurbish them and lease them out, under the company name Luke Gardiner Ltd. He renames the 5 Henrietta Street property James Bryson House. His architectural practice moves into one of the Mountjoy Square houses. Along with fellow campaigners, Mariga Guinness and Deirdre Kelly, this demonstrates that these buildings can be salvaged and are not the dangerous structures other architects and developers claim them to be. He also purchases and saves Heath House, near Portlaoise, County Laois, living there toward the end of his life. He offers free conservation and architectural advice to community groups and is a volunteer on the renovation works on projects including Tailors’ Hall.

MacEoin remains politically active, joining Clann na Poblachta, the Wolfe Tone Societies (WTS), the Dublin Civic Group, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. To what extent he is involved in republican or IRA activities after 1945 is not clear. However, in March 1963, he is called a witness to a case in Scotland involving a Glasgow bookmaker by the name of Samuel Docherty and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Docherty claims the bank owes him £50,000. MacEoin testifies that in February 1962 he had travelled with £50,000 in cash from Dublin to lodge to Docherty’s account in the Royal Bank of Scotland in Belfast, as a loan. When asked about the origin of this large sum of money, he states it was supplied by another person but does not divulge that person’s name. This immediately triggers the court’s suspicions, and the judge warns MacEoin he will be contempt of court if he does not name the supplier of the money. He is placed in police custody for the day, and eventually he agrees to give the name in writing in confidence to the judge. The judge ultimately rules that Docherty is guilty of attempted fraud and perjury and that MacEoin’s involvement reeks of criminality. However, no further action is ever brought forward against Docherty or MacEoin.

In Sinn Féin‘s 1971 Éire Nua social and economic programme, MacEoin writes the chapter on “Planning,” and attends meetings in Monaghan in the early 1970s on the Dáil Uladh, a parliament for the 9-county Ulster province. In 1981, during the republican hunger strikes, one of his Mountyjoy Square houses is used as the national headquarters of the National H-Block Committee. Following the 1986 Sinn Féin split, he supports Republican Sinn Féin. He is a founding member of the Constitutional Rights Campaign in 1987, a group which aims to protect the rights of Irish citizens in the European Economic Community (EEC), having campaigned against Ireland joining the EEC in the early 1970s. In 1978, he is sentenced to two weeks in Mountjoy Prison for non-payment of a fine issued for not having a television licence. He had refused to buy one to protest the lack of Irish language programming.

As an environmentalist, MacEoin opposes private car ownership, and advocates for cycleways and the redevelopment of the railway lines. He writes about the “greenhouse effect” as early as 1969. As a hill walker and mountaineer, he claims to be the first Irishman to register successful climbs of all 284 Scottish peaks, known as the Munros, in 1987. He also climbs in the Alps and the Pyrenees.

MacEoin writes three books on his memories, and those of his former comrades: Survivors (1980), on the lives of leading Irish republicans, Harry (1986), a part biography part autobiography of Harry White, and The IRA in the twilight years 1923–48 (1997). He also publishes a novel, Sybil: a tale of innocence (1992) with his publishing house, Argenta, under the name Eoin O’Rahilly. He also interviews and records dozens of Republicans as part of his research for his books. These recordings are later converted into a digital oral history archive held in trust by the Irish Defence Forces.

MacEoin marries Margaret Russell in 1956 in Navan, County Meath. They have a daughter and two sons.

MacEoin dies in a nursing home in Shankill, Dublin, on December 21, 2007. His estate at the time of his death is valued at over €3 million. His son, Nuada, takes over his father’s architectural practice.


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Birth of Josephine McNeill, First Irish Female Diplomat

Josephine McNeill, Irish diplomat, is born on March 31, 1895, in Fermoy, County Cork. She is the first Irish female diplomat appointed to represent Ireland abroad in a ministerial capacity.

McNeill is born Josephine Ahearne, the daughter of shopkeeper and hotelier, James Ahearne, and his wife Ellen Ahearne (née O’Brien). She attends the Loretto Convent, Fermoy, and goes on to graduate from University College Dublin (UCD) with a BA, H.Dip.Ed. in French and German. With this she begins a teaching career, at St. Louis’ Convent, Kiltimagh, at the Ursuline Convent, Thurles, and at Scoil Íde. Scoil Íde, the female counterpart to St. Enda’s School, had been established by her friend, Louise Gavan Duffy. She is fluent in the Irish language and takes an active part in the cultural elements of the Irish independence movement, such as literature and music. She is a member of Cumann na mBan, serving as a member of the executive committee in 1921.

McNeill becomes engaged to Pierce McCan, but he dies of influenza in Gloucester Gaol in March 1919. She marries James McNeill in 1923, while he is serving as Irish High Commissioner in London. Despite her reservations, she becomes a noted hostess, both in London and later in Dublin when her husband becomes the Governor-General of the Irish Free State from 1928 to 1932.

After the death of her husband in 1938, McNeill becomes the honorary secretary of the council of the Friends of the National Collections, as well as serving as chair of the executive committee of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association until 1950. As a member of the Department of External Affairs advisory committee on cultural relations, she writes on economic, social and cultural issues. She represents Ireland at the UNESCO general assembly in Paris in 1949.

McNeill is an active member of Clann na Poblachta from its foundation in 1946. She is appointed the minister to the Netherlands in 1950 by Seán MacBride, making her the first Irish female diplomat to represent the Republic of Ireland abroad in a ministerial capacity. This appointment is not well received by diplomats in the Department of External Affairs. Her reports from The Hague focus on the issues the Netherlands faces with decolonisation. In 1955, she becomes the minister to Sweden, going on to hold the joint appointment to Austria and Switzerland from 1956 to 1960, after which she retires. While serving in Switzerland she puts aside the resentment she feels towards Éamon de Valera based on how he had treated her husband, to sit with him during a convalescence while de Valera recovers from an eye operation.

McNeill is an amateur pianist and collects paintings and porcelains. In 1933, she publishes the Irish language book, Finnsgéalta ó India.

McNeill dies in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, on November 19, 1969. She is buried in Kilbarrack Cemetery. Her papers are held in the UCD Archives.


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Birth of Tom Hales, IRA Volunteer & Fianna Fáil Politician

Thomas Hales, Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer and Fianna Fáil politician, is born in Knocknacurra House, Ballinadee, near Bandon, County Cork, on March 5, 1892.

Hales is born on a family farm owned by his father, Robert Hales, an activist in the Irish Land War and a reputed member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and his wife, Margaret (née Fitzgerald). He is the sixth of nine children (five sons and four daughters). He is educated at Ballinadee national school and Warner’s Lane school, Bandon. After leaving school he works at Harte’s timber yard, Bandon.

Hales joins and is involved with the Irish Volunteers movement from its inception in November 1913. Elected a delegate at the Volunteer national convention in the Abbey Theatre in 1915, he is among the majority who vote for the election of the national executive.

Hales is a part of a group of volunteers who are mobilised and plan to rise up in Cork during the 1916 Easter Rising. He sends a number of dispatches to Cork requesting further instructions. However, they receive last minute orders to stand down and there is no uprising in Cork to match that in Dublin. The Volunteers give up their arms and are later arrested.

By May 1916, Hales and his brothers, Seán, Bob, and William, are fighting with the IRA in west Cork during the Irish War of Independence. Terence MacSwiney is arrested in Hales’ home on May 3, 1916, and Hales himself escapes and goes on the run. He states that he was listed as “wanted” in the Hue and Cry police gazette.

In 1918, Hales takes part in a raid on a British gunboat and holds 25 armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) members prisoner at Snugmore Castle. He takes part in a decoy in assisting his elder brother, Seán, to escape after his arrest in connection with the German Plot. He is elected Battalion Commandant of the 1st (Bandon) Battalion (1917–19), and Brigade Commandant of Cork 3rd Brigade, IRA, in January 1919.

In December 1919, Hales takes part in an ambush against the RIC at Kilbrittain and Bandon and is involved in the manufacture of gunpowder for IRA munitions. By this point he is the commander of the Third Cork Brigade of the IRA. In July 1920, he along with Harte is arrested by soldiers from the Essex Regiment.

The pair are taken to a nearby military barracks, where they are severely beaten while being interrogated by officers of the regiment. Hales has his fingernails pulled out, an event that later inspires a scene in the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley. However, neither Hales nor Harte give up any information and are eventually sent to a military hospital to recuperate. Hales is tried and is eventually sentenced to two years’ penal servitude, which he serves in Pentonville and Dartmoor prisons in England. He is commander of the Irish prisoners at Pentonville, but is released following a general amnesty after the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921. According to Tom Barry, Harte suffers brain damage and goes insane before dying in Broadmoor Hospital.

A fifth Hales brother, Donal, settles in Genoa from 1913, and is appointed Irish Consular and Commercial Agent for Italy in February 1919. In this capacity he plays a leading propaganda role. Several letters from Michael Collins to Donal Hales still exist which are used by Hales to promote international awareness of the Irish conflict in Italian publications. Donal oversees a failed attempt to import a substantial number of Austrian weapons and ammunition captured from World War I, from Genoa in the spring of 1921, through the person of Gabriele D’Annunzio.

During the Irish Civil War, Tom and Seán Hales fight on opposite sides, with Hales fighting against the Anglo-Irish Treaty with the Anti-Treaty IRA while Seán joins the newly formed National Army of the Irish Free State. While the bothers end up on opposite sides of the war, they never openly criticise one another for their rival political stances.

Hales is elected to the anti-Treaty IRA executive in March 1922, but resigns in June over a proposal to prevent the Free State’s first general election in June 1922. He resumes his old rank during the Irish Civil War as commander of Cork 3 Brigade.

During the Irish Civil War in July 1922, Hales takes part in the raid and capture of Skibbereen Barracks and Ballineen by anti-Treaty forces. He is also involved in a skirmish with Free State troops at Newcestown. He is arrested in November 1922 and imprisoned first in Cork and then at the Curragh. He is released in December 1923, having taken part in a hunger strike for fourteen days. He mentions in his application for a military pension that he was a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB at this time.

In December 1922, Hales’s brother Seán is assassinated by the anti-Treaty IRA in Dublin, in reprisal for the Free State government’s execution of IRA prisoners. Hales later applies to the Irish government for a service pension under the Military Service Pensions Act, 1934 and is awarded nine years’ service in 1935 at Grade B for his service with the Irish Volunteers and the IRA between April 1, 1917, and September 30, 1923.

Hales is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork West constituency at the 1933 Irish general election. He resigns from Fianna Fáil in June 1936 stating he cannot support their policy on interning IRA members. He fails to retain his seat as an independent candidate at the 1937 Irish general election. He also unsuccessfully contests the 1944 Irish general election as an independent candidate and the 1948 Irish general election as a candidate for Clann na Poblachta, receiving 2,287 votes (7.93%).

Hales makes his living as farmer. A member of the Mallow area board of the beet growers’ association from 1934 to 1942, he is also connected with other farming organisations. He marries Ann Lehane from Tirelton, Macroom, on April 30, 1927. They have five children, Seán, Robert, Thomas, Eileen, and Margaret.

Hales dies on April 29, 1966, at St. Finbarr’s Hospital, Cork, and is buried at St. Patrick’s Cemetery, Bandon.