seamus dubhghaill

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


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Birth of Irish Writer Patrick McCabe

Patrick McCabe, Irish writer known for his mostly dark and violent novels set in contemporary—often small-town—Ireland, is born in Clones, County Monaghan, on March 27, 1955. He has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for The Butcher Boy (1992) and Breakfast on Pluto (1998), both of which have been made into films.

At the age of 17, McCabe migrates to London and works as a teacher, returning to Ireland after finding success as a writer. He resides in Clones with his artist wife Margot Quinn and two daughters, Katie and Ellen.

McCabe’s books include The Butcher Boy (1992) and Breakfast on Pluto (1998), both shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has written a children’s book, The Adventures of Shay Mouse (1985), and several of his radio plays have been broadcast by RTÉ and BBC Radio 4. He wrote a collection of linked short stories, Mondo Desperado, published in 1999. The play Frank Pig Says Hello, which he adapts from The Butcher Boy, is first performed at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1992.

McCabe’s 2001 novel Emerald Germs of Ireland is a black comedy featuring matricide. Winterwood, published in 2006, is the 2007 Hughes & Hughes/Irish Independent Irish Novel of the Year. Three years later, 2009 sees the publication of The Holy City. The Stray Sod Country (2010) is described as “Strangely elegiac, gloriously operatic and driven by (…) wild and savage imagination, (…) an eerie folk tale that chronicles the passing of a generation.”

Director and novelist Neil Jordan adapts both The Butcher Boy (1997) and Breakfast on Pluto (2005) into films.

Zelig Theatre premieres the play Appointment in Limbo, written by McCabe and directed by Cathal Cleary, in Galway‘s Town Hall Theatre in 2008.

McCabe and British film director Kevin Allen are organisers of the Flat Lake Literary & Arts Festival, a music festival held annually since 2007 on the Hilton Park farm estate in Clones, County Monaghan.


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Birth of Eugene McCabe, Novelist, Playwright & Screenwriter

Eugene McCabe, Scots-born Irish novelist, short story writer, playwright, and television screenwriter, is born in Glasgow, Scotland, on July 7, 1930. John Banville says McCabe is “in the first rank of contemporary Irish novelists.”

Born to Irish emigrants in Scotland, McCabe moves with his family to Ireland in the early 1940s. He lives on a farm near Lackey Bridge, just outside Clones, County Monaghan. He is educated at Castleknock College.

McCabe’s play King of the Castle causes a minor scandal when first staged in 1964, and is protested by the League of Decency. He writes his award-winning trilogy of television plays, consisting of Cancer, Heritage and Siege, because he feels he has to make a statement about the Troubles. His 1992 novel Death and Nightingales is hailed by Irish writer Colm Tóibín as “one of the great Irish masterpieces of the century” and a “classic of our times” by Kirkus Reviews.

McCabe defends fellow novelist Dermot Healy, who had been negatively reviewed by Eileen Battersby in The Irish Times in 2011, using the Joycean invective “shite and onions”, provoking controversy in the Irish literary community.

Fintan O’Toole notes how living in Monaghan, just across the border from County Fermanagh, informed McCabe’s writing, and described him as “the great laureate of…indeterminacy, charting its inevitably tragic outcomes while holding somehow to the notion that it might someday become a blessing.”

McCabe dies at the age of 90 on August 27, 2020, in Cavan, County Cavan. He is survived by his wife Margot, his four children, Ruth, Marcus, Patrick and Stephen, and thirteen grandchildren.


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Death of Alfie Byrne, Politician & Lord Mayor of Dublin

Alfred Byrne, Irish politician who serves as a Member of Parliament (MP), as a Teachta Dála (TD) and as Lord Mayor of Dublin, dies in Dublin on March 13, 1956. He is known as the “Shaking Hand of Dublin.” He holds the distinction of being the only person to serve as Councillor, Alderman, Lord Mayor of Dublin, MP, TD and Senator.

Byrne is born on March 17, 1882, the second of seven children born to Thomas Byrne, an engineer, and Fanny Dowman. His childhood home is at 36 Seville Place, a terraced house with five rooms just off the North Strand in Dublin. He drops out of school at the age of thirteen and is soon juggling jobs as a grocer’s assistant and a bicycle mechanic. Eventually he uses his savings to buy a pub on Talbot Street. He marries Elizabeth Heagney in 1910.

Byrne becomes an Alderman on Dublin Corporation in 1914. He is a member of the Dublin Port and Docks Board, a significant position for a politician from the Dublin Harbour constituency. In the records of the Oireachtas his occupation is given as company director. He is elected as MP for Dublin Harbour as a candidate of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) in a by-election on October 1, 1915, following the death of William Abraham. The Easter Rising in 1916 is followed by the rapid decline of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the rise of Sinn Féin. At the 1918 Irish general election he is defeated by a Sinn Féin candidate, Philip Shanahan.

Byrne is elected as an Independent TD supporting the Anglo-Irish Treaty for the Dublin Mid constituency at the general election to the Third Dáil in 1922. From 1923 to 1928 he represents Dublin City North. In 1928 he is elected for a six-year term as a member of Seanad Éireann. He vacates his Dáil seat on December 4, 1928. He resigns from the Seanad on December 10, 1931, and returns to the Dáil in 1932. He remains a TD until his death in 1956, representing Dublin City North (1932–37) and Dublin North-East (1937–56). In several elections he secures more votes than any other politician in the country.

Byrne is elected as Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1930, serving in the post for nine consecutive years. When cycling or walking around the city he dispenses lollipops to children, who are often seen chasing him down the street. With a handshake and a few words for all, his eternal canvassing soon earns him the first of his nicknames: the Shaking Hand of Dublin. Married with eight children, he treats the people of Dublin as his second family. Every morning he finds up to fifty people waiting for him in the Mansion House. None have appointments. All are met. He answers 15,000 letters in his first year as Lord Mayor. Many are from Dubliners looking for a job, a house, some advice or a reference. One morning in 1931 a journalist watches the Lord Mayor attend to his correspondence. Within an hour he accepts “seventeen invitations to public dinners, one invitation to a public entertainment and eight invitations to public functions.” Then he dictates forty-three sympathetic letters to men and women looking for employment.

In 1937, children between the ages of eight and eleven years old are being sentenced to spend up to five years in Industrial Schools. Their crime is stealing a few apples from an orchard. When Byrne says such sentences are “savage,” a judge responds with a defence of the Industrial School system, urging an end to “ridiculous Mansion House mummery.” He stands firm: “For the punishment of trifling offences the home of the children is better than any institution.” In 1938, he is favoured by the press for the presidency of Ireland, a ceremonial role created in the new Constitution, but he is outgunned by the political establishment.

When, in 1935, Byrne becomes the first Lord Mayor of Dublin to visit North America in 40 years, he is granted the freedom of Toronto, and The New York Times hails the arrival of a “champion showman.” He often extends a hand of friendship to Britain. He also improves relations between Dublin, until recently the centre of British authority, and the rest of the country. One night Dublin Fire Brigade gets an urgent call for assistance from Clones, County Monaghan. As Lord Mayor, he feels obliged to join the men on top of the fire engine as they set off on the 85-mile journey in the middle of the night.

In August 1936, Byrne addresses the inaugural meeting of the anti-communist Irish Christian Front, some of whose members later express anti-Semitic views. In 1938, as Lord Mayor, he presents a gift of a replica of the Ardagh Chalice to Italian naval cadets visiting Dublin on board two warships, who had been welcomed by the Irish government despite the protests of Dubliners. A photograph exists of Byrne giving a fascist salute along with Eoin O’Duffy, commander of the Blueshirts, around 1933.

In 1954, Byrne is elected as Lord Mayor for a record tenth time. This time he does not live in the Mansion House, but stays in Rathmines with his family, taking the bus to work each morning. He is just as devoted to the job. When flooding damages 20,000 houses in Fairview and North Strand, he rises from his sick bed to organise a relief fund. His final term as Lord Mayor comes to an end in 1955. Shortly afterwards, Trinity College Dublin awards him an honorary Doctorate of Law, describing him as a “champion of the poor and needy, and a friend of all men.”

Byrne dies on March 13, 1956. His funeral is the largest seen in Dublin for many years. The Evening Herald reports that “Traffic in O’Connell Street was held up for almost 20 minutes to allow the cortege of over 150 motor cars to pass, and at all the junctions along the route to Glasnevin people silently gathered to pay tribute to one of Dublin’s most famous sons.” The members of the Dáil stand and observe a short silence as a mark of respect. A telegram is sent to his widow from the Mayor of New York City, Robert F. Wagner Jr., expressing deepest sympathy, and stating “that Ald. Byrne had attained high office of Lord Mayor many times, but he never lost contact with the poor and the underprivileged, whose champion he was.”

The by-election caused by Byrne’s death, is won by his son, Patrick Byrne. Two other sons, A. P. Byrne and Thomas Byrne, are also TDs for various Dublin constituencies. Alfie Byrne Road in Clontarf is named after him. The Dublin Bay North branch of Young Fine Gael is renamed “Alfie Byrne YFG.”


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Death of Owen Roe O’Neill, Member of the O’Neill Dynasty of Ulster

Owen Roe O’Neill, Gaelic Irish soldier and one of the most famous of the O’Neill dynasty of Ulster, dies on November 6, 1649 at the O’Reilly stronghold of Cloughoughter Castle located on an island in Lough Oughter in County Cavan.

O’Neill is the illegitimate son of Art MacBaron O’Neill, a younger brother of Hugh O’Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, who holds lands in County Armagh. His mother is the daughter of Aodh Conallach O’Raghallaigh, the chief of Breifne O’Reilly in County Cavan.

As a young man O’Neill leaves Ireland, one of the ninety-nine involved in the Flight of the Earls escaping the English conquest of his native Ulster. He grows up in the Spanish Netherlands and spends 40 years serving in the Irish regiment of the Spanish army. He sees most of his combat in the Eighty Years’ War against the Dutch Republic in Flanders, notably at the Siege of Arras, where he commands the Spanish garrison. He also distinguishes himself in the Franco-Spanish War by holding out for 48 days with 2,000 men against a French army of 35,000.

O’Neill is, like many Gaelic Irish officers in the Spanish service, very hostile to the English Protestant presence in Ireland. In 1627, he is involved in petitioning the Spanish monarchy to invade Ireland using the Irish Spanish regiments. He proposes that Ireland be made a republic under Spanish protection to avoid in-fighting between Irish Catholic landed families over which of them would provide a prince or king of Ireland. This plot comes to nothing. However in 1642, He returns to Ireland with 300 veterans to aid the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

The subsequent war, known as the Irish Confederate Wars, is part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, civil wars throughout Britain and Ireland. Because of his military experience, O’Neill is recognised on his return to Ireland in July 1642, at Doe Castle in County Donegal, as the leading representative of the O’Neills and head of the Ulster Irish. Sir Phelim O’Neill resigns the northern command of the Irish rebellion in his favour and escorts him from Lough Swilly to Charlemont.

Jealousy between the kinsmen is complicated by differences between O’Neill and the Catholic Confederation which meet at Kilkenny in October 1642. O’Neill professes to be acting in the interest of Charles I, but his real aim is the complete Independence of Ireland as a Roman Catholic country, while the Old English Catholics represented by the council desire to secure religious liberty and an Irish constitution under the crown of England. More concretely, O’Neill wants the Plantation of Ulster overturned and the recovery of the O’Neill clan’s ancestral lands. Moreover, he is unhappy that the majority of Confederate military resources are directed to Thomas Preston‘s Leinster army. Preston is also a Spanish veteran but he and O’Neill have an intense personal dislike of each other.

Although O’Neill is a competent general, he is outnumbered by the Scottish Covenanter army that lands in Ulster in 1642. Following a reverse at Clones, he has to abandon central Ulster and is followed by thousands of refugees, fleeing the retribution of the Scottish soldiers for some atrocities against Protestants in the rebellion of 1641. He does his best to stop the killings of Protestant civilians, for which he receives the gratitude of many Protestant settlers. From 1642–1646 a stalemate exists in Ulster, which he uses to train and discipline his Ulster Army. This poorly supplied force nevertheless gains a very bad reputation for plundering and robbing friendly civilians around its quarters in northern Leinster and southern Ulster.

In 1646 O’Neill, with substantial Gallowglass numbers and additionally furnished with supplies by the Papal Nuncio, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, attacks the Scottish Covenanter army under Major-General Robert Monro, who had landed in Ireland in April 1642. On June 5, 1646 O’Neill utterly routs Monro at the Battle of Benburb, killing or capturing up to 3,000 Scots. However after being summoned to the south by Rinuccini, he fails to take advantage of the victory, and allows Monro to remain unmolested at Carrickfergus.

In March 1646 a treaty is signed between James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond and the Catholics, which would have committed the Catholics to sending troops to aid the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. The peace terms however, are rejected by a majority of the Irish Catholic military leaders and the Catholic clergy including the Nuncio, Rinuccini. O’Neill leads his Ulster army, along with Thomas Preston’s Leinster army, in a failed attempt to take Dublin from Ormond. However, the Irish Confederates suffer heavy military defeats the following year at the hands of Parliamentarian forces in Ireland at Dungan’s Hill and Knocknanauss, leading to a moderation of their demands and a new peace deal with the Royalists. This time O’Neill is alone among the Irish generals in rejecting the peace deal and finds himself isolated by the departure of the papal nuncio from Ireland in February 1649.

So alienated is O’Neill by the terms of the peace the Confederates have made with Ormond that he refuses to join the Catholic/Royalist coalition and in 1648 his Ulster army fights with other Irish Catholic armies. He makes overtures for alliance to George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, who is in command of the parliamentarians in the north, to obtain supplies for his forces, and at one stage even tries to make a separate treaty with the English Parliament against the Royalists in Ireland. Failing to obtain any better terms from them, he turns once more to Ormond and the Catholic confederates, with whom he prepares to co-operate more earnestly when Oliver Cromwell‘s arrival in Ireland in August 1649 brings the Catholic party face to face with serious danger.

Before, however, anything is accomplished by this combination, O’Neill dies on November 6, 1649 at the O’Reilly stronghold of Cloughoughter Castle located on an island in Lough Oughter in County Cavan. There is no clear evidence of the cause of death, with one belief being that he was poisoned by a priest, while others think it is more likely that he died from an illness resulting from an old wound. Under cover of night he is reputed to have been brought to the Franciscan abbey in Cavan town for burial. However some local tradition still suggests that it may have been at Trinity abbey located upon an island in Lough Oughter, which may be more likely given the logistics of his removal. His death is a major blow to the Irish of Ulster and is kept secret for some time.

The Catholic nobles and gentry meet in Ulster in March 1650 to appoint a commander to succeed O’Neill, and their choice is Heber MacMahon, Roman Catholic Bishop of Clogher, the chief organiser of the recent Clonmacnoise meeting. O’Neill’s Ulster army is unable to prevent the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, despite a successful defence of Clonmel by O’Neill’s nephew Hugh Dubh O’Neill and is destroyed at the Battle of Scarrifholis in County Donegal in 1650. Its remnants continue guerrilla warfare until 1653, when they surrender at Cloughoughter Castle in County Cavan. Most of the survivors are transported to serve in the Spanish Army.

In the nineteenth century, O’Neill is celebrated by the Irish nationalist revolutionaries, the Young Irelanders, who see him as an Irish patriot. Thomas Davis writes a famous song about O’Neill, titled “The Lament for Owen Roe” which is popularised in their newspaper, The Nation.

O’Neill has been commemorated in the names of several Gaelic Athletic Association clubs, including Middletown Eoghan Rua Gaelic Athletic Club in County Armagh; CLG Eoghan Rua in Coleraine; St. Oliver Plunketts/Eoghan Ruadh GAA in Dublin, and Brackaville Owen Roes GFC; Owen Roe O’Neill’s GAC in County Tyrone; and the defunct Benburb Eoghan Ruadh GAC.


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Birth of Joseph Finegan, Confederate General

Joseph Finegan, Irish-born American businessman and brigadier general for the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, is born on November 17, 1814 at Clones, County Monaghan. From 1862 to 1864 he commands Confederate forces operating in middle and east Florida, ultimately leading the Confederate victory at the Battle of Olustee, the state’s only major battle.

Finegan comes to Florida in the 1830s, first establishing a sawmill at Jacksonville and later a law practice at Fernandina, where he becomes the business partner of David Levy Yulee and begins construction of the Florida Railroad to speed transportation of goods and people from the new state’s east coast to the Gulf of Mexico.

Finegan’s successes are perhaps attributable to his first marriage on July 28, 1842, to the widow Rebecca Smith Travers. Her sister, Mary Martha Smith, is the wife of Florida’s territorial governor, Robert Raymond Reid, an appointee of President Martin Van Buren. In 1852, he is a member of the Committee of Vigilance and Safety of Jacksonville, Florida.

By the outbreak of the American Civil War, Finegan had built his family a forty-room mansion in Fernandina on the site of the modern Atlantic Elementary School. At Florida’s secession convention, he represents Nassau County alongside James G. Cooper.

In April 1862, Finegan assumes command of the District of Middle and Eastern Florida from Brigadier General James H. Trapier. Soon thereafter, he suffers some embarrassment surrounding the wreck of the blockade runner Kate at Mosquito Inlet (the modern Ponce de Leon Inlet). Her cargo of rifles, ammunition, medical supplies, blankets, and shoes is plundered by civilians. Attempts to recover these items takes months before he issues a public appeal. Eventually, most of the rifles are found, but the other supplies are never recovered. Also in 1862, recognizing the importance of Florida beef to the Confederate cause, he gives cattle baron Jacob Summerlin permission to select thirty men from the state troops under his command to assist in rounding up herds to drive north.

At this time, the principal Confederate military post in east Florida is dubbed “Camp Finegan” to honor the state’s highest-ranking officer. It is about seven miles west of Jacksonville, south of the rail line near modern Marietta.

In 1863, Finegan complains of the large quantity of rum making its way from the West Indies into Florida. Smugglers are buying it in Cuba for a mere seventeen cents per gallon, only to sell it in the blockaded state for twenty-five dollars per gallon. He urges Governor John Milton to confiscate the “vile article” and destroy it before it can impact army and civilian morals.

In February 1864, General P. G. T. Beauregard begins rushing reinforcements to Finegan after Confederate officials become aware of a build-up of Union Army troops in the occupied city of Jacksonville. As Florida is a vital supply route and source of beef to the other southern states, they cannot allow it to fall completely into Union hands.

On February 20, 1864, Finegan stops a Union Army advance from Jacksonville under General Truman Seymour that is intent upon capturing the state capitol at Tallahassee. Their two armies clash at the Battle of Olustee, where Finegan’s men defeat the Union Army and force them to flee back beyond the St. Johns River. Critics have faulted Finegan for failing to exploit his victory by pursuing his retreating enemy, contenting himself by salvaging their arms and ammunition from the battlefield. His victory, however, is one rare bright spot in an otherwise gloomy year for the dying Confederacy.

Some Finegan detractors believe he did little more to contribute to the Confederate victory at Olustee than to shuttle troops forward to General Alfred H. Colquitt of Georgia, whom they credit for thwarting the Union Army advance. They point out that Finegan was quickly relieved of his command over the state troops, replaced by Major General James Patton Anderson. But this change in command is necessary as Finegan is ordered to lead the “Florida Brigade” in the Army of Northern Virginia, where he serves effectively until near the end of the war.

Finegan returns to Fernandina after the war to discover his mansion has been seized by the Freedmen’s Bureau for use as an orphanage and school for black children. It takes some legal wrangling, but he is eventually able to recover this property. He has to sell most of his lands along Lake Monroe to Henry Shelton Sanford for $18,200 to pay his attorneys and other creditors. He does retain a home site at Silver Lake. Adding to his sorrows is the untimely death of his son Rutledge on April 4, 1871, precipitating a move to Savannah, Georgia. There, he feels at home with the large Irish population and works as a cotton broker.

It is while living in Savannah that Finegan marries his second wife, the widow Lucy C. Alexander, a Tennessee belle. They eventually settle on a large orange grove in Orange County, Florida. Finegan dies on October 29, 1885, at Rutledge, Florida. According to the Florida Union, his death is the result of “severe cold, inducing chills, to which he succumbed after brief illness.” The paper describes him as “hearty, unaffected, jovial, clear-headed, and keen-witted.” He is buried at the Old City Cemetery in Jacksonville.


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The Clones Ambush

clones-train-station-11-22-1960On February 11, 1922, Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers stop a group of Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) constables on a train at Clones, County Monaghan, a short distance into Southern territory in an event recorded in history as the “Clones Ambush.” A gunfight begins in which one IRA officer and four USC constables are killed. The remaining USC constables are captured.

On January 22, the Ulster Gaelic Football Final is played in Derry. The previous evening six cars leave Monaghan to bring the Monaghan players to Derry, many of the members of the team being members of the IRA. They are stopped by a B Specials (Ulster Special Constabulary) check point at Dromore station. After a search the Specials discover weapons in the cars and arrest ten of the men. The IRA men are led by Dan Hogan O/C of the Fifth Northern Division. The men are taken to Omagh and interned.

The IRA waits impatiently for a chance at reprisal and on February 11, a group of Irish Republican Army volunteers attempt to ambush a party of Ulster Special Constabulary policemen travelling on a train through Clones. The volunteers enter a carriage of a train and order the Specials to put their hands up. IRA Commandant Matthew Fitzpatrick is shot and killed in the ensuing fight and five members of the Specials, Doherty, McMahon, McCullough, Lewis and McFarland are shot and killed. Several members of the Specials run down the track and cross the border into Fermanagh. The few remaining B Specials on the train decide to surrender and are arrested.

The IRA lifts the body of the Commandant Fitzpatrick and it is attended to by Monsignor E.C. Ward who gives him his Last Rites.

The Clones railway station is on the Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway. The Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway opens the station on June 26, 1858. The station closes on October 1, 1957.

(Photo: Clones Train Station, Co Monaghan, caught in mid-demolition by photographer James O’Dea on November 22, 1960)


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Death of Confederate General Joseph Finegan

Joseph Finegan, Irish-born American businessman and brigadier general for the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, dies on October 29, 1885, in Rutledge, Florida.

Finegan is born November 17, 1814 at Clones, County Monaghan. He comes to Florida in the 1830s, first establishing a sawmill at Jacksonville and later a law practice at Fernandina Beach. At the latter place, he becomes the business partner of David Levy Yulee and begins construction of the Florida Railroad to speed transportation of goods and people from the new state’s east coast to the Gulf of Mexico.

By the outbreak of the American Civil War, Finegan has built his family a forty-room mansion in Fernandina Beach at the site of the modern Atlantic Elementary School. At Florida’s secession convention, Finegan represents Nassau County alongside James Graham Cooper.

In April 1862, Finegan assumes command of Middle and East Florida from Brigadier General James H. Trapier. Soon thereafter, he suffers some embarrassment surrounding the wreck of the blockade runner Kate at Mosquito Inlet. Her cargo of rifles, ammunition, medical supplies, blankets, and shoes is plundered by civilians. Eventually, most of the rifles are found, but the other supplies are never recovered.

In 1863, Finegan complains of the large quantity of rum making its way from the West Indies into Florida. Smugglers are buying it in Cuba for a mere seventeen cents per gallon, only to sell it in the blockaded state for twenty-five dollars per gallon. He urges Governor John Milton to confiscate the “vile article” and destroy it before it can impact army and civilian morals.

In February 1864, General P.G.T. Beauregard begins rushing reinforcements to Finegan after Confederate officials become aware of a build-up of Federal troops in the occupied city of Jacksonville. As Florida is a vital supply route and source of beef to the other southern states, they can not allow it to fall completely into Union hands.

On February 20, 1864, Finegan stops a Federal advance from Jacksonville under General Truman Seymour that is intent upon capturing the state capitol at Tallahassee. Their two armies clash at the Battle of Olustee, where Finegan’s men defeat the Union Army and force them to flee back beyond the St. Johns River. Critics have faulted Finegan for failing to exploit his victory by pursuing his retreating enemy, contenting himself by salvaging their arms and ammunition from the battlefield. However, his victory is one rare bright spot in an otherwise gloomy year for the dying Confederacy.

Finegan is relieved of his command over the state troops and replaced by Major General James Patton Anderson. This change in command is necessary as Finegan is ordered to lead the “Florida Brigade” in the Army of Northern Virginia, where he serves effectively until near the end of the war.

Finegan returns to Fernandina Beach after the war to discover his mansion has been seized by the Freedmen’s Bureau for use as an orphanage and school for black children. It took some legal wrangling, but he is eventually able to recover the property. The untimely death of his son Rutledge on April 4, 1871, precipitates a move to Savannah, Georgia. There, Finegan feels at home with the large Irish population and works as a cotton broker.

It is while living in Savannah that Finegan marries his second wife, the widow Lucy C. Alexander, a Tennessee belle. They eventually settle on a large orange grove in Orange County, Florida. Finegan dies on October 29, 1885, at Rutledge, Florida. According to The Florida Times-Union, his death is the result of “severe cold, inducing chills, to which he succumbed after brief illness.” He is buried at the Old City Cemetery in Jacksonville.


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Barry McGuigan Wins the World Featherweight Boxing Title

barry-mcguiganFinbar Patrick McGuigan, known as Barry McGuigan and nicknamed The Clones Cyclone, wins the World Boxing Association featherweight title on June 8, 1985, defeating Eusebio Pedroza in a unanimous 15-round decision at Loftus Road soccer stadium in London.

Barry McGuigan, the son of singer Pat McGuigan, is born in Clones, County Monaghan. He represents Northern Ireland in the Commonwealth Games at Edmonton in 1978 and represents Ireland at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

After a successful juvenile boxing career, McGuigan begins his professional boxing career on May 10, 1981, beating Selwyn Bell by knockout in two rounds in Dublin. He wins four out of five additional bouts in 1981. In 1982, McGuigan wins eight fights, seven by knockout, although one of these almost destroys his career and his life. Opposed by Young Ali, on June 14, 1982, McGuigan wins by a knockout in six rounds. Ali falls into a coma and dies five months later.

In 1985, McGuigan meets former world featherweight champion Juan Laporte and wins a 10-round decision. Following one more win, he finally gets his world title attempt when the long reigning WBA featherweight champion, Eusebio Pedroza of Panama, comes to London to put his title on the line at Loftus Road soccer stadium. McGuigan becomes the champion by dropping Pedroza in the seventh round and winning a unanimous fifteen-round decision in a fight refereed by hall of fame referee Stanley Christodoulou. McGuigan and his wife are feted in a public reception through the streets of Belfast that attracts several hundred thousand spectators. Later that year, he is named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, becoming the first person not born in the United Kingdom to win the award.

McGuigan twice successfully defends his title, first against American Bernard Taylor, who is stopped in nine  rounds, and then against Dominican Danilo Cabrera in a controversial knock out in fourteen rounds. The fight is stopped after Cabrera bends over to pick up his mouthpiece after losing it, a practice that is allowed in many countries but not in Ireland. Cabrera is not aware of this, and the fight is stopped.

McGuigan’s next defence takes place in Las Vegas in June 1986, where he faces the relatively unknown Steve Cruz of Texas, in a gruelling 15-round title bout under a blazing sun. McGuigan holds a lead halfway through, but suffers dehydration due to the extreme heat and wilts near the end, being dropped in the tenth and fifteenth rounds. He eventually loses the world title, which he never reclaims, in a close decision. After the fight McGuigan requires hospitalisation because of his dehydrated state.

McGuigan retires after the fight but returns to the ring between 1988 and 1989, beating former world title challengers Nicky Perez and Francisco Tomas da Cruz, as well as contender Julio César Miranda, before losing to former EBU featherweight champ and future WBC and WBA super featherweight challenger Jim McDonnell by a technical knockout. After the McDonnell fight he permanently retires from boxing. His record is 32 wins and 3 losses, with 28 knockouts. In January 2005, McGuigan is elected into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

McGuigan founds and is the current President of the Professional Boxing Association (PBA). He is also the CEO and founder of Cyclone Promotions.