Fallon is born at Holles Street Hospital, Dublin, on January 30, 1939, the third of six sons of Padraic Fallon, the Irish poet and playwright, and Dorothea Maher. The family moves to Clonard, County Wexford, where he grows up. He has three surviving brothers, Brian, Ivan and Padraic, who have all had journalism careers. His early interest in literature and the arts is nourished by his father and elder brothers, and by contact with the cultured circle of writers, artists, musicians and intellectuals within which his father moves.
Fallon is educated at St. Peter’s College, Wexford, and Trinity College, Dublin. He begins painting in 1957 while at Trinity College, where he is studying natural science but is advised to pay more attention to his art. His interest in painting is probably inspired by the example of Tony O’Malley, a close family friend. As a compromise with his father, who does not see his talent, he also studies accountancy at night.
Largely self-taught in painting, he learns fundamentals of technique from Richard Kingston, to whom he is introduced by O’Malley. He largely paints landscapes in acrylic and gouache, in a manner heavily influenced by that of Jack Butler Yeats.
In 1964, Fallon visits O’Malley in St. Ives, Cornwall, where he had emigrated several years earlier, intending also to meet the Cornish abstract landscape painter Peter Lanyon, the chief creative force in the thriving artists’ colony centred on St. Ives. His arrival, however, coincides with Lanyon’s death from injuries suffered in a gliding accident. A gently sympathetic stranger amid the bereaved artistic community, he finds an immediate empathy and rapport with Nancy Wynne-Jones, a Welsh-born painter sixteen years his senior who had studied under Lanyon. They marry in 1966. They adopt two children in 1970, siblings John and Bridget.
Encouraged to take up sculpture, English sculptor Denis Mitchell becomes Fallon’s mentor in Cornwall, and with Breon O’Casey, he develops his sculpting. He becomes notable for his cast steel and bronze work, especially birds, horses and hares. He has his first solo exhibition in Newlyn in 1972, showing both painting and sculpture.
In May 1972, Fallon moves with his family back to Ireland, settling at Scilly House, on a hillside overlooking the harbour at Kinsale, County Cork. Removed from any centre of artistic activity, he devotes himself fulltime to a solitary development of his sculpture, refining his methodology and technique, and his skills in working various metals, beginning in 1974 to work in steel. In 1975, he first exhibits in Ireland at a solo show at the Emmet Gallery, Dublin, again showing both painting and sculpture, including his first steel sculptures to be exhibited.
Beginning in 1983, Fallon exhibits regularly with the Taylor Galleries, Dublin. Desiring closer proximity to Dublin art activities, and with their children attending university in the city, Fallon and his wife move in 1987 to Ballard House, Ballinaclash, Rathdrum, County Wicklow.
In the summer of 2007, some six months after his wife’s death, Fallon wis diagnosed with advanced metastatic lung cancer. He dies on October 3, 2007, at the Blackrock Clinic, County Dublin, and is buried beside his wife in Ballinatone churchyard, Greenan, Rathdrum, County Wicklow.
Cosgrove is the son of Michael and Mary Cosgrove. He has four brothers, Dan, Ned, David and Joseph, and a sister Mary-Catherine. While they are still young their father emigrates to Australia, but later returns. In the meantime, his mother moves with his siblings to a cottage in nearby Peafield and they attend school at the National School, Ballinrostig. He begins work as an apprentice butcher at Whitegate. One of his daily chores is a morning delivery to Fort Carlisle (now Fort Davis) with a consignment of meat for the troops. It is from Fort Carlisle that he joins the army.
Cosgrove enlists in the Royal Munster Fusiliers on March 24, 1909, and is given the regimental number 8980. At the outbreak of war, the 1st Battalion of the Munster Fusiliers is stationed in Rangoon, Burma, as regular battalions are routinely stationed overseas. They leave Rangoon on November 21, 1914, and Cosgrove, now a corporal, lands in England on January 10, 1915. Upon landing they still wear their Indian issue uniforms and stand on the cold quay in their khaki drill shorts. The battalion is then assigned to the 86th Brigade of the 29th Division (United Kingdom), in preparation for the landings at the Dardanelles in Turkey.
During the Battle of Gallipoli, Turkey, the 1st Munsters, together with the 1st Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers and Royal Hampshire Regiment, are on the converted collier River Clyde when it runs ashore for the Cape Helles ‘V’ beach landing at 6:20 a.m. on April 25, 1915. On departing from the ship’s bay they are subject to fierce enfilading machine gun fire from hidden Turkish defences. One hundred or more of the Battalion’s men fall at this stage of the battle, with just three companies of Munsters making it to the shelter of the dunes. They are unable to advance due to the withering Turkish fire.
At daybreak on the following day it is decided to take the village behind the Sedd el Bahr fort overlooking the bay. Cosgrove leads a company section during the attack on the Turkish positions. Barbed wire holds them up and he sets himself the task of pulling the stanchion posts of the enemy’s high wire entanglement single-handed out of the ground, notwithstanding the terrific fire from both front and flanks with officers and men falling all around him. Thanks to his exceptional bravery, his heroic actions contribute greatly to the successful clearing of the heights. Turkish counter-attacks are held off. It is during this attack that his actions earn him the regiment’s first Victoria Cross of the war. He is also wounded during this action. Promoted to Sergeant, he sees no further action due to his wound, which is a contributing factor in his death years later.
Cosgrove transfers to the Royal Fusiliers in 1918, to the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment in 1920, the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in 1922, and later goes as an instructor to the Indian Territorial Force in 1928 to become 7042223 Staff Sgt Instructor. He comes home in 1935 pending discharge to pension. However, he is admitted to Millbank hospital and takes discharge before he is fit. After a short leave in Cork, he returns to London, where he is admitted to Middlesex Hospital. He is later transferred to Millbank hospital London, where he dies at the age of 47 on July 21, 1936.
In 1972, Cosgrove’s Victoria Cross medal is sold for a record price £2,300 to a private collector. When questioned about the high price which the medal fetches, the auctioneer replies “When one buys a gallantry medal, it is not just the medal one buys, but the act that won it.” His Victoria Cross, together with his other medals, are sold at an auction by Dix Noonan Webb held on September 22, 2006 for “the world’s most valuable auction of orders, decorations and medals.” A total of £1,965,010 is spent by 305 different buyers, a figure which represents “the highest amount ever realised by any numismatic auction in the UK.” The day’s highest price, £180,000, is paid by a collector for the Gallipoli landings Victoria Cross group of six, which includes the medal awarded to Sgt. William Cosgrove, Royal Munster Fusiliers.
Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant, commonly known as the Ulster Covenant, is signed by nearly 500,000 people on and before September 28, 1912, in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill introduced by the British Government in the same year.
The Covenant has two basic parts: the Covenant itself, which is signed by men, and the Declaration, which is signed by women. In total, the Covenant is signed by 237,368 men; the Declaration, by 234,046 women. Both the Covenant and Declaration are held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). An online searchable database is available on the PRONI website.
In January 1913, the Ulster Volunteers aim to recruit 100,000 men between the ages of 17 and 65 who had signed the Covenant as a unionist militia. A British Covenant, similar to the Ulster Covenant in opposition to the Home Rule Bill, receives two million signatures in 1914.
The majority of the signatories of the Covenant are from Ulster, although the signing is also attended by several thousand southern unionists. Acknowledging this, Carson pays tribute to “my own fellow citizens from Dublin, from Wicklow, from Clare [and], yes, from Cork, rebel Cork, who are now holding the hand of Ulster,” to cheers from the crowd.
The signature of Frederick Hugh Crawford is claimed by him to have been written in blood. However, this is disputed. Based on the results of a forensic test that he carries out in September 2012 at PRONI, Dr. Alastair Ruffell of Queen’s University Belfast asserts that he is 90% positive that the signature is not blood. Crawford’s signature is injected with a small amount of luminol. This substance reacts with iron in blood’s hemoglobin to produce a blue-white glow. The test is very sensitive and can detect tiny traces even in old samples. Crawford’s signature is still a rich red colour today which would be unlikely if it had been blood. Nevertheless, some unionists are not convinced by the evidence.
The Ulster Covenant is used as a template for the “Natal Covenant,” signed in 1955 by 33,000 British-descended Natalians against the nationalistSouth African government’s intention of declaring the Union a republic. It is signed in Durban‘s City Hall. Loosely based on Belfast’s Ulster Covenant, the Ulster scene is almost exactly reproduced.
September 28 is today known as “Ulster Day” to unionists.
(Pictured: Sir Edward Carson signing the Solemn League and Covenant)
O’Grady’s father is the Reverend Thomas O’Grady, the scholarly Church of Ireland minister of Castletown Berehaven, County Cork, and his mother Susanna Doe (or Dowe). The Glebe, his childhood home, lies a mile west of Castletownbere near a famine mass grave and ruined Roman Catholic chapel. He is a cousin of Standish Hayes O’Grady, another noted figure in Celtic literature, and of Standish O’Grady, 1st Viscount Guillamore. After a rather severe education at Tipperary Grammar School, he follows his father to Trinity College, Dublin, where he wins several prize medals and distinguishes himself in several sports.
O’Grady is a paradox for his times, proud of his Gaelic heritage, he is also a member of the Church of Ireland, a champion of aristocratic virtues (particularly decrying bourgeois values and the uprooting cosmopolitanism of modernity) and at one point advocates a revitalised Irish people taking over the British Empire and renaming it the Anglo-Irish Empire.
O’Grady proves too unconventional of mind to settle into a career in the church, and takes a job as a schoolmaster at Midleton College, then in a period of expansion. He also qualifies as a barrister, while earning much of his living by writing for the Irish newspapers. Reading Sylvester O’Halloran’s A general history of Ireland (1778) sparks an interest in early Irish history. After an initial lukewarm response to his writing on the legendary past in History of Ireland: The Heroic Period (1878) and Early Bardic Literature of Ireland (1879), he realises that the public wants romance, and so follows the example of James Macpherson in recasting Irish legends in literary form, producing historical novels including Finn and his Companions (1891), The Coming of Cuculain (1894), The Chain of Gold (1895), Ulrick the Ready (1896) and The Flight of the Eagle (1897), and The Departure of Dermot (1913).
O’Grady also studies Irish history of the Elizabethan period, presenting in his edition of Sir Thomas Stafford‘s Pacata Hibernia (1896) the view that the Irish people had made the Tudors into kings of Ireland to overthrow their unpopular landlords, the Irish chieftains. His The Story of Ireland (1894) is not well received, as it sheds too positive a light on the rule of Oliver Cromwell for the taste of many Irish readers. He is also active in social and political campaigns in connection with such issues as unemployment and taxation.
Until 1898, O’Grady works as a journalist for the Daily Express of Dublin, but in that year, finding Dublin journalism in decline, he moves to Kilkenny to become editor of the Kilkenny Moderator, which is printed at 28 High Street. It is here he becomes involved with Ellen Cuffe, Countess of Desart, and Captain Otway Cuffe. He engages in the revival of the local woolen and woodworking industries. In 1900 he founds the All-Ireland Review and returns to Dublin to manage it until it ceases publication in 1908. He also contributes to James Larkins‘ The Irish Worker paper.
O’Grady’s influence crosses the divide of the Anglo-Irish and Irish-Ireland traditions in literature. His influence is explicitly stated by the Abbey Theatre set with Lady Gregory, W. B. Yeats and George William Russell attributing their interest in the Fenian Cycle of Gaelic tradition in part to him. This leads to him being known as the “Father of the Celtic Revival.” Some of the figures associated with the political party Sinn Féin, including its founder Arthur Griffith, have positive things to say about his efforts in helping to retrieve from the past the Gaelic heroic outlook.
O’Grady marries Margaret Allen Fisher, daughter of William Allen Fisher, and they have three sons. Advised to move away from Ireland for the sake of his health, they leave Ireland in 1918. After living in the north of France and Northamptonshire, they move to the Isle of Wight. He is working on a final exposition of his ideas when he dies suddenly on May 18, 1928.
Patrick Anthony HennessyRHA, Irish realist painter known for his highly finished still lifes, landscapes and trompe-l’œil paintings, is born in Cork, County Cork, on August 28, 1915. The hallmark of his style is his carefully observed realism and his highly finished surfaces, the result of a virtuoso painting technique.
Hennessy is the son of John Hennessy an army sergeant major from County Kerry and Bridget Hennessy from Cork. His father is killed in World War I at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. In 1921, when he is five years old, his mother remarries in Cork. Her second husband is a Scot named John Duncan and shortly afterwards the whole family moves to Arbroath, Scotland, where Duncan has relatives.
Hennessy is educated in Arbroath at St. Thomas RC Primary School followed by secondary education at Arbroath High School, where he begins to show an aptitude for art, leaving in 1933 with the Dux for Art and an accompanying medal. In the autumn of 1933 he enrolls at the Dundee of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, for a four-year Diploma course in Drawing and Painting under James McIntosh Patrick and Edward Baird. Here he meets Harry Robertson Craig who becomes his lifelong companion. He plays a full part in the social activities of the college, winning a fancy-dress award at the Christmas revels in 1935 and producing a ballet “Paradise Lost” the following year. He gains a First-Class Pass in each year of the course along with winning first prize in 1934 and 1936 for work done during the summer vacation. He graduates with a First-Class Distinction in 1937.
Having gained a scholarship, Hennessy continues his studies at the Dundee of Jordanstone College of Art & Design for a further year by doing a Post-Graduate Diploma course in Drawing and Painting. Within a month of gaining his Post-Graduate Diploma he holds his first joint exhibition at the Art Galleries in Arbroath. In June 1938 he is awarded the Annual Travelling Scholarship for further studies in Paris and Italy. In Paris he meets up with the artists Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, whom he had met the previous year, the three travelling south together to Marseilles towards the end of that year. On his return to Scotland he is selected for the residential summer school course at Hospitalfield House near Arbroath under James Cowie. Two of his paintings, a still life and a self-portrait, are accepted that year by the Royal Scottish Academy for their Annual Exhibition. However, by the autumn of 1939 with war looming and feeling somewhat disenchanted on his return to Scotland, he decides to return to Ireland.
On arrival in Dublin Hennessy is offered an exhibition in December 1939 at the Country Shop on St. Stephen’s Green which is opened by Mainie Jellett. This attracts favourable attention. During the early 1940s he lives at various addresses in and around Dublin with frequent trips to Cork. In 1940 he is invited to join the Society of Dublin Painters and holds regular annual exhibitions of his work there during the 1940s and early 1950s. These exhibitions are supplemented by an eclectic mix of commissions, mostly portraits which he undertakes during this period. In 1941 he has three of his paintings accepted by the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) for their annual exhibition. This is the beginning of a long relationship with the RHA. He exhibits there virtually every year from 1941 until 1979, the year before his death.
From the early 1940s onwards, Hennessey’s work sometimes incorporates a homosexual visual subtext. He re-unites with Harry Robertson Craig in 1946 and soon after they move to Crosshaven, County Cork, and later to Cobh. In 1947, Time magazine selects him as one of Ireland’s outstanding painters, in recognition of the important position he has then attained in the art world. In 1948 he has an exhibition at the Victor Waddington Gallery, Dublin, and that same year is elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy and a full member the following year. In 1950 his painting De Profundis is selected for the Contemporary Irish Painting exhibition that tours North America. As a result of this tour, the American public and critics begin to take notice of his work. In 1951 he visits Italy, taking in Venice and Sicily and returning to Dublin with many of his canvases painted abroad. One of these paintings, Bronze Horses of St. Marks, is exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1954.
In 1956, a friend of Hennessy, David Hendriks, opens the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery on St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin and it is this gallery that is to be the main outlet for his work over the following 22 years. In October 1956 the Thomas Agnew Gallery in London holds an exhibition of his work comprising 38 of his paintings. However, during the winter of 1959 he becomes seriously ill with pneumonia. As a consequence of this, in the autumn of that year he and Craig decide to winter in Morocco. This is the beginning of a new era in both their lives. They would never again spend a full year in Ireland. His exhibitions at the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery had for many years enjoyed favourable reviews from the art critics but in the 1960s this changes with critics claiming his paintings to be dull, repetitive and suggest he needs to explore new areas. Despite the barrage of criticism, in 1965 the Guildhall Gallery in Chicago offers him a major exhibition. Shortly after this exhibition takes place in 1966, he becomes one of the artists on permanent display at the gallery with an annual exhibition. The North American market is extremely lucrative for him and by the end of the decade he is selling more of his work in the United States than in Ireland. In 1968 he finally moves to Tangier, Morocco on a permanent basis and in 1970 sells his studio on Raglan Lane, Dublin.
In Morocco, Hennessy paints prolifically for nine years to keep up with demand from the Hendriks Gallery and Guildhall Gallery along with the RHA. In 1975 the Guildhall Gallery mounts a highly successful Retrospective of his work. In 1978 he has his last exhibition in Dublin at the Hendriks Gallery. By this time he has moved to the Algarve, Portugal and is beginning to have health problems.
In November 1980, with his health deteriorating, Craig brings Hennessy to a hospital in London for treatment. However, on December 30, 1980 he dies from cancer. Following cremation his ashes are buried in nearby Golders Green Crematorium. He leaves his entire estate to Harry Robertson Craig with the proviso that on Craig’s death the Royal Hibernian Academy should be the beneficiary. This legacy has been used to set up the annual Hennessy Craig Scholarship for aspiring artists.
Hennessy falls into the category of painter who develops a distinctive personal style, labelled at various times in his life as a Traditional Realist, Romantic, Photo Realist, Illusionary and Surrealist. However, he always remains intrinsically himself. His subjects range from still life and interiors to landscapes and portraits.
Dillon is born in Glanmire, County Cork, in 1830. As a child, he is injured in a heavy fall which results in curvature of the spine and general ill health. His family moves to a house near the corner of Old Youghal Road and Ballyhooly Road. He attends the School of Art for several years and becomes quite talented with brush and pencil. He lives through the Great Famine and becomes an ardent nationalist.
Dillon is appointed a Fenian leader in Cork by James Stephens, the head of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Under his supervision the Fenian recruits drill on the Fair Field and at Rathpeacon and are hoping for a rebellion in 1865 when the Fenians are at their strongest. He often associates with other Cork Fenians such as John J. Geary, James Mountaine and John Lynch. He chairs the Fenian meetings at Geary’s pub.
In September 1865, police arrest Fenian leaders James Stephens and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in Dublin, and Dillon in Cork. The police search his home and find a pair of field glasses, some drawings and some incriminating letters sewn into the mattress of his bed. He is remanded in Cork City Gaol until his trial.
On December 18, Dillon and another Cork Fenian, John Lynch, are tried together in the dock in Cork Courthouse by Judge Keogh. The charges are primarily based on information provided by an informer named John Warner, an ex-military pensioner. Isaac Butt and Mr. Waters represent the defendants. The charges are “in one indictment with having conspired to depose the Queen, &c., and with illegally drilling and being drilled in furtherance of that design.” Both are found guilty, based primarily on the testimony of informants, although John Warner’s account is very weak and unsatisfactory under cross-examination. The defendants are sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude.
Dillon is brought under armed guard by train from Cork to Dublin and then thrown into Mountjoy Gaol. He spends nearly a month there and suffers from lack of sleep. In January 1866, he and John Sarsfield Casey are handcuffed together on the tough and rough sea crossing between Kingstown and Holyhead. On arrival at Holyhead, they are then taken by train to Pentonville Prison. This is a very cold prison, and he becomes seriously ill in May 1866. He is transferred to the hospital wing of Woking Convict Invalid Prison, and this is to be his home for the next four-and-a-half years. Here he becomes Convict Number 2658.
In 1870, after five years imprisonment, a commission is set up to investigate the Fenian prisoners, and on account of his bad health, this commission recommends that Dillon be allowed home to Cork. In January 1871 he is transferred to Millbank PrisonLondon and is set free two weeks later on February 8. The following day he arrives in Dublin and after a few days’ rest, he returns to Cork by train. All along the route thousands of people wait on the platforms to greet him and read special addresses of welcome. The train reaches Cork at 8:00 p.m. and even though a carriage and pair are waiting, he is glad to seek refuge in the first covered car he can find, so dense is the crowd all around him wanting to shake his hand. The triumphal procession from the station to his home then begins and the hills all along the route are lighted with tar barrels.
Amid emotional scenes Dillon meets his family and afterwards appears at one of the windows of the house and thanks the people of Ireland for the great reception he has received everywhere on his journey home to Cork. He is now in very poor health and his mother begins the task of nursing him back to health. Everything that loving care and money could do is done, and from New York comes a cheque for £50 from the generous-hearted O’Donovan Rossa. Other friends also contribute, but all to no avail. On Saturday, August 17, 1872, he dies at his home surrounded by his sorrowing relatives.
Dillon’s funeral is one of the biggest ever seen in Cork. The cortege is headed by the Barrack Street Band, and at least ten other bands take part. All have their instruments dressed in sombre black. On Monday, August 18, his remains are privately borne to St. Joseph’s cemetery, to a temporary resting place, as it has been decided to build a vault in the family burial ground in Rathcooney which will not be ready for a few days. Later the funeral route travels from Turners Cross along Anglesea Street, South Mall, Grand Parade, Patrick Street, McCurtain Street and St. Luke’s. The funeral procession stops outside his home and prayers are recited for the repose of his soul. The procession then moves on toward Ballyvolane and up the steep hill toward the graveyard at Rathcooney. On arrival at the newly built tomb, so dense is the crowd milling around the hearse that considerable difficulty is experienced in getting the coffin to the grave. The priests then read the burial service, and, in a hushed silence, Canon Freeman asks the entire assembly to kneel and recite the Lord’s Prayer aloud. He blesses the grave, and the mortal remains of Brian Dillon are lowered to rest. The coffin is then covered, and after Colonel Ricard O’Sullivan Burke‘s oration, the crowd quietly disperses.
Today Dillon’s name is inscribed in the National Monument on the Grand Parade and in street names like Dillon’s Cross, Brian Dillon Park and Brian Dillon Crescent. The Brian Dillons GAA club in the same area of Cork city is also named after him.
The Electricity Supply Board (ESB; Irish: Bord Soláthair an Leictreachais), a state-owned electricity company operating in the Republic of Ireland, is established on August 11, 1927, by the fledgling Irish Free State government under the Electricity (Supply) Act 1927, to manage Ireland’s electricity supply after the successful Shannon hydroelectric scheme at Ardnacrusha and take over all existing projects for the electrification of Ireland. While historically a monopoly, the ESB now operates as a commercial semi-state concern in a “liberalised” and competitive market. It is a statutory corporation whose members are appointed by the government of Ireland.
The Shannon hydroelectric scheme at Ardnacrusha is Ireland’s first large-scale electricity plant and, at the time, it provides 80% of the total energy demands of Ireland. To give an idea of the growth in demand, the output of Ardnacrusha is now approximately two per cent of national peak demand for power.
By 1937, plans are being finalised for the construction of several more hydroelectric plants. The plans called for stations at Poulaphouca, Golden Falls, Leixlip (all in Leinster), Clady, Cliff and Cathaleen’s Fall (between Belleek and Ballyshannon in County Donegal), Carrigadrohid and Inniscarra (in County Cork). All these new plants are completed by 1949 and together harness approximately 75% of Ireland’s inland waterpower potential. Many of these plants are still in operation, however, as can be expected with continuing growth in demand, their combined capacity falls far short of Ireland’s modern needs.
With Ireland’s towns and cities benefiting from electricity, the new government pushes the idea of Rural Electrification. Between 1946 and 1979, the ESB connects in excess of 420,000 customers in rural Ireland. The Rural Electrification Scheme is described as “the Quiet Revolution” because of the major socio-economic change it brings about. The process is greatly helped in 1955 by the Electricity Supply Amendment Act, 1955.
In 1947, the ESB, needing ever more generation capacity, builds the North Wall station on a 7.5-acre site in Dublin‘s industrial port area on the north side of the River Liffey on the site of an old oil refinery. The original station consists of one 12.5 MW steam turbine that is originally purchased for a power station at Portarlington but instead used at North Wall. Other power stations built around this time include the peat fired stations at Portarlington, County Laois, and Allenwood, County Kildare.
Because of the risks of becoming dependent on imported fuel sources and the potential for harvesting and utilising indigenous peat, the ESB – in partnership with Bord na Móna – establishes those stations and ESB also builds Lanesboro power station in 1958. Located in County Longford, the plant burns peat, cut by Bord na Móna in the bogs of the Irish midlands. In 1965, the Shannonbridge station, located in County Offaly, is commissioned. The two stations have been replaced by new peat-fired stations near the same locations, and peat is also used to power the independent Edenderry Power Station in County Offaly.
As in most countries, energy consumption is low at night and high during the day. Aware of the substantial waste of night-time capacity, the ESB commissions the Turlough Hillpumped-storage hydroelectric station in 1968. This station, located in County Wicklow, pumps water uphill at night with the excess energy created by other stations, and releases it downhill during the day to turn turbines. The plant can generate up to 292 MW of power, but output is limited in terms of hours because of the storage capacity of the reservoir.
The 1970s bring about a continued increase in Ireland’s industrialisation and with it, a greater demand for energy. This new demand is to be met by the construction of the country’s two largest power stations – Poolbeg Generating Station in 1971 and Moneypoint Power Station in 1979. The latter, in County Clare, remains Ireland’s only coal-burning plant and can produce 915 MW, just shy of the 1015 MW capacity of Poolbeg. In 2002 and 2003, new independent stations, Huntstown Power (north Dublin) and Dublin Bay Power (Ringsend, Dublin), are constructed.
In 1991, the ESB establishes the ESB Archive to store historical documents relating to the company and its impact on Irish life.
On September 8, 2003, two of the last remaining places in Ireland unconnected to the national grid – Turbot Island and Inishturk Island (off the coast of County Galway)- are finally connected to the main supply. Some islands are still powered by small diesel-run power stations.
Sixty wind farms are currently connected to the power system and have the capacity to generate 590 MW of power, depending on wind conditions. These wind farms are mainly owned by independent companies and landowners.
On March 16, 2005, the ESB announces that it is to sell its ShopElectric (ESB Retail) chain of shops, with the exception of the Dublin Fleet Street and Cork Academy Street outlets, to Bank of Scotland (Ireland), converting them into main street banks. Existing staff are offered positions as bank tellers.
On March 27, 2008, the ESB announces a €22bn capital investment programme in renewable energy technology, with the aim to halve its carbon emissions within 12 years and achieve carbon net-zero by 2035.
Initially acting part-time with the Cork Shakespearean Company and at the Cork Opera House, by 1947 Lynch is acting full-time.
Lynch is a founding member of the Radio Éireann Players and appears in productions of Teresa Deevy plays among others. During the 1950s he is responsible for a Radio Éireann show Living with Lynch, broadcast on Sunday nights, the first comedy series on Radio Éireann. Between 1967–81, he acts onstage with the Abbey Theatre.
In 1962, and again in 1977, Lynch wins a Jacob’s Award for his acting on RTÉ television.
By 1979, Lynch is back in Ireland, and makes his first appearances as Dinny Byrne in the RTÉ soap Bracken. Later the Byrne character would feature in the long-running RTÉ soap Glenroe.
Lynch quits Glenroe after he claims to have been “shamefully treated” and offered “small potatoes” when he asked for a pay rise. He is also upset that he is not to get a pension. RTÉ disputes those claims. He criticised RTÉ for preventing him from doing other acting work alongside Glenroe. “I was terrible restricted in RTÉ, they wouldn’t let me off for anything, even commercials.”
Lynch voices the main antagonist, Grundel the Toad, in the Don Bluth film Thumbelina, his final audio work before his death seven years later.
Lynch dies suddenly on August 1, 2001, in Alicante, Spain, where he had been living since leaving Glenroe.
In September 1966, Coveney goes to work in the English-language section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. This sometimes involves acting as interpreter at audiences of Pope Paul VI, as when the Pope receives the three astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission that first lands human beings on the Moon.
Coveney serves with the rank of Secretary in the Apostolic Nunciature in Buenos Aires from 1972 to 1976, returning then to the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. He is counselor of the nunciatures in New Delhi (1982–1984) and Khartoum (1984–1985).
On January 25, 1990, Coveney is appointed Nuncio to Ethiopia and also becomes Apostolic Delegate to Djibouti on March 26, 1992, and Nuncio to Eritrea on September 30, 1995.
Coveney becomes Apostolic Nuncio to New Zealand, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, and Samoa, and Apostolic Delegate for Oceania on hpril 27, 1996. His remit is expanded to include Apostolic Nuncio to Fiji, Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Vanuatu on October 15, 1996, and Apostolic Nuncio to Nauru on December 7, 1996. He is also named Apostolic Nuncio to the Cook Islands and Palau on July 14, 2001. As the longest-serving resident diplomatic representative to New Zealand, Archbishop Coveney serves for a time as Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. While based in Wellington, he also represents the Holy See at the inauguration of Chen Shui-bian as president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) on May 18, 2004.
Coveney’s last diplomatic appointment is as Apostolic Nuncio to Greece on January 25, 2005. On November 5, 2008, he officiates at the presentation to the Acropolis Museum in Athens of a fragment of the Parthenon Frieze on loan from the Vatican Museums. He resides in Athens until his retirement in 2009.
Coveney returns to the Diocese of Cork and Ross to reside in Crosshaven Parish. He assists in Crosshaven parish and celebrates the Sacrament of Confirmation in many parishes throughout the Diocese of Cork and Ross. He dies at the age of 88 on October 22, 2022.
Armstrong is the second surviving son of William Jones Wright Armstrong of County Armagh and Frances Elizabeth, widow of Sir Michael McCreagh, and daughter of Major Christopher Wilson. He is educated at The Royal School, Armagh and Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining a BA (2nd Class Law Tripos) in 1867 and an MA in 1870. Admitted at the Inner Temple in 1866, he is called to the Bar in 1868.
In 1883, Armstrong marries Margaret Leader, daughter of William Leader of Rosnalea, County Cork. They have five sons and three daughters, of whom C. W. Armstrong also becomes a politician.
Armstrong is returned unopposed to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom for Mid Armagh in a by-election in 1921, at the advanced age of 76, becoming one of the oldest first-time MPs whose birth date is recorded. Certainly, he immediately becomes the oldest member of the current House of Commons. He is a Senator of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1937, and Lord Lieutenant of Armagh from 1924 to 1939. For 25 years he is a member of the Representative Body of the Church of Ireland. He is Chairman of the County Armagh Education Committee from 1925 to 1931, and President of the Association of Education Committees of Northern Ireland. In 1932 he is made a Privy Councillor for Northern Ireland, and in 1938 he serves as a Justice for the Government of Northern Ireland in the absence of the Governor.
Armstrong dies at the age of 99 on December 4, 1943, at his home in Dean’s Hill, County Armagh.
seamus dubhghaill 