Irish nationalist Thomas Kent is executed at Cork Detention Barracks on May 9, 1916. Kent’s story is one of the stranger episodes that happens after the rebellion in Dublin has been quelled. Unlike the Dublin rebels, Kent does not go out to fight. Rather the British come to him looking for trouble.
The Kent family is prepared to take part in the Easter Rising but when the mobilisation order is countermanded by Eoin MacNeill, commander of the Irish Volunteers, on April 22, they stay at home. The rising nevertheless goes ahead in Dublin on Easter Monday. The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) is dispatched to arrest well-known sympathizers throughout the country including, but not limited to, known members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Sinn Féin, and the Irish Volunteers.
When the Kent residence is raided at 3:45 AM on May 2, the RIC is met with resistance from Thomas and his brothers Richard, David, and William. A gunfight lasts for four hours, during which RIC officer Head Constable William Rowe is killed and David Kent is seriously wounded. Eventually the Kents are forced to surrender, although Richard makes a last-minute dash for freedom and is fatally wounded.
Thomas and William are tried by court martial on May 4 on a charge of “armed rebellion.” William, who is not political, is found innocent, but Thomas is found guilty in the death of Constable Rowe and is sentenced to death. Before being led out for his execution, Kent says, “I have done my duty as a soldier of Ireland and in a few moments, I hope to see the face of God.” He is executed by firing squad in Cork in the early morning hours of May 9. David Kent is brought to Dublin where he is charged with the same offence, found guilty, and sentenced to death, but the sentence is commuted, and he is sentenced to five years penal servitude.
Apart from the singular case of Roger Casement, Thomas Kent is the only person outside of Dublin to be executed for his role in the events surrounding Easter Week. He is buried on the grounds of Cork Prison, formerly the Military Detention Barracks at the rear of Collins Barracks, Cork. The former army married quarters at the rear of Collins Barracks are named in his honour.
TaoiseachEnda Kenny offers a state funeral to the Kent family early in 2015 which they accept. Kent’s remains are exhumed from Cork prison in June 2015 after being buried for 99 years. The state funeral is held on September 18, 2015, at St. Nicholas’ Church in Castlelyons. Kent lay in state at Collins Barracks in Cork the day before. The requiem mass is attended by President Michael D. Higgins, with Enda Kenny delivering the graveside oration.
The RMS Titanic arrives at Queenstown, known today as Cobh, in County Cork on April 11, 1912, at 11:30 AM. The ship, on her maiden and only voyage, anchors two miles offshore at Roches Point as the port cannot accommodate a ship of its size. Queenstown is the last port of call for RMS Titanic prior to her transatlantic crossing.
Tenders are necessary to ferry goods and passengers from ship to shore and vice versa. One hundred twenty-three passengers are waiting on the White Star Line pier to board the tenders Ireland and America. Of the 123 passengers, three are traveling first class, seven are traveling second class, and the remainder are traveling third class (steerage). Seven passengers disembark at Queenstown.
After the passengers board, the tenders proceed to the deep-water quay to load 1,395 sacks of mail as well as many emigrants. The two tenders travel out to the anchored RMS Titanic to offload the mail.
At 1:30 PM, with all passengers and mail now on board, RMS Titanic gives three mighty blasts of her whistles signaling she is now ready to depart. The anchors are raised, and the engines slowly turn over. The ship makes a graceful turn to starboard and heads back out into the Irish Sea destined for her next port of call, New York City, where she is scheduled to arrive early the following Wednesday morning.
Of the 123 passengers who embark at Queenstown, only 44 survive the disaster of the horrible night of April 15, 1912.
(Pictured: The RMS Titanic as she departs Queenstown, quite possibly the last photograph ever taken of the liner)
Of Irish descent, Donovan is born in Buffalo, New York, to first generation immigrants Anna Letitia “Tish” Donovan (née Lennon) of Ulster and Timothy P. Donovan of County Cork. His grandfather, Timothy O’Donovan, Sr., is from the town of Skibbereen, and marries Mary Mahoney, who belongs to a propertied family of substantial means who disapprove of him. They move first to Canada and then to New York, where their son Timothy, Jr., Donovan’s father, attempts to engage in a political career but with little success.
William attend St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute and Niagara University before starring on the football team at Columbia University, where he earns the nickname “Wild Bill”, which remains with him for the rest of his life. He graduates from Columbia in 1905. He then attends and graduates from Columbia Law School, after which he becomes an influential Wall Street lawyer.
In 1912, Donovan forms and leads a troop of cavalry of the New York National Guard, which is mobilized in 1916 and serves on the U.S.-Mexico border during the American government’s campaign against Pancho Villa.
During World War I, Major Donovan organizes and leads the 1st battalion of the 165th Regiment of the 42nd Division. For his service near Landres-et-St. Georges, France, on October 14-15, 1918, he receives the Medal of Honor. By the end of the war, he receives a promotion to colonel, as well as the Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart.
Donovan serves as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York from 1922 to 1924. Due to his energetic enforcement of Prohibition in the United States, there are a number of threats to assassinate him and to dynamite his home, but he is not deterred. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge names Donovan to the United States Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division as a deputy assistant to Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. Donovan runs unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor of New York (1922) and for Governor of New York (1932) as a Republican.
During the years between the world wars, Donovan earns the attention and friendship of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although the two men were from opposing political parties, they were very similar in personality. In 1940 and 1941, Donovan traveled as an informal emissary to Britain, where he is urged by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Roosevelt to gauge Britain’s ability to withstand Germany’s aggression. During these trips Donovan meets with key officials in the British war effort, including Winston Churchill and the directors of Britain’s intelligence services. Donovan returns to the U.S. confident of Britain’s chances and enamored of the possibility of founding an American intelligence service modeled on that of the British.
On July 11, 1941, Donovan is named Coordinator of Information (COI) where he is to oversee America’s foreign intelligence organizations which, at the time are fragmented and isolated from each other. He is plagued over the course of the next year with jurisdictional battles as few of the leaders in the intelligence community are willing to part with any of their power. Nevertheless, Donovan begins to lay the groundwork for a centralized intelligence program.
In 1942, the COI becomes the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Donovan is returned to active duty in the U.S. Army. He is promoted to brigadier general in March 1943 and to major general in November 1944. Under his leadership the OSS eventually conducts successful espionage and sabotage operations in Europe and parts of Asia. By 1943, relations with the British are becoming increasingly strained, partly due to British concerns that OSS operations are sometimes regarded as ill-disciplined and irresponsibly managed. MI6 chief Stewart Menzies is extremely hostile towards the idea of OSS operations anywhere in the British Empire and categorically forbids them to operate within the U.K.
After the end of World War II and the death of President Roosevelt in early April 1945, Donovan’s political position is substantially weakened as he finds himself opposed by President Harry S. Truman, J. Edgar Hoover, and others. Truman disbands the OSS in September 1945 and Donovan returns to civilian life. Several departments of the OSS survive the dissolution and, less than two years later, the Central Intelligence Agency is founded.
Donovan does not have an official role in the newly formed CIA, but he is instrumental in its formation. His opinions meet strong opposition from the State, War, and Navy Departments, as well as J. Edgar Hoover. President Truman is also unenthusiastic about some of Donovan’s arguments, but he prevails, and they are reflected in the National Security Act of 1947 and the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949.
After the end of the war ended, Donovan returns to his lifelong role as a lawyer and serves as special assistant to chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in Germany. On August 3, 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower appoints Donovan Ambassador to Thailand, and he serves in that capacity from September 4, 1953, until his resignation on August 21, 1954.
Donovan dies from complications of vascular dementia on February 8, 1959, at the age of 76, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery. President Eisenhower remarks, “What a man! We have lost the last hero.”
Roach is born on December 25, 1815, at Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, the first of seven children to Patrick Roche, a retail salesman, and his wife Abigail Meany. In 1832, at the age of sixteen, he emigrates together with his cousin to the United States. Arriving in New York City, he is at first unable to find regular work, but eventually gains secure employment at the Howell Works of James P. Allaire on the recommendation of a former employee of his father.
In 1852, after 20 years in the employment of Allaire, Roach and three partners purchase the Etna Iron Works, a small New York City ironworks which has fallen into receivership. Roach soon becomes sole proprietor, and during the American Civil War transforms the Etna Iron Works into a major manufacturer of marine engines. He continues to prosper after the war and in 1867 he purchases the Morgan Iron Works on New York’s East River and relocates his business there.
In 1871, Roach purchases the Reaney, Son & Archbold shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania, which has fallen into receivership and renames it the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works. This becomes his main facility. Over the next few years, he founds a network of new companies in Chester to support the shipyard’s operations. To give his sons a stake in the business, Roach founds the firm of John Roach & Sons, which becomes the overall parent and marketing company. He also attempts to create his own shipping line with the establishment of the United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company, but this venture is a costly failure.
From 1871 until 1885, John Roach & Sons is easily the largest and most productive shipbuilding firm in the United States, building more tonnage of ships than its next two chief competitors combined. In the mid-1880s the firm runs into trouble when a series of U.S. Navy contracts become the subject of political controversy. Roach signed the contracts under a Republican administration, but when the Democratic administration of Grover Cleveland comes to power, it voids one of the contracts. Doubts over the validity of the remaining three contracts make it impossible for John Roach & Sons to obtain loans and, in 1885, the Roach shipbuilding empire is forced into receivership.
During the contract disputes, Roach falls ill with a chronic mouth infection which is diagnosed as cancer in 1886. Roach undergoes surgery in the spring of 1886, but it provides only temporary relief. He dies at the age of 71 on January 10, 1887, while his business is still in the hands of receivers. Roach’s eldest son, John Baker Roach, assumes control of the business which continues for another 20 years, although it never regains the pre-eminent position in American shipbuilding that it had enjoyed under Roach Sr.
During its existence between 1871 and 1907, the shipyard established by Roach builds 179 iron ships, 98 under Roach’s own management and an additional 81 under that of John Baker Roach.
The explosion and resulting fire claim the lives of 50 people including 42 French nationals, 7 Irish nationals, and 1 United Kingdom national. Only 27 bodies are recovered. A further fatality occurs during the salvage operation with the loss of a Dutch diver.
On November 24, 1978, the Betelgeuse leaves Ras Tanura in the Persian Gulf bound for Leixões, Portugal, with a full cargo of crude oil. Originally the Betelgeuse is to call at Sines, Portugal, to lighten the load of the ship but poor weather conditions prevent the vessel from entering the harbour. Plans are further frustrated at Leixões as a ship has run aground across the harbour entrance preventing the Betelgeuse from berthing there to discharge her cargo. The Betelgeuse is then instructed to sail for Whiddy Island, Ireland.
The Betelgeuse first puts in at Vigo, Spain, to change some of her crew and then sails for Whiddy Island on December 30, 1978. During the passage the vessel encounters heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay and, after reporting a leakage of oil, is instructed to head towards Brest, France, at reduced speed. However, the origin of the leak is discovered and stopped. The vessel proceeds on its original planned course, arriving in Bantry Bay on January 4, 1979.
On the evening of January 6, 1979, the Betelgeuse has completed berthing at the offshore jetty in around 98 feet of water. At 11:30 PM the vessel commences discharging its 114,000 tonnes of mixed Arabian crude oil. This process is expected to take about 36 hours.
At about 1:00 AM on Monday, January 8, a rumbling noise is heard from the vessel followed shortly by a huge explosion within its hull. The force of the explosion blows men from the jetty into the sea. Local residents report seeing the Betelgeuse engulfed in a ball of fire a few moments later. A series of further explosions follow, breaking the vessel in half. Much of the oil cargo still on board ignites. The concrete unloading jetty crumbles and firefighters, arriving on the scene from several neighbouring towns, are unable to get near the vessel. The firefighters concentrate their efforts on preventing the fire from spreading to the tanks of the storage farm and on containing the oil spillage.
About 12 hours after the explosion the Betelgeuse sinks at her moorings in 130 feet of water, which largely extinguishes the main body of the fire. In spite of this, rescue workers are not able to approach the wreck for two weeks due to clouds of toxic and inflammable gas surrounding it. After two weeks, it is possible to start recovering bodies from the wreck and pumping off the remainder of the oil cargo that is still on board.
A number of memorial services have been held to commemorate anniversaries of the incident. A memorial sculpture, incorporating the ship’s bell which was recovered from the wreck, has been erected in the hillside graveyard overlooking the harbor. The bodies of two unidentified casualties from the incident are interred nearby.
seamus dubhghaill 