The son of a coach maker, Tone studies law and is called to the Irish bar in 1789 but soon gives up his practice. In October 1791 he helps found the Society of United Irishmen, initially a predominantly Protestant organization that works for parliamentary reforms, such as universal suffrage and Roman Catholic emancipation. In Dublin in 1792 he organizes a Roman Catholic convention of elected delegates that force Parliament to pass the Catholic Relief Act of 1793. Tone himself, however, is anticlerical and hopes for a general revolt against religious creeds in Ireland as a sequel to the attainment of Irish political freedom.
By 1794, he and his United Irishmen friends begin to seek armed aid from Revolutionary France to help overthrow English rule. After an initial effort fails, Tone goes to the United States and obtains letters of introduction from the French minister at Philadelphia to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris. In February 1796 Tone arrives in the French capital, presents his plan for a French invasion of Ireland, and is favourably received. The Directory then appoints one of the most brilliant young French generals, Lazare Hoche, to command the expedition and makes Tone an adjutant in the French army.
On December 16, 1796, Tone sails from Brest with 43 ships and nearly 14,000 men. The ships are badly handled and, after reaching the coast of west Cork and Kerry, are dispersed by a storm. Tone again brings an Irish invasion plan to Paris in October 1797, but the principal French military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, takes little interest. When insurrection breaks out in Ireland in May 1798, Tone can only obtain enough French forces to make small raids on different parts of the Irish coast. In September he enters Lough Swilly, County Donegal, with 3,000 men and is captured there.
At his trial in Dublin on November 10, 1798, he defiantly proclaims his undying hostility to England and his desire “in fair and open war to produce the separation of the two countries.” He is found guilty and is sentenced to be hanged on November 12. Early in the morning of the day he is to be hanged, Tone cuts his throat with a penknife.
Theobald Wolfe Tone dies of his self-inflicted wound on November 19, 1798, at the age of 35 in Provost’s Prison, Dublin, not far from where he was born. He is buried in Bodenstown, County Kildare, near his birthplace at Sallins, and his grave is in the care of the National Graves Association.
The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare on June 18, 1264, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature. There is some evidence to suggest that the word “parliament” may have been in use as early as 1234.
There is nothing new about parliamentary assemblies in Ireland. The Normans, who begin to settle in Ireland in 1169, are the first to give Ireland a centralised administration. The Irish legal system and courts of law are, in large measure, inherited from them. So too is the Irish legislature which is directly descended from the parliament which develops in medieval Ireland.
The Parliament of Ireland is formally founded in 1297 by the Justiciar, Sir John Wogan, to represent the Irish and Anglo-Norman population of the Lordship of Ireland. It exists in Dublin from 1297 until 1800 and is comprised of two chambers – the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Lords consists of members of the Irish peerage and the bishops (after the Reformation, Church of Ireland bishops), while the Commons is directly elected, albeit on a very restricted franchise.
The main purpose of parliament is to approve taxes that are then levied by and for the Lordship of Ireland. Those who pay the bulk of taxation, the clergy, merchants, and landowners, naturally comprise the members. In 1541 the parliament votes to create the Kingdom of Ireland.
Over the centuries, the Irish parliament meets in a number of locations both inside and outside Dublin. The first meeting at Castledermot in June 1264 takes place some months earlier than the first English Parliament containing representatives of towns and cities. However, this Irish Parliament is a meeting of Irish nobles and bishops, not representatives of Irish people. Later, in the 15th century, Irish parliaments began to invite representatives of the people.
After attending Newbridge College, Moore works as a bank employee and has a desire to express himself using traditional music. During a twelve-week bank strike in 1966, he goes to England, as do many striking officials, but he does not return when the strike is settled. Doing general labouring work, he frequents the folk clubs and the Irish music pubs where he meets Séamus Ennis, Margaret Barry, Luke Kelly, Martin Byrnes, and many other traditional musicians.
Moore’s first album, Paddy on the Road, a minor release of 500 copies, is recorded with Dominic Behan in 1969. In 1972, his first major release, Prosperous, brings him together with three musicians, Liam O’Flynn, Andy Irvine, and Dónal Lunny, who shortly thereafter form the Irish folk music band Planxty. For a short time, they called themselves “CLAD,” an acronym of their names, but soon decide on Planxty.
After leaving Planxty in 1975, Moore continues his solo career, reforming his old band on occasion. He also forms the band Moving Hearts with Lunny and five other musicians in 1980. In 1987, he appears on Gay Byrne‘s The Late Late Show performing with The Dubliners for their 25th anniversary. In 2000, he publishes his autobiography, One Voice.
Moore’s earlier years of heavy drinking, sleeping dysfunctional hours, continual traveling, and often eating takeout foods results in a decline in health and several operations. Moore’s battle with alcohol and subsequent heart operations takes their toll. At the end of the 1990s, Moore reduces his workload for medical reasons.
Moore releases his first new studio album in four years on April 17, 2009, entitled Listen, and promotes it through a series of live gigs. In December 2011, he releases the album, Folk Tale. His most recent album, Where I Come From, is released in November 2013 and features a new protest song called Arthur’s Day. The album peaks at No. 3 on the Irish album charts.
Moore is best known for his political and social commentary which reflects a left-wing, Irish republican perspective, despite the fact that his mother was a Fine Gael county councillor and parliamentary candidate in Kildare. He supports the republican H-Block protestors with the albums H-Block in 1978, the launch of which is raided by the police, and The Spirit of Freedom. He also records songs by hunger striker Bobby Sands, including Back Home in Derry. Moore ceases support of the military activities of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1987 as a result of the Enniskillen bombing.
Political songs Moore has performed throughout his career include Mick Hanly’s On the Blanket about the protests of republican prisoners, Viva la Quinta Brigada about Irish volunteers who fought against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and Minds Locked Shut about Bloody Sunday in Derry.
Joyce is born on February 2, 1882, in the wealthy Rathgar suburb of Dublin. The family is initially well off as Dublin merchants with bloodlines that connected them to old Irish nobility in the country. James’ father, John Stanislaus Joyce, is a fierce Irish Catholic patriot and his political and religious influences are most evident in Joyce’s two key works A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ulysses (1922).
The Joyce family is repeatedly forced to move to more modest residences due to their steadily diminishing wealth and income. John Joyce’s habitual unemployment as well as his drinking and spending habits make it difficult for the Joyces to retain their social standing. As a young man, Joyce is sent away to the renowned Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare in 1888, a Jesuit institution regarded as the best preparatory school in Ireland. The Clongowes school figures prominently in Joyce’s work, specifically in the story of his recurring character Stephen Dedalus. Joyce earns high marks both at the Clongowes School and at Belvedere College in Dublin where he continues his education. At this point in his life, it seems evident that Joyce is to enter the priesthood, a decision that would please his parents. However, as Joyce makes contact with various members of the Irish Literary Renaissance, his interest in the priesthood wanes. Joyce becomes increasingly critical of Ireland and its conservative elements, especially the Church.
Against his mother’s wishes, Joyce leaves Ireland in 1902 to pursue a medical education in Paris and does not return until the following year upon receiving news of his mother’s debilitation and imminent death. After burying his mother, Joyce continues to stay in Ireland, working as a schoolteacher at a boys’ school, another autobiographical detail that recurs in the story of Stephen Dedalus. After barely spending a year in Dublin, Joyce returns to the Continent, drifting in and out of medical school in Paris before taking up residence in Zurich. It is during this period that Joyce begins writing professionally.
In 1905, Joyce completes a collection of eight stories entitled Dubliners, although it is not actually printed until 1913. During these frustrating and impoverished years, Joyce heavily relies upon the emotional support of Nora Barnacle, his unmarried Irish lover, as well as the financial support of his younger brother, Stanislaus Joyce. Both Nora and Stanislaus remain as protective, supporting figures for the duration of Joyce’s life. During the eight years between Dubliners‘ completion and publication, Joyce and Barnacle have two children, a son named Giorgio, and a daughter named Lucia.
Joyce’s next major work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, appears in serialized form in 1914 and 1915. Joyce is “discovered” by Ezra Pound and the complete text is printed in New York City in 1916, and in London in 1917. It is with the assistance of Pound, a prominent literary figure of the time, that Joyce comes into contact with Harriet Shaw Weaver, who serves as both editor and patron while Joyce writes Ulysses.
When Ulysses is published in Paris in 1922, many immediately hail the work as genius. With his inventive narrative style and engagement with multiple philosophical themes, Joyce has established himself as a leading Modernist. The novel charts the passage of one day, June 16, 1904, as depicted in the life of an Irish Jew named Leopold Bloom, who plays the role of a Ulysses by wandering through the streets of Dublin. Despite the fact that Joyce is writing in self-imposed exile, living in Paris, Zurich, and Trieste while writing Ulysses, the novel is noted for the incredible amount of accuracy and detail regarding the physical and geographical features of Dublin.
Similar in theme to Joyce’s previous works, Ulysses examines the relationship between the modern man and his myth and history, focusing on contemporary questions of Irish political and cultural independence, the effects of organized religion on the soul, and the cultural and moral decay produced by economic development and heightened urbanization. While Joyce is writing it, there is serious doubt as to whether Ulysses will be completed. Midway through his writing, Joyce undergoes the first of eleven eye operations to salvage his ever-worsening eyesight. At one point, a disappointed Joyce casts the bulk of his manuscript into the fire, but Nora Barnacle immediately rescues it.
While Ulysses is hailed by some, the novel is banned in both the United Kingdom and the United States on obscenity charges. It is not until 1934 that Random House wins a court battle that grants permission to print and distribute Ulysses in the United States. The novel is legalized in Britain two years later.
By this time, Joyce is approaching the end of his public career and has concluded work on his final novel, Finnegan’s Wake (1939). Considered to be far more baffling and convoluted than Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake is a critical failure. At the outbreak of World War II, Joyce remains in Paris until he is forced to move, first to Vichy, and then to Switzerland. On January 13, 1941, Joyce dies of a stomach ulcer at the age of 58 and is buried in Zurich’s Fluntern Cemetery.
seamus dubhghaill 