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Tag Archives: County Kildare


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Birth of Valentine Browne Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry

Valentine Browne Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry, Irish peer, politician and landowner, is born in Merrion Square in Dublin on August 19, 1773.

Lawless is the only surviving son of Nicholas Lawless, wool merchant, brewer, and banker, who becomes 1st Baron Cloncurry in 1789, and Margaret Lawless (née Browne), only daughter and heiress of Valentine Browne of Mount Browne, County Limerick. He is educated privately at Portarlington, Queen’s County (now County Laois), and at Blackrock, County Dublin. He enters Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1789, graduating BA in 1792. After completing a tour of Europe (1792–95) he returns to Ireland, where he joins the Society of United Irishmen and the loyalist yeomanry. Pressurized by his father, he decides to study law, and is at Middle Temple from 1795 to 1798. He later claims that at a dinner party in the spring of 1797 he hears the prime minister, William Pitt, discuss his plans for a legislative union with Ireland, prompting him to write an anti-union pamphlet in response. Like many of the claims in his published recollections, the story is unreliable.

During 1797 Lawless helps Arthur O’Connor form his United Irishman newspaper The Press, and Leonard McNally informs Dublin Castle that Lawless is its principal shareholder. In October 1797 Lawless attends a meeting of the executive directory of the United Irishmen, of which he is elected a member. Throughout this period and after his return to London he is carefully watched by the British secret service. His friendship with O’Connor, and the fact that he provides funds for Fr. James Coigly, arouse deep suspicion. After the outbreak of open rebellion in Ireland he is arrested at his lodgings in Pall Mall on May 31, 1798, on suspicion of high treason, and imprisoned for six weeks in the Tower of London. Arabella Jefferyes, sister of the Earl of Clare, apparently tries to extort money from Lawless in return for pleading his case to the Duke of Portland. He refuses the offer. On his release he tours England on horseback but is rearrested on April 14, 1799, and held until March 1801. His father votes for the Act of Union, hoping to secure his son’s release, and dies on August 28, 1799. Lawless succeeds him as 2nd Baron Cloncurry. His grandfather and his fiancée, Mary Ryal, also die while he is imprisoned.

Embittered by his experience, Lawless tours the Continent from 1801 to 1805 before returning to his family estate at Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare. Throwing himself into improving his estates and into local concerns, he founds the County Kildare Farming Society in 1814. He is also involved in canal developments and agricultural improvements in the country. Opposed to the rural constabulary bill of 1822, he supports Catholic emancipation and the attempts of Daniel O’Connell to repeal the Act of Union. He breaks with O’Connell in the 1830s when his friend, Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, is viceroy, because he believes repeal can now be achieved through official means. The rift is never healed.

In 1831, Lawless is admitted to the Privy Council of Ireland (PC) and an English peer but rarely attends the House of Lords. Involved in anti-tithe campaigns, he retires from politics in 1840. Travelling on the Continent in 1841 and 1842, he returns to defend O’Connell’s planned Clontarf meeting in the privy council but refuses to attend any further meetings after his advice on dealing with the Great Famine is ignored in 1846. In 1849 he publishes his personal reminiscences, which appear to have been ghost-written.

Lawless’s health begins to fail in 1851. He dies at the older family home, Maretimo House, Blackrock, on October 28, 1853, and is buried in the family vault at Lyons Hill.

Lawless first marries Elizabeth Georgiana, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Morgan, at Rome on April 16, 1803. They have one son and one daughter. The marriage ends in divorce in 1811 after her adultery with Sir John Piers. In 1811, he then marries Emily, daughter of Archibald Douglas of England, and widow of Joseph Leeson. They have two sons and a daughter. The elder son, Edward, succeeds as 3rd Baron Cloncurry. He commits suicide in 1869 by throwing himself out of a third-floor window at Lyons Hill. The younger, Cecil-John, is an MP, but catches a chill at his father’s funeral and dies on November 5, 1853.

(From: “Lawless, Valentine Browne” by Patrick M. Geoghegan, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Lyons House, Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare)


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The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) is Established

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 Hill pumped-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.


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Death of Richard Davis Webb, Publisher & Abolitionist

Richard Davis Webb, Irish publisher and abolitionist, dies on July 14, 1872.

Webb is born in 1805 in the Cornmarket, Dublin, the eldest of seven sons of James Webb and Deborah Webb (née Sparrow), who own a linen business. He is educated in Quaker schools at Mountmellick, County Laois, and at Ballitore, County Kildare, where he becomes friendly with Mary Leadbeater, sister of the influential schoolmaster Abraham Shackleton. Schoolfellows include James Haughton and Jonathan Pim.

In 1837, Webb is one of three founding members, with James Haughton and Richard Allen, of the Hibernian Antislavery Association. This is not the first antislavery association, but it is acknowledged to be the most active and considered the most ardent abolitionists in Europe. Allen serves as the secretary of this association.

Webb marries Hannah Waring, and they have four children: Alfred, Richard, Deborah and Anne. He and his two sons, Alfred and Richard, are regular correspondents with the American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.

Webb is one of the few Irish delegates at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London which attracts hundreds from the United States. The Irish delegation includes Webb, Richard Allen and Daniel O’Connell. In 1846, he attends another world convention in London. This time the subject is temperance, and his fellow delegate Richard Allen is one of the speakers. He meets the American delegates Wendell Phillips and his wife Ann, with Ann reporting how they are particularly impressed by Webb.

When the famous Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass visits Ireland it is Webb who is responsible for setting up his speaking engagements and also organising the printing of Douglass’s book, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Douglass is one of the many visitors who stay in Webb’s Dublin home.

Webb was notable in Douglass’s regard for the arguments that he and Webb have. Douglass feels that white abolitionists would prefer to be hypocritical than be racist and would try not to disagree with him face to face. Webb shows no such false regard, and they argue as equals in a way that Douglass hopes would be a precursor of the relationships that might exist across the races when slavery ends in the United States. Webb, however, quickly comes to distrust and dislike Douglass and his associates.

In 1852 Webb prints and publishs the elaborate Transactions of the Central Relief Committee, compiled by Jonathan Pim. This deals with the relief operations in Ireland in which Quakers had been involved throughout the Great Famine of the 1840s, and also includes statistics and recommendations for reforms. He helps Quaker efforts to provide food for the poor in Ireland, and in April and May 1847 he travels on fact-finding missions in Connacht for the Yearly Meeting. His contributions to Quaker historiography include his edition of Mary Leadbetter’s The Leadbetter Papers, which he prints, and which is published in London (1862). Also, in 1862 he publishes Betsy Shackleton’s Ballitore Seventy Years Ago. He frequently publishes comments on Irish conditions and politics in The Manchester Guardian and elsewhere.

Webb’s commitment to the causes in which he believes so strongly end only with his death on July 14, 1872. He is buried in Temple Hill graveyard, Blackrock, County Dublin.


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Death of Thomas Francis Meagher

Thomas Francis Meagher, Irish nationalist and leader of the Young Irelanders in the Rebellion of 1848, drowns on July 1, 1867, after falling overboard from the steamboat G. A. Thompson into the Missouri River.

Meagher is born on August 3, 1823, at Waterford, County Waterford, in what is now the Granville Hotel on the Quay. He is educated at Roman Catholic boarding schools. When he is eleven, his family sends him to the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare. It is at Clongowes that he develops his skill of oratory, becoming at age 15 the youngest medalist of the Debating Society. After six years, he leaves Ireland for the first time, to study in Lancashire, England, at Stonyhurst College, also a Jesuit institution. He returns to Ireland in 1843, with undecided plans for a career in the Austrian army, a tradition among a number of Irish families.

Meagher becomes a member of the Young Ireland Party in 1845 and in 1847 is one of the founders of the Irish Confederation, dedicated to Irish independence. In 1848 he is involved, along with William Smith O’Brien, in an abortive attempt to mount an insurrection against English rule. Arrested for high treason, he is condemned to death, but his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment in Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania.

Meagher escapes in 1852 and makes his way to the United States. After a speaking tour of U.S. cities, he settles in New York City, studies law and is admitted to the bar in 1855. He soon becomes a leader of the Irish in New York and, from 1856, edits the Irish News.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Meagher becomes a captain of New York volunteers and fights at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. He then organizes the Irish Brigade, and in February 1862 is elevated to the rank of brigadier general. After his brigade is decimated at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, he resigns his commission, however in December he returns to command the military district of Etowah, with headquarters at Chattanooga, Tennessee.

At the close of the war, Meagher is appointed secretary of Montana Territory where, in the absence of a territorial governor, he serves as acting governor.

In the summer of 1867, Meagher travels to Fort Benton, Montana, to receive a shipment of guns and ammunition sent by General William Tecumseh Sherman for use by the Montana Militia. On the way to Fort Benton, the Missouri River terminus for steamboat travel, he falls ill and stops for six days to recuperate. When he reaches Fort Benton, he is reportedly still ill.

Sometime in the early evening of July 1, 1867, Meagher falls overboard from the steamboat G. A. Thompson, into the Missouri River. His body is never recovered. Some believe his death to be suspicious and many theories circulate about his death. Early theories included a claim that he was murdered by a Confederate soldier from the war, or by Native Americans. In 1913 a man claims to have carried out the murder of Meagher for the price of $8,000 but then recants. In the same vein, American journalist and novelist Timothy Egan, who publishes a biography of Meagher in 2016, claims Meagher may have been murdered by Montana political enemies or powerful and still active vigilantes. On the frontier men are quick to kill rather than adjudicate. A similar theory shown on Death Valley Days (1960) has him survive the assassination attempt because his aide had been mistakenly murdered when he accepted one of his trademark cigars, and Meagher uses his apparent death as leverage over his political opponents.


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Repeal of the Declaratory Act 1719

The Declaratory Act 1719, which had given Great Britain the right to legislate for Ireland and had denied the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords, is repealed on June 21, 1782.

An Act for the better securing the dependency of the Kingdom of Ireland on the Crown of Great Britain (long title) is an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain which declares that it has the right to pass laws for the Kingdom of Ireland, and that the British House of Lords has appellate jurisdiction for Irish court cases. It becomes known as the Declaratory Act, and opponents in the Irish Patriot Party refer to it as the Sixth of George I, from the regnal year it is passed. Legal and political historians have also called it the Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act 1719 or the Irish Parliament Act, 1719. Prompted by a routine Irish lawsuit, it is aimed at resolving the long-running dispute between the British and the Irish House of Lords as to which is the final court of appeal from the Irish Courts. Along with Poynings’ Law, the Declaratory Act becomes a symbol of the subservience of the Parliament of Ireland, and its repeal is long an aim of Irish statesmen, which is finally achieved for Anglican Irish as part of the Constitution of 1782.

In 1709, the Irish Court of Exchequer hears a lawsuit between Maurice Annesley and his cousin Hester Sherlock over which of them have the right to possession of certain lands at Naas, County Kildare. The court finds in Annesley’s favour. Mrs. Sherlock appeals to the Irish House of Lords which upholds her appeal. Annesley then invokes the long-disputed jurisdiction of the British House of Lords to hear appeals from the Irish courts, and that house pronounces in his favour. The Court of Exchequer duly complies with the decree of the British House, but Mrs. Sherlock appeals again to the Irish house, which orders the Barons of the Exchequer to comply with its own decree and, when they refuse, imprison them for contempt of Court. The political uproar is out of all proportion to the importance of the lawsuit itself.

The bill has its second reading in the Commons on March 4, 1719, where it is chiefly opposed on the grounds that it appears to have no purpose beyond increasing the power of the House of Lords. Other objections include an argument that the preamble and the enacting section of the bill are contradictory, and that Ireland has historically had an independent judiciary. It is supported by Joseph Jekyll and Philip Yorke, and carries 140 votes to 83. It is then passed on March 26, 1719.

Section I of the Act notes that the Irish House of Lords had recently “assumed to themselves a Power and Jurisdiction to examine, correct and amend” judgements of the Irish courts, which it holds to be illegal. As such, it declares that the Kingdom of Ireland is subordinate to and dependent upon the British crown, and that the King, with the advice and consent of the Parliament of Great Britain, has “full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient validity to bind the Kingdom and people of Ireland.” Section II declares that the House of Lords of Ireland has no jurisdiction to judge, affirm or reverse any judgement, sentence or decree made in any court within the Kingdom of Ireland, and that all proceedings before the House upon any such matter are declared to be null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.

The Irish House of Lords is understandably infuriated by the curtailment of its powers, and the Barons of the Exchequer, though they are soon released from custody, are subject to intense vilification. While many people think that the Irish House of Lords had brought about the crisis by its own high-handed behaviour, the “Sixth of George I” remains a source of grievance for decades.

The Declaratory Act 1719 provides a model for the American Colonies Act 1766, which is also known as the “Declaratory Act” and is a similar source of grievance in the Thirteen Colonies. The British defeat in the subsequent American Revolutionary War prompts a more conciliatory tone towards Ireland, and the Declaratory Act 1719 is repealed in its entirety when the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782 receives royal assent on June 21, 1782.


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Death of Bill O’Herlihy, Broadcaster & Public Relations Executive

Bill O’Herlihy, Irish television broadcaster and public relations executive, dies in Dublin on May 25, 2015. He is best known for his broadcasts for Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), primarily in the sporting arena.

Born and raised in Glasheen in Cork, County Cork, O’Herlihy is the son of a local government official and the grandson of William O’Herlihy, a news editor for The Cork Examiner. He is educated at Glasheen boys’ national school and later at St. Finbarr’s College, Farranferris.

After finishing his schooling at fifteen, O’Herlihy follows his grandfather into journalism and secures a job in the reading room of The Cork Examiner. He is only seventeen years-old when he subsequently becomes sub-editor of the Evening Echo, a position he holds for five years. He also graduates to the positions of news, features and sports reporter.

In the early 1960s O’Herlihy begins his broadcasting career when he starts to do local association football reports from Cork for Radio Éireann. In 1965, he makes his first television broadcast in a programme commemorating the sinking of the RMS Lusitania off the Cork coast. After three years O’Herlihy is asked to join RTÉ’s current affairs programme 7 Days to add the required field-reporting skills to the studio-based interviews. The programme has a reputation for its hard-hitting investigative reporting, and he reports on many varying stories from illegal fishing in Cork to the outbreak of the crisis in Northern Ireland. In November 1970, the 7 Days programme comes into controversy when O’Herlihy reports a story on illegal money lending. The report is unconventional as it is one of the first television pieces to use hidden cameras, it claims the government is not responding to illegal moneylending. A tribunal of inquiry follows, and O’Herlihy is forced to move away from current affairs.

Following this controversy, while O’Herlihy is not sacked as he has fifteen months left on his contract with RTÉ, he is moved to the RTÉ Sports department. There he works under Michael O’Hehir, who dislikes him and his broadcasting style. In spite of this O’Herlihy fronts RTÉ’s television coverage of the Olympic Games that year. He also becomes involved in the production of various sports programmes.

O’Herlihy is not long in the RTÉ Sports department when he becomes a regular presenter for such programmes as Sunday Sport and Sports Stadium. In 1978 he becomes RTÉ Soccer host alongside Eamon Dunphy and, in 1984, Johnny Giles joins the panel and Liam Brady follows in 1998. Since 1974 O’Herlihy becomes RTÉ’s chief sports presenter for such events as all Olympic Games until 2012, FIFA World Cups until 2014, UEFA European Football Championships until 2012 and European and World Track and Field Championships. He hosts RTÉ highlights of the Ryder Cup in 2006 when it is at the K Club in County Kildare and continues to present coverage of Ireland’s soccer internationals for RTÉ, along with Dunphy, Giles and Brady.

O’Herlihy hosts RTÉ’s coverage of rugby union in the 1980s and early 1990s. However, when RTÉ attains the rights to cover the English Premier League in 1992, Tom McGurk takes over as host of RTÉ’s coverage of rugby union. O’Herlihy covers the Premier League, Irish Internationals and The Champions League before dropping the Premier League in 2008. He continues to cover the Olympic Games and International Athletic Championships such as the European and World Athletics. He presents the first Rugby World Cup on RTÉ television in 1987 and, with Jim Carney, co-presents the first edition of The Sunday Game in 1979.

In 2012, while covering Chloe Magee‘s progress at the 2012 Summer Olympics O’Herlihy remarks that badminton was once considered “a mainly Protestant sport.” RTÉ subsequently receives a number of complaints, and while Magee criticises the remarks, the argument is made that the incident inadvertently reflected a complex historical reality.

O’Herlihy presents RTÉ Sport‘s coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, his ninth FIFA World Cup. He fronts 18 European Championships and FIFA World Cups for RTÉ, the last of which comes in 2014. This proves to be the final tournament with O’Herlihy at the helm. He retires at its conclusion and dies the following year.

O’Herlihy attends the 12th Irish Film & Television Awards on Sunday, May 24, 2015. He dies peacefully in his sleep at his home the following day at the age of 76 nearly a year after his retirement. He is survived by wife Hillary and daughters Jill and Sally. Giles, Brady and Dunphy appear on The Late Late Show in tribute later that week. At the time of his death O’Herlihy is working on a sports version of Reeling in the Years, which RTÉ immediately cancels.


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The Battle of Prosperous

The Battle of Prosperous, a military engagement between British Crown forces and United Irishmen rebels, takes place in the town of Prosperous, County Kildare, on May 24, 1798, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Prosperous is founded by Sir Robert Brooke in 1780 as a village for processing cotton produced in the Americas. When a rebellion spearheaded by the United Irishmen breaks out against British rule in Ireland, rebel forces led by John Esmonde make plans to capture Prosperous. Esmonde has 200 rebels under his command, while Prosperous is garrisoned by elements of the Royal Cork City Militia under the command of Captain Richard Swayne and reinforced by detachments of a Welsh mounted fencible regiment, the Ancient British Regiment of Fencible Cavalry Dragoons (also known as the Ancient Britons), numbering 150 men in all.

On May 24, 1798, Esmonde leads his forces to attack Prosperous. Their entry is preceded by the infiltration of a small rebel vanguard, who with the possible help of female sympathisers residing in Prosperous, scale the walls of the town’s barracks, kill the sentries and open the town gates. The barracks are quickly surrounded and attacked by the rebels who repulse an attempt by the garrison to break out. “Swayne himself was surprised in bed, shot and piked to death and his body burned in a tar barrel.” The remainder of the garrison are trapped in the upper floors of the barracks, which is set on fire by the rebels, causing them to jump in desperation onto the ground below, where they are summarily executed with pikes. While the rebels suffer no known casualties, approximately 40 members of the garrison are killed in the battle.

Ten members of the garrison, all belonging to the Ancient Britons, manage to escape from Prosperous to Dunlavin, County Wicklow, where they participate in the Dunlavin Green executions on May 26. Esmonde is later captured by Crown forces and brought to Dublin for trial. As he had previously enlisted at the rank of lieutenant in the Clane Yeomanry, Esmonde is court-martialled on June 13 and found guilty of being a deserter. He is executed by hanging on June 14 on Carlisle Bridge (now the O’Connell Bridge) with his coat being worn reversed to indicate that he had been convicted of desertion. Prosperous remains under the control of the United Irishmen until June 19, when a detachment of the 5th Dragoon Guards under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Stewart recaptures the town.


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Birth of Surgeon Andrew Rynne

Andrew Rynne, retired Irish surgeon, medical practitioner and founder of Clane General Hospital in County Kildare, is born on May 18, 1942, at Downings House in Prosperous, County Kildare. He is the chairperson of the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) and the Republic of Ireland‘s first vasectomy specialist. He is known for his liberal approach to birth control.

Rynne’s father is Stephen Rynne, a writer, broadcaster, author and wit, while his mother, Alice Curtayne, is a writer, hagiographer, lecturer, linguist and scholar. He attends Prosperous National School from 1947 to 1951 and Ring College Waterford from 1951 do 1952. From 1961 to 1968, he attends the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. After graduation, he emigrates to Canada with an internship with Hamilton Civic Hospital.

Rynne starts his general practise in Mitchell, Ontario, from 1968 to 1973, where he is introduced to vasectomy. In 1970, he is appointed as the coroner for Perth County, Ontario. In January 1974, he returns to Ireland and establishes a general practise in Clane, County Kildare.

In 1975, Rynne joins Irish Family Planning Association and starts doing vasectomies for them. In 1984, he sells condoms as an act of civil disobedience and gets fined £500. In the following year, he becomes the Chairman of IFPA. In the same year, he founds Clane General Hospital with the opposition from the Catholic Church and the local supporters.

In 1990, Rynne is shot by a man on whom he had carried out a vasectomy eight years previously. According to Rynne, the gunman fires six or seven times with a .22 Long Rifle and shoots him in the right hip. The incident is the subject of a short film The Vasectomy Doctor by Paul Webster.


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Birth of Clare Daly, Politician & Member of the European Parliament

Clare Daly, Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Dublin constituency since July 2019, is born in Newbridge, County Kildare, on April 16, 1968. She is a member of Independents 4 Change, part of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL.

Daly’s father, Kevin Daly, was a colonel in the Irish Army, where he was Director of Signals. She is an atheist, while her brother and an uncle are Catholic priests. She studies accountancy at Dublin City University (DCU). She is twice elected president of the DCU Students’ Union and is active in the students’ movement as a campaigner for abortion rights and information. On leaving college she takes a job in the catering section of Aer Lingus on a low wage and becomes SIPTU‘s shop steward at Dublin Airport when the airline is engaged in extensive cost-cutting and outsourcing.

In the 1980s Daly is a member of the Labour Party as a teenager. A member of Labour’s Militant Tendency, she is expelled alongside Joe Higgins and other members after being accused of being Trotskyists infiltrating the party using the tactic of entryism. At first calling themselves Militant Labour, in 1996 they form the Socialist Party. In the 1999 Irish local elections she is elected as a Fingal County Councillor for the Swords area, a position she holds for 12 years. She is elected as a Socialist Party TD for the Dublin North constituency at the 2011 Irish general election.

Since 2012, Daly has formed a close political association with Mick Wallace. After Wallace is condemned by left-wing TDs following the revelation his building company had avoided €2.1 million in taxes, she resigns from the Socialist Party in August 2012 in protest and redesignates herself as a United Left Alliance TD, before switching party again in 2015 to her current party, Independents 4 Change.

At the 2019 European Parliament elections, Daly is elected for the Dublin constituency. Since becoming an MEP, she has gained international attention for her foreign policy views, particularly regarding Russia and China, which have been the subject of controversy and criticism.

A report by The Irish Times in April 2022 describes Daly and Wallace’s media profile in China, and discusses how since January 2021, Daly has been featured in more Chinese-language news articles than any other Irish person, while Wallace has the second most Chinese-language news articles. In April 2022, Daly and Wallace initiate defamation proceedings against RTÉ.

On September 15, 2022, Daly is one of sixteen MEPs who vote against condemning President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua for human rights violations, in particular the arrest of Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.


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Birth of David Byrne, Former AG of Ireland and EU Commissioner

David Byrne, Fianna Fáil politician, Irish senior counsel, former Attorney General of Ireland and former European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, is born in Monasterevin, County Kildare, on April 6, 1947.

Byrne is educated at Newbridge College, County Kildare, University College Dublin (UCD) and King’s Inns, Dublin. He is called to the Bar in 1970 and practises law in the Irish and European Courts. During his student days in Dublin, he founds the Free Legal Advice Centre, a student-run organisation providing legal aid to citizens in association with the legal profession. He campaigns in favour of Irish entry into the European Community (EC) in the 1970s and has been a keen supporter of European integration ever since.

Byrne becomes a Senior Counsel in 1985. He practises in both the Irish courts and the European Court of Justice and also serves as a member of the International Court of Commercial Arbitration from 1990–97.

In 1997 Byrne becomes Attorney General of Ireland in the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats coalition government. As one of the negotiators of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, he drafts and oversees the major constitutional amendments required by that agreement, which are approved by Referendum in May 1998. He also advises on the constitutional amendments necessary for Ireland’s ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam. During his tenure, he establishes the first independent Food Safety Agency in Europe responsible to the Minister for Health.

Byrne is nominated to the European Commission by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in September 1999, serving as Ireland’s EU Commissioner and has responsibility for Health & Consumer Protection in the Prodi Commission. He continues in that role until replaced as Ireland’s Commissioner by Charlie McCreevy in 2004.

During his time in office, Byrne is a major driving force behind European tobacco control legislation, such as directives banning tobacco advertising and regulating tobacco products, in keeping with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC). Under his leadership, the European Union also creates the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in 2004.

When he concludes his Brussels assignment, Byrne acts as World Health Organization (WHO) Special Envoy on the revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR) for a six-month period following a series of outbreaks of SARS and avian influenza.

Byrne is mooted as a potential candidate for the position of Director General of the World Health Organization following the death of the incumbent, Dr Lee Jong-wook in 2006. However, he is eventually not included in the list of thirteen candidates to head the agency.

In December 2006 Byrne is appointed as Chancellor of Dublin City University (DCU). He holds this position until 2011.

After leaving the European Commission, Byrne holds a variety of paid and unpaid positions, including Co-Chair of European Alliance for Personalised Medicine, member of the International Advisory Board of FleishmanHillard, Chairman of the Ethics Committee of the International Prevention Research Institute (IPRI), Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), of counsel of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, Honorary Co-Chair of the World Justice Project (WJP) and a member of the World Prevention Alliamce.