seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: County Limerick


by Leave a comment

Death of Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon

Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon, PC, FRS, FGS, British Whig politician who serves as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1835 to 1839, dies on February 7, 1866 at Mount Trenchard House, near Foynes, County Limerick.

Spring Rice is born into a notable Anglo-Irish family on February 8, 1790, one of the three children of Stephen Edward Rice, of Mount Trenchard House, and Catherine Spring, daughter and heiress of Thomas Spring of Ballycrispin and Castlemaine, County Kerry, a descendant of the Suffolk Spring family. The family owns large estates in Munster. He is a great grandson of Sir Stephen Rice, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer and a leading Jacobite Sir Maurice FitzGerald, 14th Knight of Kerry. His grandfather, Edward, converted the family from Roman Catholicism to the Anglican Church of Ireland, to save his estate from passing in gavelkind.

Spring Rice is educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later studies law at Lincoln’s Inn, but is not called to the Bar. His family is politically well-connected, both in Ireland and Great Britain, and he is encouraged to stand for Parliament by his father-in-law, Lord Limerick.

Spring Rice first stands for election in Limerick City in 1818 but is defeated by the Tory incumbent, John Vereker, by 300 votes. He wins the seat in 1820 and enters the House of Commons. He positions himself as a moderate unionist reformer who opposes the radical nationalist politics of Daniel O’Connell and becomes known for his expertise on Irish and economic affairs. In 1824 he leads the committee which establishes the Ordnance Survey in Ireland.

Spring Rice’s fluent debating style in the Commons brings him to the attention of leading Whigs and he comes under the patronage of the Marquess of Lansdowne. As a result, he is made Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department under George Canning and Lord Goderich in 1827, with responsibility for Irish affairs. This requires him to accept deferral of Catholic emancipation, a policy which he strongly supports. He then serves as joint Secretary to the Treasury from 1830 to 1834 under Lord Grey. Following the Reform Act 1832, he is elected to represent Cambridge from 1832 to 1839. In June 1834, Grey appoints him Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, with a seat in the cabinet, a post he retains when Lord Melbourne becomes Prime Minister in July. A strong and vocal unionist throughout his life, he leads the Parliamentary opposition to Daniel O’Connell’s 1834 attempt to repeal the Acts of Union 1800. In a six-hour speech in the House of Commons on April 23, 1834, he suggests that Ireland should be renamed “West Britain.” In the Commons, he also champions causes such as the worldwide abolition of slavery and the introduction of state-supported education.

The Whig government falls in November 1834, after which Spring Rice attempts to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons in early 1835. When the Whigs return to power under Melbourne in April 1835, he is made Chancellor of the Exchequer. As Chancellor, he has to deal with crop failures, a depression and rebellion in North America, all of which create large deficits and put considerable strain on the government. His Church Rate Bill of 1837 is quickly abandoned and his attempt to revise the charter of the Bank of Ireland ends in humiliation. Unhappy as Chancellor, he again tries to be elected as Speaker but fails. He is a dogmatic figure, described by Lord Melbourne as “too much given to details and possessed of no broad views.” Upon his departure from office in 1839, he has become a scapegoat for the government’s many problems. That same year he is raised to the peerage as Baron Monteagle of Brandon, in the County of Kerry, a title intended earlier for his ancestor Sir Stephen Rice. He is also Comptroller General of the Exchequer from 1835 to 1865, despite Lord Howick‘s initial opposition to the maintenance of the office. He differs from the government regarding the exchequer control over the treasury, and the abolition of the old exchequer is already determined upon when he dies.

From 1839 Spring Rice largely retires from public life, although he occasionally speaks in the House of Lords on matters generally relating to government finance and Ireland. He vehemently opposes John Russell, 1st Earl Russell‘s policy regarding the Irish famine, giving a speech in the Lords in which he says the government had “degraded our people, and you, English, now shrink from your responsibilities.”

In addition to his political career, Spring Rice is a commissioner of the state paper office, a trustee of the National Gallery and a member of the senate of the University of London and of the Queen’s University of Ireland. Between 1845 and 1847, he is President of the Royal Statistical Society. In addition, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. In May 1832 he becomes a member of James Mill‘s Political Economy Club.

Spring Rice is well regarded in Limerick, where he is seen as a compassionate landlord and a good politician. An advocate of traditional Whiggism, he strongly believes in ensuring society is protected from conflict between the upper and lower classes. Although a pious Anglican, his support for Catholic emancipation wins him the favour of many Irishmen, most of whom are Roman Catholic. He leads the campaign for better county government in Ireland at a time when many Irish nationalists are indifferent to the cause. During the Great Famine of the 1840s, he responds to the plight of his tenants with benevolence. The ameliorative measures he implements on his estates almost bankrupts the family and only the dowry from his second marriage saves his financial situation. A monument in honour of him still stands in the People’s Park in Limerick.

Even so, Spring Rice’s reputation in Ireland is not entirely favourable. In a book regarding assisted emigration from Ireland, a process in which a landlord pays for their tenants’ passage to the United States or Australia, Moran suggests that Spring Rice was engaged in the practice. In 1838, he is recorded as having “helped” a boat load of his tenants depart for North America, thereby allowing himself the use of their land. However, he is also recorded as being in support of state-assisted emigration across the British Isles, suggesting that his motivation is not necessarily selfish.

Spring Rice dies at the age of 76 on February 7, 1866. Mount Monteagle in Antarctica and Monteagle County in New South Wales are named in his honour.

(Pictured: Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon (1790-1866), contemporary portrait by George Richmond (1809-1896))


by Leave a comment

Death of Terry Wogan, Irish-British Radio & Television Broadcaster

Sir Michael Terence Wogan KBE DL, Irish-British radio and television broadcaster who works for the BBC in the United Kingdom (UK) for most of his career, dies on January 31, 2016, at his home in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. Between 1993 and his semi-retirement in December 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekday breakfast programme Wake Up to Wogan regularly draws an estimated eight million listeners. He is believed at the time to be the most listened-to radio broadcaster in Europe.

Wogan, the elder of two children, is born at Cleary’s Nursing Home, Elm Park, Limerick, County Limerick, on August 3, 1938. He is the son of the manager of Leverett & Frye, a high-class grocery store in Limerick, and is educated at Crescent College, a Jesuit school, from the age of eight. He experiences a strongly religious upbringing, later commenting that he had been brainwashed into believing by the threat of going to hell. Despite this, he often expresses his fondness for the city of his birth, commenting on one occasion that “Limerick never left me, whatever it is, my identity is Limerick.”

At the age of 15, after his father is promoted to general manager, Wogan moves to Dublin with his family. While living there he attends Crescent College’s sister school, Belvedere College. He participates in amateur dramatics and discovers a love of rock and roll. After leaving Belvedere in 1956, he has a brief career in the banking profession, joining the Royal Bank of Ireland. Still in his twenties, he joins the national broadcaster of Ireland, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), as a newsreader and announcer, after seeing a newspaper advertisement inviting applicants.

Wogan conducts interviews and presents documentary features during his first two years at RTÉ, before moving to the light entertainment department as a disc jockey and host of TV quiz and variety shows such as Jackpot, a top-rated quiz show on RTÉ in the 1960s.

Wogan is a leading media personality in Ireland and Britain from the late 1960s, and is often referred to as a “national treasure.” In addition to his weekday radio show, he is known for his work on television, including the BBC One chat show Wogan, presenting Children in Need, the game show Blankety Blank and Come Dancing. He is the BBC’s commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest from 1971 to 2008 (radio in 1971, 1974–1977; television in 1973, 1978, 1980–2008) and the Contest’s host in 1998. From 2010 to 2015 he presents Weekend Wogan, a two-hour Sunday morning show on BBC Radio 2.

In 2005, Wogan acquires British citizenship in addition to his Irish nationality and is awarded a knighthood in the same year and is therefore entitled to use the title “Sir” in front of his name.

Wogan’s health declines after Christmas 2015. He does not present Children in Need in November 2015, citing back pain as the reason for his absence from the long-running annual show. One of his friends, Father Brian D’Arcy, visits him during January and notices he is seriously ill. He dies of cancer at the age of 77 on January 31, 2016, at his home in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England.

British Prime Minister David Cameron says, “Britain has lost a huge talent.” President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins praises Wogan’s career and his frequent visits to his homeland. Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Joan Burton remember Wogan for his role in helping Anglo-Irish relations during the Troubles. D’Arcy speculates that a public funeral would be logistically difficult, as there would be too many people wanting to pay their respects.

After Wogan’s death and his private funeral a few weeks later, a public memorial service is held on September 27 of the same year. This is held at Westminster Abbey and is opened by a recording of Wogan himself, and features a number of his celebrity friends making speeches, such as Chris Evans and Joanna Lumley. The service is broadcast live on BBC Radio 2.

On November 16, 2016, the BBC renames BBC Western House, home of BBC Radio 2, in his memory, to BBC Wogan House.


by Leave a comment

Death of John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare

John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare PC (Ire), an Anglo-Irish politician who serves as the Attorney-General for Ireland from 1783 to 1789 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1789 to 1802, dies in Dublin on January 28, 1802. He remains a deeply controversial figure in Irish history, being described variously as an old fashioned anti-Catholic Whig political party hardliner and an early advocate of the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain (which finally happens in 1801, shortly before his death). 

Fitzgibbon is an early and extremely militant opponent of Catholic emancipation. The Earl is possibly the first person to suggest to King George III that granting royal assent to any form of Catholic Emancipation will violate his coronation oath.

FitzGibbon is born in 1748 near Donnybrook, Dublin, the son of John FitzGibbon of Ballysheedy, County Limerick, and his wife Isabella Grove, daughter of John Grove, of Ballyhimmock, County Cork. His father is born a Catholic but converts to the state religion in order to become a lawyer, and amasses a large fortune. He has three sisters, Arabella, Elizabeth, and Eleanor.

FitzGibbon is educated at Trinity College Dublin and Christ Church, Oxford. He enters the Irish House of Commons in 1778 as Member for Dublin University, and holds this seat until 1783, when he is appointed Attorney-General for Ireland. From the same year, he represents Kilmallock until 1790. He is appointed High Sheriff of County Limerick for 1782.

When appointed Lord Chancellor for Ireland in 1789, FitzGibbon is granted his first peerage as Baron FitzGibbon, of Connello Lower in County Limerick, in the peerage of Ireland that year. This does not entitle him to a seat in the British House of Lords, only in the Irish House of Lords. His later promotions come mostly in the peerage of Ireland, being advanced to a Viscountcy (1793) and the Earldom of Clare in 1795. He finally achieves a seat in the British House of Lords in 1799 when created Baron FitzGibbon, of Sidbury in the County of Devon, in the Peerage of Great Britain.

FitzGibbon is a renowned champion of the Protestant Ascendancy and an opponent of Catholic emancipation. He despises the Parliament of Ireland‘s popular independent Constitution of 1782. He is also personally and politically opposed to the Irish politician Henry Grattan who urges a moderate course in the Irish Parliament, and is responsible for defeating Grattan’s efforts to reform the Irish land tithe system (1787–1789) under which Irish Catholic farmers (and all non-Anglican farmers) are forced to financially support the minority Anglican Church of Ireland. These are not fully repealed until 1869 when the Church of Ireland is finally disestablished, although Irish tithes are commuted after the Tithe War (1831–1836).

FitzGibbon opposes the Irish Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, for which, in a “magnificently controlled vituperation in vigorous, colloquial heroic couplets,” The Gibbonade, he is pilloried by the satirist Henrietta Battier. But acceding to pressure exerted through the Irish executive by government of William Pitt in London, intent, in advance of war with the new French Republic, to placate Catholic opinion, he is persuaded to recommend its acceptance in the Irish House of Lords. Pitt, and King George III, who had been petitioned by delegates from the Catholic Committee in Dublin, expects Ireland to follow the British Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 and admit Catholics to the parliamentary franchise (although not to Parliament itself), enter the professions and assume public office.

FitzGibbon’s role in the recall, soon after his arrival, of the popular pro-Emancipation Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, is debatable. Although he is probably politically opposed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Fitzwilliam is recalled, apparently due to his own independent actions. Fitzwilliam is known to be friendly to the Ponsonby family (he is married to one of their daughters), and is generally a Foxite liberal Whig. His close association with and patronage of Irish Whigs led by Grattan and Ponsonby during his short tenure, along with his alleged support of an immediate effort to secure Catholic emancipation in a manner not authorized by the British cabinet is probably what leads to his recall. Thus, if any is to blame in the short-lived “Fitzwilliam episode” it is the great Irish politician Henry Grattan and the Ponsonby brothers – presumably William Ponsonby, later Lord Imokilly, and his brother John Ponsonby—not to mention Lord Fitzwilliam himself. Irish Catholics at the time and later naturally see things very differently and blame hardline Protestants such as FitzGibbon.

Irish Catholics and FitzGibbon agree on one point apparently – Irish political and economic union with Great Britain, which eventually takes place in 1801. Pitt wants Union with Ireland concomitantly with Catholic emancipation, commutation of tithes, and the endowment of the Irish Catholic priesthood. Union is opposed by most hardline Irish Protestants, as well as liberals such as Grattan. FitzGibbon has been a strong supporter of the Union since 1793 but refuses to have Catholic emancipation with the Union.

In a speech to the Irish House of Lords on February 10, 1800, FitzGibbon elucidates his point of view on union: “I hope and feel as becomes a true Irishman, for the dignity and independence of my country, and therefore I would elevate her to her proper station, in the rank of civilised nations. I wish to advance her from the degraded post of mercenary province, to the proud station of an integral and governing member of the greatest empire in the world.”

In the end, FitzGibbon’s views win out, leading to the Union of Ireland with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland without any concessions for Ireland’s Catholic majority (or for that matter, Catholics in the rest of the new United Kingdom). He later claims that he had been duped by the way in which the Act was passed with the new Viceroy Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, promising reforms to Irish Catholics, and is bitterly opposed to any concessions during the short remainder of his life.

The role of the Earl of Clare (as FitzGibbon becomes in 1795) as Lord Chancellor of Ireland during the period of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 is questionable. According to some, he supports a hardline policy which uses torture, murder and massacre to crush the rebellion, or that as Lord Chancellor, he has considerable influence on military affairs, and that martial law cannot be imposed without his consent. Others allege that as Lord Chancellor, he has no say in military affairs and the Encyclopædia Britannica states that he is “neither cruel nor immoderate and was inclined to mercy when dealing with individuals.” However, the same source also states that “(FitzGibbon)… was a powerful supporter of a repressive policy toward Irish Catholics”. His former side is displayed by sparing the lives of the captured United Irish leaders, “State prisoners,” in return for their confession of complicity and provision of information relating to the planning of the rebellion. However, this willingness of the prisoners to partake of the agreement is spurred by the execution of the brothers John and Henry Sheares on July 14, 1798.

In contrast to the leniency shown to the largely upper-class leadership, the full weight of military repression is inflicted upon the common people throughout the years 1797–98 with untold thousands suffering imprisonment, torture, transportation and death. FitzGibbon is inclined to show no mercy to unrepentant rebels and, in October 1798, he expresses his disgust upon the capture of Wolfe Tone that he has been granted a trial, and his belief that Tone should be hanged as soon as he set foot on land.

FitzGibbon is quick to recognise that sectarianism is a useful ally to divide the rebels and prevent the United Irishmen from achieving their goal of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, writing in June 1798, “In the North nothing will keep the rebels quiet but the conviction that where treason has broken out the rebellion is merely popish.”

Another anecdote is to the effect of FitzGibbon’s callousness. Supposedly, upon being informed during a debate in the Irish Parliament that innocent as well as guilty are suffering atrocities during the repression, he replies, “Well suppose it were so…,” his callous reply purportedly shocking William Pitt.

FitzGibbon is noted by some as a good, improving landlord to both his Protestant and Catholic tenants. Some claim that the tenants of his Mountshannon estate call him “Black Jack” FitzGibbon. There is, however, no evidence to support this claim, although there is little to no evidence on his dealings as a landlord. Irish nationalists and others point out that while he might be interested in the welfare of his own tenants on his own estate, he treats other Irish Catholics very differently. Without further evidence, his role as a Protestant landowner in mainly Catholic Ireland is of little importance against his known dealings as Lord Chancellor.

FitzGibbon dies at home, 6 Ely Place near St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on January 28, 1802, and is buried in St. Peter’s Churchyard. A hero to Protestant hardliners, but despised by the majority Catholic population, his funeral cortege is the cause of a riot and, according to a widespread story, a number of dead cats are thrown at his coffin as it departs Ely Place.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Neil Cusack, Winner of the 1974 Boston Marathon

Neil Cusack, a retired middle- and long-distance runner and the only Irish athlete to win the Boston Marathon, is born in Limerick, County Limerick, on December 30, 1951.

Cusack attends St. Munchin’s College in Limerick. He later moves to the United States to study at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), where he is recruited for the cross country team, initially as an afterthought. In 1972, he wins the NCAA Men’s Cross Country National Championship, marking him as a rising star in distance running.

Cusack wins the Peach Bowl Marathon in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 10, 1971, with a time of 2:16:18. He represents Ireland in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, competing in the 10,000 metres.

Cusack achieves his most famous victory on April 15, 1974, by winning the Boston Marathon, becoming the first and only Irishman to do so. His time of 2:13:39 is the third-fastest in Boston Marathon history at that point. His Boston win is a source of immense pride for the Irish community, especially in Boston. He recalls receiving $10 and $20 bills from Irish Americans in the mail with notes like “Have a beer on us, we’re proud of you!” His victory helps soothe the disappointment of local Irish fans who had seen fellow Irish runner Pat McMahon come close in previous years.

Cusack competes again for Ireland in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, placing 55th in the marathon. He wins the 1981 Dublin Marathon on October 26, 1981, with a time of 2:13:58.

In 2024, on the 50th anniversary of his Boston win, Cusack returns to serve as the official race starter for the professional men’s division of the Boston Marathon.

Now in his 70s, Cusack remains a celebrated figure in Irish athletics and marathon history.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Ciarán Mac Mathúna, Broadcaster & Music Collector

Ciarán Mac Mathúna, broadcaster and music collector, is born on November 26, 1925, in Limerick, County Limerick. He is a recognised authority on Irish traditional music and lectures extensively on the subject. He travels around Ireland, England, Scotland and the United States collecting music.

According to Sam Smyth in the Irish Independent, Mac Mathúna is “on a mission to collect songs and stories, music, poetry and dance before they were buried under the coming tsunami of pop music.”

Mac Mathúna presents the radio programme, Mo Cheol Thú, for 35 years. Upon his retirement in 2005, the managing director of RTÉ Radio, Adrian Moynes, describes him as “inseparable from RTÉ Radio.” Upon his death in 2009, the Irish Independent describes him as “a national treasure.”

Mac Mathúna spends his early years in Mulgrave Street in Limerick. He is schooled at CBS Sexton Street, and later graduates from University College Dublin (UCD) with a BA in modern Irish and Latin. Subsequently, he completes an MA in Irish.

After college Mac Mathúna works as a teacher and later at the Placenames Commission. In 1954, he joins Radio Éireann where his job is to record Irish traditional musicians playing in their own locales. This entails visiting such places as Sliabh Luachra, County Clare and County Sligo, and the resulting recordings feature in his radio programmes: Ceolta Tire, A Job of Journeywork and Humours of Donnybrook.

Director General of RTÉ Cathal Goan later recalls that Mac Mathúna interviewed him for his first job at the station. He assists in the organisation of Mac Mathúna’s music collection for the RTÉ Libraries and Archives.

Mac Mathúna’s long-running Sunday morning radio series, Mo Cheol Thú (You are my music), begins in 1970 and continues until November 2005, when he retires from broadcasting. Each 45-minute programme offers a miscellany of archive music, poetry and folklore, mainly of Irish origin. It is one of radio’s longest running programmes. The last episode is broadcast on November 27, 2005, at 8:10 a.m.

Mac Mathúna wins two Jacob’s Awards, in 1969 and 1990, for his RTÉ Radio programmes promoting Irish traditional music. He receives the Freedom of Limerick city in June 2004. He is also awarded honorary doctorates by NUI Galway and the University of Limerick. In 2007, he receives the Musicians Award at the 10th annual TG4 Traditional Music Awards.

Joe Kennedy in the Sunday Independent in 2007 compares Mac Mathúna to “an amiable rock, rolling gently along, still picking up some moss and morsels of music that he may have missed.”

Mac Mathúna‘s wife, Dolly MacMahon (using the English version of her surname), is a singer of traditional songs. She comes from Galway and meets her husband in 1955. He has two sons named Padraic and Ciarán, one daughter named Déirdre, and four grandchildren at the time of his death: Eoin, Colm, Conor and Liam.

Mac Mathúna dies in St. Gladys nursing home, Harold’s Cross, Dublin, on December 11, 2009. His funeral on December 15, 2009, is attended by hundreds of people, including aides-de-camp of the President and Taoiseach, RTÉ Director-General Cathal Goan, poet Seamus Heaney and others.

Musicians performing at the ceremony include Peadar Ó Riada, Cór Cúil Aodha and members of The Chieftains and Planxty. The corpse is then taken to Mount Jerome Crematorium. Journalist Kevin Myers says Mac Mathúna’s legacy will be the “rebirth of Irish music,” adding, “Well, if Ciarán Mac Mathúna can die, I suppose anyone can. Actually, I had always thought that he was immortal. He certainly appeared to have all the ingredients.”


by Leave a comment

Death of Terence O’Brien, Catholic Bishop of Emly

Terence Albert O’Brien (Irish: Muiris Ó Briain Aradh), Irish priest of the Dominican Order and Roman Catholic Bishop of Emly, dies on October 30, 1651.

O’Brien is born into the Gaelic nobility of Ireland at Cappamore, County Limerick in 1601. Both of his parents are from the derbhfine of the last Chief of the Name of Clan O’Brien Arradh and claim lineal descent from Brian Boru. His family owns an estate of 2,500 Irish acres centered around Tuogh, which is later confiscated by the Commonwealth of England. He joins the Dominicans in 1621 at Limerick, where his uncle, Maurice O’Brien, is then prior. He takes the name “Albert” after the Dominican scholar Albertus Magnus. In 1622, he goes to study in Toledo, Spain, returning eight years later to become prior at St. Saviour’s in Limerick. In 1643, he is provincial of the Dominicans in Ireland. In 1647, he is consecrated Bishop of Emly by Giovanni Battista Rinuccini.

During the Irish Confederate Wars, like most Irish Catholics, O’Brien sides with Confederate Ireland. His services to the Catholic Confederation are highly valued by the Supreme Council. He treats the wounded and supports Confederate soldiers throughout the conflict. He is against a peace treaty that does not guarantee Catholic freedom of worship in Ireland and in 1648 signs the declaration against the Confederate’s truce with Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, who has committed atrocities such as the Sack of Cashel against Catholic clergy and civilians, and the declaration against the Protestant royalist leader, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, in 1650 who, due to his failure to resist the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland is not deemed fit to command Catholic troops. He is one of the prelates, who, in August 1650 offers the Protectorate of Ireland to Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine.

In 1651, Limerick is besieged and O’Brien urges a resistance that infuriates the Ormondists and Parliamentarians. Following surrender, he is found ministering to the wounded and ill inside a temporary plague hospital. As previously decided by the besieging army, O’Brien is denied quarter and protection. Along with Alderman Thomas Stritch and English Royalist officer Colonel Fennell, he is tried by a drumhead court-martial and sentenced to death by New Model Army General Henry Ireton. On October 30, 1651, O’Brien is first hanged at Gallows Green and then posthumously beheaded. His severed head is afterward displayed spiked upon the river gate of the city.

After the successful fight that is eventually spearheaded by Daniel O’Connell for Catholic emancipation between 1780 and 1829, interest revives as the Catholic Church in Ireland is rebuilding after three hundred years of being strictly illegal and underground. As a result, a series of re-publications of primary sources relating to the period of the persecutions and meticulous comparisons against archival Government documents in London and Dublin from the same period are made by Daniel F. Moran and other historians.

The first Apostolic Process under Canon Law begins in Dublin in 1904, after which a positio is submitted to the Holy See.

In the February 12, 1915 Apostolic decree, In Hibernia, heroum nutrice, Pope Benedict XV formally authorizes the formal introduction of additional Causes for Roman Catholic Sainthood.

During a further Apostolic Process held in Dublin between 1917 and 1930 and against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, the evidence surrounding 260 alleged cases of Roman Catholic martyrdom are further investigated, after which the findings are again submitted to the Holy See.

On September 27, 1992, O’Brien and sixteen other Irish Catholic Martyrs are beatified by Pope John Paul II. June 20th, the anniversary of the 1584 execution of Elizabethan era martyr Dermot O’Hurley, is assigned as the feast day of all seventeen. A large backlighted portrait of him is on display in St. Michael’s Church, Cappamore, County Limerick, which depicts him during The Siege of Limerick.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Éamon de Valera, Third President of Ireland

Éamon de Valera, Irish politician and patriot, is born George de Valero on October 14, 1882, in Lennox Hill, a neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. He serves as Taoiseach (1932–48, 1951–54, 1957–59) and President of Ireland (1959–73). An active revolutionary from 1913, he becomes president of Sinn Féin in 1917 and founds the Fianna Fáil party in 1926. In 1937, he makes his country a sovereign state, renamed Ireland, or Éire. His academic attainments also inspire wide respect. He becomes chancellor of the National University of Ireland in 1921.

De Valera is the son of Catherine Coll, who is originally from Bruree, County Limerick, and Juan Vivion de Valera, described on the birth certificate as a Spanish artist born in 1853. His father dies when he is two years old. He Is then sent to his mother’s family in County Limerick, and studies at the local national school and at Blackrock College, Dublin. He graduates from the Royal University of Ireland and becomes a teacher of mathematics and an ardent supporter of the Irish language revival. In 1913, he joins the Irish Volunteers, which had been organized to resist opposition to Home Rule for Ireland.

In the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, de Valera commands an occupied building and is the last commander to surrender. Because of his American birth, he escapes execution by the British but is sentenced to penal servitude. Released in 1917 but arrested again and deported in May 1918 to England, where he is imprisoned, he is acclaimed by the Irish as the chief survivor of the uprising and in October 1917 is elected president of the Irish republican and democratic socialist Sinn Féin political party, which wins three-fourths of all the Irish constituencies in December 1918.

After a dramatic escape from HM Prison Lincoln in February 1919, de Valera goes in disguise to the United States, where he collects funds. He returns to Ireland before the Irish War of Independence ends with the truce that takes effect on July 11, 1921, and appoints plenipotentiaries to negotiate in London. He repudiates the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 6, 1921, that they signed to form the Irish Free State, however, primarily because it imposes an oath of allegiance to the British crown.

After Dáil Éireann ratifies the treaty by a small majority in 1922, de Valera supports the republican resistance in the ensuing Irish Civil War. W. T. Cosgrave’s Irish Free State ministry imprisons him, but he is released in 1924 and then organizes a republican opposition party that does not sit in Dáil Éireann. In 1927, however, he persuades his followers to sign the oath of allegiance as “an empty political formula,” and his new Fianna Fáil (“Soldiers of Destiny”) party then enters the Dáil, demanding abolition of the oath of allegiance, of the governor-general, of the Seanad Éireann (senate) as then constituted, and of land-purchase annuities payable to Great Britain. The Cosgrave ministry is defeated by Fianna Fáil in 1932, and de Valera, as head of the new ministry, embarks quickly on severing connections with Great Britain. He withholds payment of the land annuities, and an “economic war” results. Increasing retaliation by both sides enables de Valera to develop his program of austere national self-sufficiency in an Irish-speaking Ireland while building up industries behind protective tariffs. In the new Constitution of Ireland, ratified by referendum in 1937, the Irish Free State becomes Ireland, a sovereign, independent democracy tenuously linked with the British Commonwealth (under the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936) only for purposes of diplomatic representation.

De Valera’s prestige is enhanced by his success as president of the council of the League of Nations in 1932 and of its assembly in 1938. He also enters negotiations with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in which he guarantees that he will never allow Ireland to be used as a base for attacking Britain in the event of war. This culminates in the Anglo-Irish defense agreement of April 1938, whereby Britain relinquishes the naval bases of Cobh, Berehaven, and Lough Swilly (retained in a defense annex to the 1921 treaty), and in complementary finance and trade treaties that end the economic war. This makes possible de Valera’s proclamation in September 1939, upon the outbreak of World War II, that Ireland will remain neutral and will resist attack from any quarter. In secret, however, de Valera also authorizes significant military and intelligence assistance to both the British and the Americans throughout the war. He realizes that a German victory will imperil Ireland’s independence, of which neutrality is the ultimate expression. By avoiding the burdens and destruction of the war, de Valera achieves a relative prosperity for Ireland in comparison with the war-torn countries of Europe, and he retains office in subsequent elections.

In 1948, a reaction against the long monopoly of power and patronage held by de Valera’s party enables the opposition, with the help of smaller parties, to form an interparty government under John A. Costello. Ironically, this precarious coalition collapses within three years after Ireland becomes a republic by means of the repeal of the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936 and the severance of all ties with the British Commonwealth, an act de Valera had avoided. De Valera resumes office until 1954, when he appeals unsuccessfully for a fresh mandate, and Costello forms his second interparty ministry. No clearly defined difference now exists between the opposing parties in face of rising prices, continued emigration, and a backward agriculture. De Valera claims, however, that a strong single-party government is indispensable and that all coalitions must be weak and insecure. On this plea he obtains, in March 1957, the overall majority that he demands.

In 1959, de Valera agrees to stand as a candidate for the presidency. He resigns his position as Taoiseach and leader of the Fianna Fáil party. In June he is elected president, and is reelected in 1966. He retires to a nursing home near Dublin in 1973 and dies there on August 29, 1975.

De Valera’s career spans the dramatic period of Ireland’s modern cultural and national revolution. As an anticolonial leader, a skillful constitutionalist, and a symbol of national liberation, he dominates Ireland in the half century following the country’s independence.

(From: “Éamon de Valera, president of Ireland,” Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com, last updated August 14, 2025)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Thomas Fitzsimons, U.S. Merchant & Statesman

Thomas Fitzsimons, Irish-born American Founding Father, merchant, banker, and politician, is born in Ireland on October 11, 1741. His birthplace is variously given as Nobber, County Wicklow; Limerick, County Limerick; the north of Ireland; and Edenderry, County Offaly. He represents Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention and the United States House of Representatives.

In the mid-1750s, Fitzsimons’s family immigrates to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his father dies soon thereafter. He has enough education that he begins work as a clerk in a mercantile house. He marries Catherine Meade on November 23, 1761, and forms a business partnership with her brother George. Their firm, which specializes in the West Indies trade, operates successfully for over 41 years.

The firm is soon hit by the new revenue measures created to help support the finances of the British Empire, including the much reviled Stamp Act of 1765. Concerned with these ideas, Fitzsimons becomes active in the Irish merchant community in Philadelphia. He is a founding member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in 1771 and later, in 1774, a steering committee organized to protest the Coercive Acts.

When Pennsylvania begins mobilizing and organizing a militia to fight the British, Fitzsimons is soon involved. He serves as captain of a company of home guards under the command of Colonel John Caldwalader. Initially his company serves as part of the soldiers who man posts along the New Jersey coast. His unit later serves as part of the reserve at the Battle of Trenton in 1776. Later in the war, he serves on the Pennsylvania Council of Safety and heads a board to oversee the newly formed Pennsylvania Navy.

Fitzsimons enters active politics as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1783. He is a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1786 until 1795. He is also a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787. Although not a leading member of that convention, he supports a strong national government, the end of slavery, the United States Congress‘s powers to impose a tariff on imports and exports, the granting the House of Representatives, and power in equal to the United States Senate in making treaties. He is one of only two Catholic signers of the Constitution of the United States, the other being Daniel Carroll of Maryland.

After the Constitution is established, Fitzsimons serves in the first three sessions of the House of Representatives as a Federalist, where he favors protective tariffs and a strong navy, co-drafting the Naval Act of 1794 authorizing the original six frigates of the United States Navy. He fails to win re-election in 1794. This is partially attributed to public opinion turning against the Federalist Party over the forceful suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion. Although he never holds elective office again, he serves in 1798 as head of the committee of merchants overseeing the subscription-loan to build a warship at private expense for use in the Quasi-War.

In 1796, Fitzsimons, along with James Innes of Virginia, is appointed by President John Adams to serve as one of two American members on the five-man debt commission charged under Article VI of the Jay Treaty with examining the claims of British subjects unable to collect debts incurred by Americans prior to the American Revolution. Fitzsimons, Innes and Samuel Sitgreaves, who replaces Innes upon the latter’s death, become annoyed with the arguments used by their British counterparts to inflate the claims total. Fitzsimons and Sitgreaves angrily and permanently secede from the board in July 1799. The claims are eventually disposed of by a lump-sum payment, agreed upon by United States Minister to Britain Rufus King with British Foreign Secretary Robert Banks Jenkinson and approved by President Thomas Jefferson and the Senate in 1802.

While withdrawing from politics, Fitzsimons remains active in civic and business affairs. He serves as president of Philadelphia’s Chamber of Commerce, as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, Director of the Delaware Insurance Company and a director of the Bank of North America from 1781–1803. He is a founder of the bank and supports efforts to found Georgetown College. He also helps found the Insurance Company of North America.

Fitzsimons dies on August 26, 1811, in Philadelphia, where he is buried in the cemetery of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, which is in present-day Independence National Historical Park.


by Leave a comment

Death of David Neligan, Intelligence Agent & Police Detective

David Neligan, intelligence agent, police detective and superintendent known by his sobriquet “The Spy in the Castle,” dies on October 6, 1983, at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. He is a figure involved in the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and subsequently becomes Director of Military Intelligence for the Irish Army after the Irish Civil War (1922–23).

Neligan is born on October 14, 1899, at Templeglantine, County Limerick, where his parents, David and Elizabeth Neligan (née Mullan), are primary school teachers. He is an accomplished hurler with his local Templeglantine GAA club. In 1917, he joins the Irish Volunteers, the military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists.

Against his father’s wishes, Neligan joins the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) – also in 1917. Picking up travel documentation from the local Royal Irish Constabulary barracks, he declines a suggestion that he enlist in this armed rural force. After service as a uniformed constable with the DMP, he is promoted to Detective and transferred into the Department’s widely hated counterintelligence and anti-political-subversion unit, the G Division, in 1919. In May 1920, his elder brother Maurice (1895–1920), an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member and friend of Michael Collins, persuades him to resign from the DMP.

After his resignation, Neligan returns to his native County Limerick with the intention of joining the Limerick IRA. Shortly afterward, Maurice is killed in a motorcycle accident, near their home in Templeglantine. In the meantime, Neligan also receives word from a family friend that Michael Collins wishes to meet with him in Dublin. Collins is outraged that Neligan has been allowed to resign and persuades him to rejoin the DMP as a mole for the intelligence wing of the IRA. Along with Detectives Eamon Broy and James McNamara, Neligan acts as a highly valuable agent for Collins and passes on reams of vital information. He leaks documents about the relative importance of police and military personnel and also warns insurgents of upcoming raids and ambushes. There are unconfirmed rumors that Neligan might be a double agent working for British interests.

In 1921, Collins orders Neligan to let himself be recruited into MI5 and he uses the opportunity to memorise their passwords and the identities of their agents. All of this is passed on to Collins. After Broy and McNamara are dismissed in 1921, Neligan becomes Collins’ most important mole inside Dublin Castle.

On the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in June 1922, Neligan joins the Irish Army in Islandbridge Barracks with the rank of Commandant, and is attached to the Dublin Guard. He is involved in the seaborne assault on Fenit, County Kerry, and spends the remainder of the war serving as a military intelligence officer operating between Ballymullen Barracks, Tralee and Killarney. He is involved in atrocities alongside Paddy Daly including the Ballyseedy massacre, mock executions and the torture of prisoners using crowbars and is sometimes referred to as the “Butcher of Kerry.” In 1923, he is posted to Dublin, where he is promoted to Colonel and succeeds Diarmuid O’Hegarty as the Irish Army’s Director of Military Intelligence.

In 1924, Neligan hands over his post to the youthful Colonel Michael Joe Costello and takes command of the DMP, which still continues as a force separate from the newly established Garda Síochána, with the rank of Chief Superintendent. The next year he transfers to the Garda when the two police forces are amalgamated, and is instrumental in the foundation of the Garda Special Branch. When Éamon de Valera becomes head of government in 1932, his republican followers demand Neligan’s dismissal. Instead, Neligan is transferred to an equivalent post in the Irish Civil Service. In June 1935, he is married to fellow civil servant Sheila Maeve Rogan. They have one son and three daughters, and reside at 15 St. Helen’s Road, Booterstown, Dublin.

Neligan draws pensions from the DMP, the British MI5, the Garda Síochána and the Irish Civil Service. He also receives an “Old IRA” pension through the Department of Defence.


by Leave a comment

Death of Mick Mackey, Limerick County Team Hurler

Michael John Mackey, Irish hurler who plays as a centre-forward at senior level for the Limerick county hurling team, dies on September 13, 1982, at Dooradoyle, County Limerick.

Mackey is born in Castleconnell, County Limerick, on July 12, 1912. Educated at Castleconnell National School, he receives no secondary schooling and subsequently joins the Electricity Supply Board where he spends forty-seven years as a van driver with the company at Ardnacrusha, County Clare. He also spends five years as a member of the Irish Army.

Mackey first arrives on the inter-county scene at the age of seventeen when he first links up with the Limerick minor team, before later lining out with the junior side. He makes his senior debut in the 1930–31 National Hurling League. He goes on to play a key part for Limerick during a golden age for the team, and wins three All-Ireland medals, five Munster medals and five National Hurling League medals. An All-Ireland runner-up on two occasions, he also captains the team to two All-Ireland victories.

Mackey’s brother, John, also shares in these victories while his father, John “Tyler” Mackey, is a one-time All-Ireland runner-up with Limerick.

Mackey represents the Munster GAA inter-provincial team for twelve years, winning eight Railway Cup medals during the period. At club level, he wins fifteen championship medals with Ahane.

Throughout his inter-county career, Mackey makes 42 championship appearances for Limerick. His retirement comes following the conclusion of the 1947 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship.

In retirement from playing, Mackey becomes involved in team management and coaching. As trainer of the Limerick senior team, he guides them to the 1955 Railway Cup Hurling Championship. He also serves as a selector on various occasions with both Limerick and Munster. He also serves as a referee.

Mackey is widely regarded as one of the greatest hurlers in the history of the game. He is the inaugural recipient of the All-Time All Star Award. He is repeatedly voted onto teams made up of the sport’s greats, including at centre-forward on the Hurling Team of the Century in 1984 and the Hurling Team of the Millennium in 2000. In 2021, the trophy given to the winning Munster Senior Hurling Championship team is named in Mackey’s honour.

Mackey is married to Kathleen “Kitty” Kennedy (1914–2003) and the couple has five children: Paddy, Michael, Greg, Audrey and Ruth.

In declining health for some years, Mackey suffers a series of strokes toward the end of his life. He dies in Dooradoyle, County Limerick, on September 13, 1982. All his medals and trophies are on display in the GAA Museum in Croke Park. A stand in the Limerick Gaelic Grounds is named after him.