seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: County Meath


by Leave a comment

Death of Séamus Ennis, Musician, Singer & Music Collector

Séamus Ennis (Irish: Séamas Mac Aonghusa), Irish musician, singer and Irish music collector, dies in Naul, County Dublin, on October 5, 1982. He is most noted for his uilleann pipe playing and is partly responsible for the revival of the instrument during the twentieth century, having co-founded Na Píobairí Uilleann, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the promotion of the uilleann pipes and its music. He is recognised for preserving almost 2,000 Irish songs and dance-tunes as part of the work he does with the Irish Folklore Commission. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest uilleann pipers of all time.

Ennis’s father, James, works for the Irish civil service at Naul, County Dublin. In 1908, James Ennis is in a pawn shop in London and purchases a bag containing the pieces of a set of old uilleann pipes. They were made in the mid nineteenth century by Coyne Pipemakers of Thomas Street in Dublin. In 1912, he comes in first in the Oireachtas competition for warpipes and second in the uilleann pipes. He is also a prize-winning dancer. In 1916, he marries Mary Josephine McCabe, an accomplished fiddle player from County Monaghan. They have six children, Angela, Séamus, Barbara, and twins, Cormac and Ursula (Pixie) and Desmond. Séamus is born on May 5, 1919, in Jamestown in Finglas, Dublin. James Ennis is a member of the Fingal trio, which includes Frank O’Higgins on fiddle and John Cawley on flute, and performs regularly with them on the radio. At the age of thirteen, Séamus starts receiving lessons on the pipes from his father. He attends a Gaelscoil, Cholmcille, and a Gaelcholáiste, Coláiste Mhuire, which gives him a knowledge of the Irish language that serves him well in later life. He sits in an exam to become Employment Exchange clerk but is too far down the list to be offered a job. He is twenty and unemployed.

Colm Ó Lochlainn is editor of Irish Street Ballads and a friend of the Ennis family. In 1938, Ennis confides in Colm that he intends to move to England to join the British Army. Colm immediately offers him a job at The Three Candles Press. There Ennis learns all aspects of the printing trade. This includes writing down slow airs for printed scores – a skill which later proves important. Colm is director of an Irish language choir, An Claisceadal, which Ennis joins. In 1942, during The Emergency, shortages and rationing mean that things become difficult in the printing trade. Professor Seamus Ó Duilearge of the Irish Folklore Commission hires the 23-year-old to collect songs. He is given “pen, paper and pushbike” and a salary of three pounds per week. Off he goes to Connemara.

From 1942 to 1947, working for the Irish Folklore Commission, Ennis collects songs in west Munster; counties Galway, Cavan, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry; the Aran Islands and the Scottish Hebrides. His knowledge of Scottish Gaelic enables him to transcribe much of the John Lorne Campbell collection of songs. Elizabeth Cronin of Ballyvourney, County Cork, is so keen to chat to Ennis on his visits that she writes down her own songs and hands them over as he arrives, and then gets down to conversation. He has a natural empathy with the musicians and singers he meets. In August 1947, he starts work as an outside broadcast officer with Raidió Éireann. He is a presenter and records Willie Clancy, Seán Reid and Micho Russell for the first time. There is an air of authority in his voice. In 1951, Alan Lomax and Jean Ritchie arrived from the United States to record Irish songs and tunes. The tables are turned as Ennis becomes the subject of someone else’s collection. There is a photograph from 1952/53 showing Ritchie huddled over the tape recorder while Ennis plays uilleann pipes.

Late in 1951, Ennis joins the BBC. He moves to London to work with producer Brian George. In 1952, he marries Margaret Glynn. They have two children, the organist Catherine Ennis and Christopher. His job is to record the traditional music of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and to present it on the BBC Home Service. The programme is called As I Roved Out and runs until 1958. Meeting up with Alan Lomax again, he is largely responsible for the album Folk and Primitive Music (volume on Ireland) on the Columbia Records label.

In 1958, after his contract with the BBC is not renewed, Ennis starts doing freelance work, first in England then back in Ireland, with the new TV station Teilifis Éireann. Soon he is relying totally on his musical ability to make a living. About this time, his marriage breaks down and he returns to Ireland. He suffers from tuberculosis and is ill for some time. In 1964, he performs at the Newport Folk Festival. His father gives him the pipes he had bought in 1908. Although most pipers can be classed as playing in a tight style or an open style, Ennis is in between. He is a master of the slow air, knowing how to decorate long notes with taste and discreet variation.

Two events will live in legend among pipers. The first is in Bettystown, County Meath, in 1968, when the society of Irish pipers, Na Píobairí Uilleann, is formed. Breandán Breathnach is playing a tape of his own piping. Ennis asks, “What year?” Breandán replies, “1948.” Ennis says, “So I thought.” For a couple of hours the younger players perform while Ennis sits in silence. Eventually he is asked to play. Slowly he takes off his coat and rolls up his sleeves. He spends 20 minutes tuning up his 130-year-old pipes. He then asks the gathering whether all the tape recorders are ready and proceeds to play for over an hour. To everyone’s astonishment he then offers his precious pipes to Willie Clancy to play a set. Clancy demurs but eventually gives in. Next, Liam O’Flynn is asked to play them, and so on, round the room. The second unforgettable session is in Dowlings’ Pub in Prosperous, County Kildare. Christy Moore is there, as well as most of the future members of Planxty.

Ennis never runs any school of piping but his enthusiasm infuses everyone he meets. In the early 1970s, he shares a house with Liam O’Flynn for almost three years. Finally, he purchases a piece of land in Naul and lives in a mobile home there. One of his last performances is at the Willie Clancy Summer School in 1982. He dies on October 5, 1982. His pipes are bequeathed to Liam O’Flynn. Radio producer Peter Browne produces a compilation of his performances, called The Return from Fingal, spanning 40 years.

Séamus Ennis Road in his native Finglas is named in his honour. The Séamus Ennis Arts Centre in Naul is opened in his honour, to commemorate his work and to promote the traditional arts. He is also the subject of Christy Moore’s song “The Easter Snow.” This is the title of a slow air Ennis used to play, and one after which he named his final home in Naul.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Kathleen Behan, Irish Republican & Folk Singer

Kathleen Behan (née Kearney), Irish republican and folk singer, and mother of Irish authors Brendan, Brian and Dominic, is born on September 18, 1889, at 49 Capel Street, Dublin.

She is the fifth child and youngest daughter of pork butcher and grocer, John Kearney (1854–97), and his wife Kathleen Kearney (née McGuinness) (1860–1907). She has four brothers and two sisters. Her father is from Rosybrook, County Louth and her mother is from Rathmaiden, Slane, County Meath, both coming from prosperous farming families. Her father has a business on Lower Dorset Street, with a grocery, pub and a row of houses. Owing to his own poor management, by the time she is born he has a smaller business on Dolphin’s Barn Lane. Following his death in 1897, she and her sisters are placed in the Goldenbridge orphanage at Inchicore by their mother. She is there from 1898 to 1904 where she becomes an avid reader. When she leaves, she rejoins her family in a one-room tenement flat on Gloucester Street.

Her oldest sibling, Peadar Kearney, is an ardent republican who writes the lyrics to the song that becomes the Irish national anthem, ”Amhrán na bhFiann”(English: “The Soldier’s Song”). It is through him that she meets a printer’s compositor and member of the Irish Volunteers, Jack Furlong. They marry in 1916. She is an active member of Cumann na mBan, and serves as a courier to the General Post Office, Dublin and other outposts during the 1916 Easter Rising. At the same time, Furlong fights in the Jacob’s factory garrison. The couple has two sons: Roger Casement (Rory) Furlong (1917–87) and Sean Furlong (born March 1919). Sean is born six month’s after she is widowed when Furlong dies in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. She lives with her mother-in-law, who is also a republican and seamstress who makes Irish Volunteer uniforms. She is arrested for running an Irish Republican Army (IRA) safe house. She works for a short time for Maud Gonne as a housekeeper, where she meets W. B. Yeats and Sarah Purser. A study painted of her by Purser (above) is now in the National Gallery of Ireland entitled The Sad Girl. From 1918 to 1922 she works as a clerk in the Dublin Corporation, while also a caretaker in the Harcourt Street branch of the Irish White Cross republican aid association.

In 1922 she marries Stephen Behan, house painter, trade unionist and fellow republican. The couple has four sons and one daughter: Brendan (b. 1923), Seamus (b. 1925), Brian (b. 1926), Dominic (b. 1928), and Carmel (b. 1932). Brendan is born while his father is imprisoned during the Irish Civil War, and Behan claims that Michael Collins gives her money while she is pregnant. Stephen’s mother owns three slum tenements, so the Behans live rent-free in a one-room basement flat at 14 Russell Street. Owing to her disdain at gossiping on the house steps, she is nicknamed “Lady Behan” by her neighbours. When Stephen’s mother dies in 1936, the Behans moved to a newly built council house in Crumlin, living at 70 Kildare Road. The family finds the new house far from work and school, and the local area devoid of community.

The family experiences extreme poverty frequently, owing to Stephen’s unemployment and during the nine month long building strike of 1936. Behan attempts to claim a pension as her first husband had served in 1916, but her application is rejected. She had said the exposure to flour had effected Furlong’s lungs negatively. It is declined as she had remarried before the enactment of the Army Pensions Act 1923. Despite their circumstances, the house attracts conversation, music, books and politics. The Behan’s republican, socialist, labour activist and anti-clericalism have a strong effect on their sons, particularly Brendan and Dominic. Such is the volume of radical meetings that take place at the Behan home, it is dubbed “the Kremlin” by their neighbours, and a “madhouse” by Stephen. During The Emergency of 1939 to 1945 she fights against local shopkeepers who ignore price controls, and is labelled as “red” for her anti-Franco and pro-Stalin sympathies. Her reply to the branding of her as such is “I’m not red, I’m scarlet.”

From the 1950s onwards, Behan shares international fame with her sons Dominic and Brendan. She often travels to London to see their plays, eventually appearing on British and Irish television and cultivating her own following. She is badly injured when she is struck by a motorcycle, a day before Stephen’s death in 1967. Owing to the effect of these injuries, she moves in 1970 to the Sacred Heart Residence of the Little Sisters of the Poor, Sybil Hill, Raheny.

In 1981, she records an album When All the World Was Young. Taped conversations of her reminiscences are made into an autobiographic book, Mother of all the Behans, by her son Brian in 1984. A one-woman stage adaptation of the book by Peter Sheridan and starring Rosaleen Linehan is acclaimed in Ireland, Britain and North America.

Behan dies in the nursing home in Raheny on April 26, 1984, and is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery.

(Pictured: Portrait of Kathleen Behan by Sarah Purser, National Gallery of Ireland)


by Leave a comment

Death of R. M. “Bertie” Smyllie, Editor of “The Irish Times”

Robert Maire Smyllie, known as Bertie Smyllie, editor of The Irish Times for twenty years, dies on September 11, 1954.

Smyllie is born on March 20, 1893, at Hill Street, Shettleston, Glasgow, Scotland. He is the eldest of four sons and one daughter of Robert Smyllie, a Presbyterian printer originally from Scotland who is working in Sligo, County Sligo, at the time, and Elisabeth Follis, originally from Cork, County Cork. His father marries in Sligo on July 20, 1892, and later becomes proprietor and editor of the unionist Sligo Times. Smyllie attends Sligo Grammar School in 1906 and enrolls at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1911.

After two years at TCD, Smyllie’s desire for adventure leads him to leave university in 1913. Working as a vacation tutor to an American boy in Germany at the start of World War I, he is detained in Ruhleben internment camp, near Berlin, during the war. As an internee, he is involved in drama productions with other internees. Following his release at the end of the war, he witnesses the German revolution of 1918–1919. During this period, he encounters revolutionary sailors from Kiel who temporarily make him a representative of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council, and he observes key events including the looting of the Kaiser’s Palace and violent clashes between rival factions in Berlin. It is also during this period that he secures a personal interview with David Lloyd George at the Paris Convention of 1919. This helps Smyllie gain a permanent position with The Irish Times in 1920, where he quickly earns the confidence of editor John Healy. Together, they take part in secret but unsuccessful attempts to resolve the Irish War of Independence.

Smyllie contributes to the Irishman’s Diary column of the paper from 1927. In 1927, he publishes an exclusive report outlining a draft government including both Labour Party and Fianna Fáil TDs, signaling the volatile politics of the early state years.

Smyllie’s knowledge of languages (particularly the German he had learned during his internment) led to numerous foreign assignments. His reports on the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany are notably prescient and instill in him a lasting antipathy towards the movement.

When Healy dies in 1934, Smyllie becomes editor of The Irish Times and also takes on the role of Irish correspondent for The Times (London), a position that brings significant additional income. Under Healy’s leadership, The Irish Times shifted from representing the Anglo-Irish ascendancy to becoming an organ of liberal, southern unionism, and eventually becomes a critical legitimising force in the Irish Free State. Smyllie enthusiastically supports this change. He establishes a non-partisan profile and a modern Irish character for the erstwhile ascendancy paper. For example, he drops “Kingstown Harbour” for “Dún Laoghaire.” He also introduces the paper’s first-ever Irish-language columnist. He is assisted by Alec Newman and Lionel Fleming, recruits Patrick Campbell and enlists Flann O’Brien to write his thrice-weekly column “Cruiskeen Lawn” as Myles na gCopaleen. As editor, he introduces a more Bohemian and informal style, establishing a semi-permanent salon in Fleet Street’s Palace Bar. This becomes a hub for journalists and literary figures and a source of material for his weekly column, Nichevo.

One of Smyllie’s early political challenges as editor concerns the Spanish Civil War. At a time when Irish Catholic opinion is strongly pro-Franco, he ensures The Irish Times coverage is balanced and fair, though advertiser pressure eventually forces the withdrawal of the paper’s young reporter, Lionel Fleming, from the conflict. His awareness of the looming European crisis earns him the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. However, during World War II, he clashes with Ireland’s censorship authorities, especially under Minister Frank Aiken. He challenges their views both publicly and privately, though his relationship with the editor of the Irish Independent, Frank Geary, is cold, reducing the effectiveness of their joint opposition to censorship.

During the 1943 Irish general election, Smyllie uses the paper to promote the idea of a national government that could represent Ireland with authority in the postwar world. He praises Fine Gael’s proposal for such a government and criticises Éamon de Valera for dismissing it as unrealistic. This leads to a public exchange between de Valera and Smyllie, with the latter defending The Irish Times’s role as a constructive voice for Ireland’s future rather than a partisan interest.

Following the war, Smyllie’s editorial stance shifts toward defending Ireland’s neutrality and diplomatic position. When Winston Churchill accuses de Valera of fraternising with Axis powers, Smyllie counters by revealing Ireland’s covert collaboration with the Allies, such as military and intelligence cooperation, despite official neutrality. In the same period, he continues to oppose censorship, particularly the frequent banning of Irish writers by the Censorship of Publications Board. This opposition features prominently in a controversy on The Irish Times letters page in 1950, later published as the liberal ethic. The paper also adopts a critical stance toward the Catholic Church, notably during the 1951 resignation of Minister for Health Noël Browne amid opposition from bishops and doctors to a national Mother and Child Scheme. His editorials suggest the Catholic Church is effectively the government of Ireland, though he maintains a cordial relationship with Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who invites him annually for dinner.

Smyllie is also wary of American foreign policy, showing hostility particularly during the Korean War. American diplomats in Dublin allege that Smyllie is “pro-communist“. Despite growing readership among an educated Catholic middle class, The Irish Times’s circulation in 1950 remains under 50,000, far below the Irish Independent and the Fianna Fáil-aligned The Irish Press.

In later years, Smyllie’s health declines, prompting a quieter lifestyle. He moves from his large house in Pembroke Park, Dublin, to Delgany, County Wicklow. As he does not drive, he becomes less present in the newspaper office in D’Olier Street, contributing to a decline in the paper’s dynamism. His health deteriorates further, resulting in frequent absences from his editorial duties, though he retains his position despite management attempts to limit his authority, especially over finances. He dies of heart failure on September 11, 1954.

In 1925, Smyllie marries Kathlyn Reid, eldest daughter of a County Meath landowner. They have no children.

Smyllie is an eccentric: he hits his tee shots with a nine iron, speaks in a curious mix of Latin phrases and everyday Dublin slang, and weighs 22 stone (308 lbs.; 140 kg) yet still cycles to work wearing a green sombrero.


by Leave a comment

Death of Liam Ó Briain, Irish Language Expert & Political Activist

Liam Ó Briain, Irish language expert and political activist, dies on August 12, 1974, in Cabinteely, County Dublin.

Christened as William O’Brien, Ó Briain is born at 10 Church Street, North Wall, Dublin, on September 16, 1888, the seventh child of Arthur O’Brien, clerk, and Mary O’Brien (née Christie), who is from County Meath. He takes an interest in the Irish language from an early age and begins learning Irish by himself from a grammar book, as it is not encouraged by his teachers at the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School nor spoken by his parents. While still at the O’Connell School, he starts using the Irish version of his name. He also attends meetings of the Gaelic League, then attends University College Dublin (UCD) on a scholarship, where he studies French, English and Irish, receiving a BA (1909) and an MA (1910).

UCD decides to start awarding one annual scholarship for overseas travel in 1911, and Ó Briain wins the first one, using it to visit Germany and study under Kuno Meyer and Rudolf Thurneysen. After three years, he returns home, where he rejoins the Gaelic League and begins teaching French at UCD. He also joins the Irish Volunteers then, the following year, Seán T. O’Kelly convinces him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Ó Briain sees action with the Irish Citizen Army. He comes into conflict with his commander, Michael Mallin, as he wants to pursue a strategy without the Dublin brigade being “cooped up in the city.” However, Mallin overrules him and insists they should focus on taking Dublin Castle. He spends two months in Wandsworth Prison in London and six months in Frongoch internment camp in Wales before being released to discover that he has been fired from his job. However, he quickly obtains a professorship in Romance languages at University College Galway (UCG).

Around this time, Ó Briain joins Sinn Féin, and he stands unsuccessfully for the party in Mid Armagh at the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, taking 5,689 votes. His campaign leads, indirectly, to his arrest and three months in jail in Belfast. In 1920, following his release, he is appointed a judge in the then-illegal republican court system in Galway, and visits both France and Italy to try to source weapons for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In November 1920, he is arrested in the UCG dining room by Black and Tans, and is imprisoned for thirteen months, first in Galway and then in the Curragh camp in County Kildare, thereby missing the conclusion of the Irish War of Independence. By the time he is released, the Anglo-Irish Treaty has been signed. He supports the treaty and takes no further part in militant activity.

In the newly independent Ireland, Ó Briain remains a professor at Galway. He also stands in the 1925 Seanad election, although he is not successful. He is the founding secretary of the Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe theatre, also acting in many of its productions, and spends much time translating works from English and the Romance languages into Irish. He stands to become president of UCG in 1945, but is not elected, and in the 1940s and 1950s is best known for his many appearances on television and radio.

From his retirement in 1959, Ó Briain lives in Dublin. In 1974, the National University of Ireland (NUI) confers an honorary doctorate on him. He dies on August 12, 1974, at St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Cabinteely, County Dublin. His funeral to Glasnevin Cemetery is almost a state occasion, with a huge attendance of public figures, and a military firing party at the graveside, where the oration is given by Micheál Mac Líammóir and a lesson is read by Siobhán McKenna. For days after his death, the newspapers carry tributes to his many-sided career and personality. On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and Art Ó Beoláin write commemorative articles in Feasta.

On September 1, 1921, Ó Briain marries Helen Lawlor, of Dublin, who dies two years before him. The couple’s only child is Eibhlín Ní Bhriain, who is a journalist for The Irish Times and other periodicals.


by Leave a comment

Death of John Bowes, 1st Baron Bowes

John Bowes, 1st Baron Bowes, PC (I), Anglo-Irish peer, politician and judge, dies in Dublin on July 22, 1767. He is noted for his great legal ability, but also for his implacable hostility to Roman Catholics.

Bowes is born in London, the second son of Thomas Bowes, a merchant and member of the Worshipful Company of Turners, and his wife, a Miss North, and is called to the Bar in 1712. He comes to Ireland as a member of the staff of Richard West, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in 1723. He builds up a large practice at the Irish Bar and is appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1730, and Attorney-General for Ireland in 1739. He is raised to the Bench as Lord Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1741, having previously failed to become third Baron (which is a surprisingly lucrative office, as the Baron receives several extra fees). He is appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland by King George II in 1757, despite the chronic ill-health which afflicts him. In his last years, his legs are so swollen that he can scarcely walk.

Bowes epitomizes the severity of the 18th century Penal Laws against Irish Catholics when he rules, in about 1759, that: “The law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic, nor could such a person draw breath without the Crown’s permission”. Such views, given that Roman Catholics make up more than 90% of the Irish population at the time, inevitably make him bitterly unpopular, and in 1760 he is assaulted during a riot outside the House of Commons.

In spite of his religious bigotry, Bowes is considered one of the outstanding judges of his time. In particular, he is a reforming Lord Chancellor, who is praised for making the Court of Chancery “a terror for fraud, and a comfort and protection for honest men”. As Attorney-General he shows considerable courage in going on assize during the Irish Famine (1740–1741) despite the infectious fever which is raging at the time, and which claims the lives of three other judges who decide to brave the dangers.

Between 1731 and 1742, Bowes represents Taghmon in the Irish House of Commons.

Bowes is considered one of the finest speakers of his time. His speech for the prosecution at the trial of Henry Barry, 4th Baron Barry of Santry, who is charged with murder in 1739, is described by those who hear it as a masterpiece of eloquence and logic, and leads to the Irish House of Lords bringing in a unanimous verdict of guilty against Santry.

Bowes is raised to the peerage of Ireland in 1758 as Baron Bowes, of Clonlyon in the County of Meath.

Bowes dies in Dublin on July 22, 1767, his mental faculties fully intact despite his bodily infirmities. He is buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, where his brother raises a memorial to him. He never marries, and his title becomes extinct on his death. He lives at Belvedere House, Drumcondra. His estates passes to his brother Rumsey Bowes of Binfield, Berkshire.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Bobby Molloy, Independent Politician

Robert Molloy, independent politician, is born in Galway, County Galway, on July 9, 1936.

Molloy’s father, Michael Edward Molloy, is originally from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, and runs a successful wholesale drapery business in the city. His mother, Rita Stanley, hails from Clifden, County Galway. He is educated at Coláiste Iognáid and University College Galway. Before entering politics, he works for several years in printing, the clothing industry and his family’s drapery firm.

Molloy is first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Galway West constituency at the 1965 Irish general election. In 1968, he is also elected Mayor of Galway. The following year he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education. 

Molloy’s early political career is marked by his loyalty to Fianna Fáil’s leadership under Taoiseach Jack Lynch. He quickly rises through the ranks and is appointed Minister for Local Government in 1970, a position he holds until 1973. His tenure as Minister for Local Government is characterised by his efforts to modernise and streamline local government structures in Ireland. His tenure in Fianna Fáil sees him as a stalwart of the party’s establishment, though tensions with its leadership grow over the years, particularly with Charles Haughey.

In opposition from 1973, Molloy serves as the frontbench spokesman, where he becomes involved in a high-profile dispute with James Tully, the Labour Minister for Local Government, over the controversial redrawing of constituencies, known as the “Tullymander.” Molloy, along with fellow Fianna Fáil member Brendan Crinion, used Dáil privilege to accuse Tully of having an improper commercial relationship with a builder in County Meath. The accusation is strongly denied by Tully and Molloy and Crinion later withdraw the charge. Despite this, Molloy faces severe repercussions, being forced to resign from his frontbench position. He is subsequently condemned by a judicial tribunal and censured by the Dáil for abusing parliamentary privilege.

When Fianna Fáil returns to office in 1977, Molloy becomes Minister for Defence in the final government of Jack Lynch.

Molloy supports George Colley in the 1979 Fianna Fáil leadership election. Charles Haughey wins the contest and drops Molloy, alongside other opponents, from the cabinet. Thereafter Molloy becomes a member of the Gang of 22 who oppose Haughey’s leadership of the party.

In 1986, Molloy resigns from Fianna Fáil and joins the newly formed Progressive Democrats, spearheaded by Haughey’s arch-rival Desmond O’Malley. Molloy’s move is seen as a major break from the political establishment, as the Progressive Democrats advocate for low-tax, market-oriented economic policies and a more liberal economic agenda. His decision is driven by his dissatisfaction with the direction of Fianna Fáil under Haughey’s leadership and his belief that the party has become increasingly alienating. 

In 1989, Molloy contests the European Parliament elections but is unsuccessful in his attempt. Following the 1989 Irish general election, Molloy, along with newly elected MEP for Munster Pat Cox, represents the Progressive Democrats in the lengthy negotiations with Fianna Fáil to form a coalition government. Once the negotiations conclude, he is reinstated in the Cabinet as Minister for Energy under Taoiseach Charles Haughey, who had previously caused Molloy’s political humiliation a decade earlier. Over the following three years, Molloy and his Progressive Democrat colleague Desmond O’Malley have a working relationship with their former Fianna Fáil colleagues, though tensions grow due to resentment over their presence in the Cabinet. The issue comes to a head when Molloy and O’Malley make it clear they will not serve in a Cabinet that includes Brian Lenihan Snr, following his controversial remarks during the 1990 Irish presidential election about alleged phone calls to President Patrick Hillery from 1982.

In January 1992, Haughey faces further complications when Seán Doherty reveals information about the phone tapping of journalists dating back to 1982. Despite this, the coalition government ends when Albert Reynolds, Haughey’s successor, calls for a general election after accusing O’Malley of giving “dishonest” evidence to the Beef Tribunal. Molloy strongly denounces Reynolds’ accusation, describing it as “outrageous,” and criticises him for what he perceives as a “lack of generosity” in recent North-South negotiations, in which Molloy had represented the Progressive Democrats in talks with British Unionists.

Molloy stands at the European Parliament elections again in 1994 but is again unsuccessful.

Following the 1997 Irish general election, Molloy is part of the negotiations that lead to the formation of a coalition government between the Progressive Democrats and Fianna Fáil. On that occasion, he is appointed as Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government and sits at cabinet as Minister of State to the Government.

Molloy resigns as a minister and quits politics just before the 2002 Irish general election amid controversy surrounding his involvement in the rape case of Barbara Naughton. The controversy stems from a letter Molloy sent to then Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue, on behalf of a constituent whose relative had been convicted of rape. The letter, which requests the temporary release of the individual pending an appeal, leads to public criticism. The case is high-profile, involving a Connemara man sentenced to eleven years for the systematic abuse of his young daughter. During the trial, the judge, Philip O’Sullivan, notes that someone acting on Molloy’s behalf had tried to contact him in his chambers to clarify whether he had received certain correspondence from the victim’s sister, which the judge describes as “quite improper.” In response to the backlash, Molloy resigns, describing the letter as a “human error of judgment,” but insisting it was not intended to be dishonest. He retires from politics after the election.

Molloy is a member of Fianna Fáil for over 20 years, but his views are not always in line with the mainstream of the party, particularly under the leadership of Charles Haughey. His decision to leave Fianna Fáil in 1986 and join the Progressive Democrats is motivated by ideological differences, notably the party’s move toward a more conservative, state-controlled economy. Molloy, on the other hand, embraces a platform of fiscal conservatism, with an emphasis on reducing taxes, deregulation, and the liberalisation of the economy.

In terms of social issues, Molloy is ahead of his time in advocating for progressive policies, particularly on women’s rights. In a survey conducted in 1976 by the Women’s Political Association (WPA), Molloy scores among the highest of any member of the Dáil for his progressive stance on issues affecting women. He supports measures such as divorce, contraception, and family law reform, which are seen as highly controversial at the time. His responses to the WPA’s questions reveal that he holds views that are in stark contrast to many of his colleagues within Fianna Fáil. His progressive views on women’s rights are notable, as he is the only member of Jack Lynch’s cabinet who consistently supports reformist policies on issues like family law and the role of women in public life.

In 1972, Molloy marries Phyllis Barry, a Montessori teacher from Foxrock, County Dublin, whose father is a cousin of the executed revolutionary Kevin Barry. The couple meet while campaigning in a by-election in mid-Cork. Together, they have four children: Sinead, Sorcha, Donnacha, and Dara.

Molloy dies at the age of 80 on October 2, 2016, in Salthill, Galway, County Galway. He is buried at Bohermore Cemetery, Bohermore, Galway.


by 2 Comments

Death of Thomas Mulvany, Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath

Thomas Mulvany, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath from 1929 until his death, dies on June 16, 1943, in Mullingar, County Westmeath.

Mulvany is born in Moynalty, County Meath, 8 km (5 mi) north of Kells, on March 1, 1864, to James Mulvany and Mary Monaghan. He is ordained a priest of the Diocese of Meath on March 6, 1892.

Following his predecessors death, Pope Pius XI names him Bishop of Meath on April 12, 1929, and he is consecrated on June 30, with Cardinal Joseph MacRory being the principal consecrator. He retains that position until his death.

At the time of his appointment, Mulvaney becomes involved with plans for a new cathedral for Mullingar and the Diocese of Meath to replace the aging Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (1836–1936). He takes the plans to Pope Pius XI, who is supportive and requests that the new building be dedicated as the Cathedral of Christ the King. Construction begins in 1932 and the building is completed in 1936.

Mulvany opens St. Patrick’s Classical School in Navan, County Meath, in the former study hall of St. Finian’s College, Navan, which moved to Mullingar at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Mulvany dies at the age of 75 as a result of hypertension and cerebral hemorrhage, in the Bishops Palace, Mullingar, on June 16, 1943. His death is registered on June 24, 1943, by Margaret Walsh, a nurse who is present at his death. He is buried in the grounds of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar.


by Leave a comment

Death of James Tully, Labour Party Politician & Trade Unionist

James Tully, Irish Labour Party politician and trade unionist, dies in Navan, County Meath, on May 20, 1992. He serves as Minister for Defence from 1981 to 1982, Deputy leader of the Labour Party from 1981 to 1982 and Minister for Local Government from 1973 to 1977. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Meath constituency from 1954 to 1957 and 1961 to 1982.

A native of Carlanstown, near Kells in the north of County Meath, Tully is educated in Carlanstown schools and in St Patrick’s Classical School in Navan. He is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party TD for the Meath constituency at the 1954 Irish general election. He loses his seat at the 1957 Irish general election, but is re-elected at the 1961 Irish general election and serves until 1982. When Labour enters into a coalition government with Fine Gael in 1973, he is appointed Minister for Local Government. While serving in that post he gains prominence for a massive increase in the building of public housing, and notoriety for an attempt to gerrymander Irish constituencies to ensure the re-election of the National Coalition at the 1977 Irish general election. His electoral reorganisation effort via the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974, which comes to be called a “Tullymander,” backfires spectacularly and helps engineer a landslide for the opposition, Fianna Fáil. He is regarded as a conservative within the Labour Party, though tends to support party decisions, even if he disagrees with them. For many years he is opposed to coalition, though finding the years in opposition fruitless, he changes his mind and becomes increasingly in favour of coalition with Fine Gael.

Also as Minister for Local Government, Tully decides on alterations to the plans for the controversial Dublin Corporation Civic Offices.

Tully is appointed deputy leader of the Labour Party under Michael O’Leary in 1981, and Minister for Defence in the short-lived 1981–82 Fine Gael-Labour Party government. In that capacity he travels to Cairo, in 1981, as the Republic of Ireland‘s representative in Egypt‘s annual October 6 military victory parade. While in the reviewing stand, next to President Anwar Sadat, he suffers a shrapnel injury to his face when Sadat was assassinated by members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who had infiltrated the Egyptian Army.

In 1982, a few months after the event, Tully retires from politics. He dies ten years later, on May 20, 1992, at the age of 76.

(Pictured: Portrait of James Tully taken from his 1954 election poster)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Richard Mulcahy, Fine Gael Politician & Army General

Richard James Mulcahy, Irish Fine Gael politician and army general, is born in Manor Street, Waterford, County Waterford, on May 10, 1886, the son of post office clerk Patrick Mulcahy and Elizabeth Slattery. He is educated at Mount Sion Christian Brothers School and later in Thurles, County Tipperary, where his father is the postmaster.

Mulcahy joins the Royal Mail (Post Office Engineering Dept.) in 1902, and works in Thurles, Bantry, Wexford and Dublin. He is a member of the Gaelic League and joins the Irish Volunteers at the time of their formation in 1913. He is also a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Mulcahy is second-in-command to Thomas Ashe in an encounter with the armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at Ashbourne, County Meath, during the 1916 Easter Rising, one of the few stand-out victories won by republicans in that week and generally credited to Mulcahy’s grasp of tactics. In his book on the Rising, Charles Townshend principally credits Mulcahy with the defeat of the RIC at Ashbourne, for conceiving and leading a flanking movement on the RIC column that had engaged with the Irish Volunteers. Arrested after the Rising, he is interned at Knutsford and at the Frongoch internment camp in Wales until his release on December 24, 1916.

On his release, Mulcahy immediately rejoins the republican movement and becomes commandant of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. He is elected to the First Dáil in the 1918 Irish general election for Dublin Clontarf. He is then named Minister for Defence in the new government and later Assistant Minister for Defence. In March 1918, he becomes Irish Republican Army (IRA) chief of staff, a position he holds until January 1922.

Mulcahy and Michael Collins are largely responsible for directing the military campaign against the British during the Irish War of Independence. During this period of upheaval in 1919, he marries Mary Josephine (Min) Ryan, sister of Kate and Phyllis Ryan, the successive wives of Seán T. O’Kelly. Her brother is James Ryan. O’Kelly and Ryan both later serve in Fianna Fáil governments.

Mulcahy supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. Archive film shows that Mulcahy, as Minister of Defence, is the Irish officer who raises the Irish tricolour at the first hand-over of a British barracks to the National Army in January 1922. He is defence minister in the Provisional Government on its creation and succeeds Collins, after the latter’s assassination, as Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government’s forces during the subsequent Irish Civil War.

Mulcahy earns notoriety through his order that anti-Treaty activists captured carrying arms are liable for execution. A total of 77 anti-Treaty prisoners are executed by the Provisional Government. He serves as Minister for Defence in the new Free State government from January 1924 until March 1924, but resigns in protest because of the sacking of the Army Council after criticism by the Executive Council over the handling of the “Army Mutiny,” when some National Army War of Independence officers almost revolt after he demobilises many of them at the end of the Irish Civil War. He re-enters the cabinet as Minister for Local Government and Public Health in 1927.

During Mulcahy’s period on the backbenches of Dáil Éireann his electoral record fluctuates. He is elected as TD for Dublin North-West at the 1921 and 1922 Irish general elections. He moves to Dublin North for the election the following year and is re-elected there in four further elections: June 1927, September 1927, 1932, and 1933.

Dublin North is abolished for the 1937 Irish general election, at which Mulcahy is defeated in the new constituency of Dublin North-East. However, he secures election to Seanad Éireann as a Senator, the upper house of the Oireachtas, representing the Administrative Panel. The 2nd Seanad sits for less than two months, and at the 1938 Irish general election he is elected to the 10th Dáil as a TD for Dublin North-East. Defeated again in the 1943 Irish general election, he secures election to the 4th Seanad by the Labour Panel.

After the resignation of W. T. Cosgrave as Leader of Fine Gael in 1944, Mulcahy becomes party leader while still a member of the Seanad. Thomas F. O’Higgins is parliamentary leader of the party in the Dáil at the time and Leader of the Opposition. Facing his first general election as party leader, Mulcahy draws up a list of 13 young candidates to contest seats for Fine Gael. Of the eight who run, four are elected. He is returned again to the 12th Dáil as a TD for Tipperary at the 1944 Irish general election. While Fine Gael’s decline had been slowed, its future is still in doubt.

Following the 1948 Irish general election Mulcahy is elected for Tipperary South, but the dominant Fianna Fáil party finishes six seats short of a majority. However, it is 37 seats ahead of Fine Gael, and conventional wisdom suggests that Fianna Fáil is the only party that can possibly form a government. Just as negotiations get underway, however, Mulcahy realises that if Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan band together, they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil and, if they can get support from seven independents, they will be able to form a government. He plays a leading role in persuading the other parties to put aside their differences and join forces to consign the then Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Éamon de Valera, to the opposition benches.

Mulcahy initially seems set to become Taoiseach in a coalition government. However, he is not acceptable to Clann na Poblachta’s leader, Seán MacBride. Many Irish republicans had never forgiven him for his role in the Irish Civil War executions carried out under the Cosgrave government in the 1920s. Consequently, MacBride lets it be known that he and his party will not serve under Mulcahy. Without Clann na Poblachta, the other parties would have 57 seats between them — 17 seats short of a majority in the 147-seat Dáil. According to Mulcahy, the suggestion that another person serve as Taoiseach comes from Labour leader William Norton. He steps aside and encourages his party colleague John A. Costello, a former Attorney General of Ireland, to become the parliamentary leader of Fine Gael and the coalition’s candidate for Taoiseach. For the next decade, Costello serves as the party’s parliamentary leader while Mulcahy remained the nominal leader of the party.

Mulcahy goes on to serve as Minister for Education under Costello from 1948 until 1951. Another coalition government comes to power at the 1954 Irish general election, with Mulcahy once again stepping aside to become Minister for Education in the Second Inter-Party Government. The government falls in 1957, but he remains as Fine Gael leader until October 1959. In October the following year, he tells his Tipperary constituents that he does not intend to contest the next election.

Mulcahy dies from natural causes at the age of 85 in Dublin on December 16, 1971. He is buried in Littleton, County Tipperary.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Brendan Bracken, Politician & Businessman

Brendan Bracken, Irish-born businessman, politician and a Minister of Information and First Lord of the Admiralty in Winston Churchill‘s War Cabinet, is born on February 15, 1901, in Church Street, Templemore, County Tipperary.

Bracken is the third child and second of three sons of Joseph Kevin (J. K.) Bracken and Hannah Bracken (née Ryan). The family moves to Kilmallock, County Limerick, in 1903, the year before his father’s death. By 1908, his mother takes the family to live in Glasnevin, a new suburb in north Dublin, and subsequently off the North Circular Road. He is educated in St. Patrick’s National School, Drumcondra, and at the Christian Brothers‘ O’Connell School in North Richmond Street. He is a mischievous, delinquent child, one time throwing a schoolfellow into the Royal Canal. In February 1915 he is sent to Mungret College, a Jesuit boarding school near Limerick. He is not amenable to the regime and runs away on several occasions, finding accommodation in local hotels under a false name.

At the end of 1915 Bracken goes to Australia with £14 in his pocket. He is first based in Echuca, Victoria, where he is put up in a convent. Later he moves to other houses run by religious orders. A voracious reader, he claims that he is doing research for a life of Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran, and signs himself “Brendan Newman Bracken.” He seeks admission as a pupil to Riverview, the fashionable Jesuit school in Sydney, claiming that he had been educated at Clongowes Wood College. Unfortunately for him, a priest who had just come out from Clongowes exposes him. Opinionated and argumentative, he does not conceal his skepticism about the Catholic religion. For a time, he teaches in a Protestant school in Orange, New South Wales.

Bracken returns to Ireland in 1919. By this time his mother has remarried and is living with her new husband, Patrick Laffan, on a farm in Beauparc, County Meath. After a short stay there, he moves to Liverpool and finds employment as a teacher at the Liverpool Collegiate School, claiming that he had been to the University of Sydney. He teaches at the school for two terms in 1920, earning extra money as tutor to a young boy. With his savings he is able to gain admission to Sedbergh School, a public school in the town of Sedbergh in Cumbria, North West England, giving his name as Brendan Rendall Bracken, born 1904, and stating that his parents had perished in a bush fire in Australia, leaving him money to complete his education. He remains only one term but distinguishes himself by winning a prize for history. After Sedbergh, Bracken teaches at Rottingdean preparatory school and then at Bishops Stortford School. He cuts a flamboyant figure and drops the name of famous acquaintances with gay abandon. He stands over 6 feet and has a powerful presence and a domineering personality; his mop of red hair and pale freckled skin combine with black teeth to give him a bizarre appearance.

In 1922 Bracken moves to London. He takes charge of the Illustrated Review when its editor, Hilaire Belloc, resigns. Renamed English Life and covering political and social events, it affords Bracken an opportunity to meet prominent people, including J. L. Garvin, editor of The Observer. In autumn 1923 Garvin introduces him to Winston Churchill, who had lost his parliamentary seat in 1922 and decided to contact Leicester West in the 1923 United Kingdom general election. Bracken offers his services as campaign manager. The friendship between Churchill and Bracken is soon so close that Bracken is rumoured to be Churchill’s natural son. Churchill’s wife Clementine dislikes Bracken and discourages the friendship.

Meanwhile Bracken enjoys the life of a ubiquitous socialite and builds up his career in publishing. He becomes a director of Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1926, starting The Banker, a monthly magazine, for them, and acquiring the Financial News in 1928 and a half-share in The Economist. To these are added in due course the Investors Chronicle and The Practitioner. His success in business enables him to acquire a home in North Street in 1928, near the Houses of Parliament. He is driven about in a chauffeured Hispano-Suiza car.

In 1929, Bracken has himself adopted as conservative candidate for Paddington North, a marginal seat. After a hard-fought campaign characterised by minor violence provoked by Bracken’s intemperate language, he wins the seat by 528 votes. At one point a rumour is put about that Bracken is in reality a Polish Jew, which he has to disprove by exhibiting a copy of his birth certificate. His background is a subject of speculation among acquaintances, and in throwaway remarks he gives different fictitious versions of it, Ireland figuring in none of them. He does however remain in constant touch with his mother, to whom he seems to have been deeply devoted, until her death in 1928. However, he has as little contact as possible with his brother and sisters, although he does give assistance to some of them and their families at various times.

In parliament Bracken voices right-wing views on economic issues and is an enthusiastic imperialist. After Churchill resigns from the conservative front bench in 1930 because they would not oppose the Labour government’s proposal for Indian self-government, he is supported by Bracken. During the 1930s, when Churchill is in the wilderness, disagreeing with the party leadership on India and on what he sees as a policy of appeasement toward Hitler‘s Germany, Bracken is his sole political ally. Stanley Baldwin calls him Churchill’s “faithful chela.”

In September 1939, Churchill joins Neville Chamberlain‘s war cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty. Bracken is appointed his parliamentary private secretary, continuing in that role when Churchill becomes Prime Minister. Despite the king’s opposition, Churchill insists in June 1940 that Bracken should be appointed a privy councillor. Bracken shuts up his house and moves to the Prime Minister’s residence for the duration of the war. As a confidant of the Prime Minister, he often acts as a go-between with other politicians and newspapermen. He is allowed to oversee patronage and takes a special interest in ecclesiastical appointments. In July 1941, he is persuaded by Lord Beaverbrook and Churchill to become Minister for Information. He wins over most of the proprietors by giving them more news, often on a confidential basis, and censorship is kept to a minimum. The BBC is also allowed a fair measure of freedom as long as it behaves responsibly; under the leadership of Cyril Radcliffe, the civil service head of the ministry, it operates more smoothly. Bracken was generally acclaimed for that success.

After the resignation of the Labour ministers from the government at the end of the war in Europe, Bracken joins the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty. He is prominent in the general election campaign that follows and is the only conservative minister apart from Churchill to give more than one radio broadcast. He is accused, probably unjustly, of provoking Churchill to take extreme positions, and blamed when the conservatives are heavily defeated at the polls. Bracken himself loses Paddington North to Lt. Gen. Sir Noel Mason-MacFarlane. However, he is soon back in parliament representing Bournemouth, and as front-bench spokesman is an uncompromising opponent of the nationalisation measures of the Labour government (1945–51). He is out of sympathy with the leftward drift of the conservative party associated with Rab Butler and Harold Macmillan.

In December 1951, when Churchill is again Prime Minister, Bracken declines an invitation to serve as Colonial Secretary, pleading that his recurring sinusitis makes it impossible. He resigns his seat in the House of Commons and is created a peer, Viscount Bracken of Christchurch in Hampshire, but never takes his seat in the House of Lords. Although he retires from politics, he remains close to political events through his friendship with Churchill. He is deeply involved in concealing the severe stroke that Churchill suffers in 1953, so that he can carry on as Prime Minister.

In the postwar period, Bracken has important business interests. The Financial News group acquires the Financial Times in 1945, and he is returned as chairman of the expanded company. He writes a weekly Financial Times column until 1954. He oversees the building near St. Paul’s of a new head office, named “Bracken House” after his death. He is also chairman of the Union Corporation mining house, with interests in South Africa, which he frequently visits. From 1950 he is chairman of the board of governors of Sedbergh School, where he goes frequently and often walks for miles across the fells. He organises and finances the restoration of the eighteenth-century school building as a library, with a commemoratory inscription, “Remember Winston Churchill.”

From 1955 Bracken is a trustee of the National Gallery. He is an unrelenting opponent of the proposal to return to Ireland the impressionist paintings bequeathed to it by Hugh Lane, because a codicil willing them to Dublin has not been witnessed. Throughout the postwar period he carries on a prolific correspondence with friends such as Lord Beaverbrook, the American ambassador Lewis Douglas, and the Australian entrepreneur W. S. Robinson. These are a valuable and entertaining source on the political history of the time.

In January 1958, Bracken, who has always been a heavy smoker, is diagnosed with throat cancer. He lingers on until August 8, 1958, when he dies at the flat of his friend Sir Patrick Hennessy in Park Lane. He resists efforts made to reconcile him to the church of Rome. By his own wish he is cremated, and his ashes are scattered on Romney Marsh, Kent. On his instructions his papers are burned by his chauffeur. His estate comes to £145,032.

(From: “Bracken, Brendan” by Charles Lysaght, Dictionary of Irish Biography, www. dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Brendan Bracken, bromide print by Elliott & Fry, January 13, 1950, National Portrait Gallery, London)