FitzGerald is born in Ireland in 1194, the son of Gerald FitzMaurice, 1st Lord of Offaly, and Eve de Bermingham. He succeeds to the title of Lord of Offaly on January 15, 1204, and is invested as a knight in July 1217, at the age of 33. In 1224, he founds South Abbey, Youghal, the proto-friary of the Irish Province of the Observant Franciscans, dedicated to Saint Nicholas. He is summoned to London to accompany King Henry III of England to Poitou and Gascony in October 1229. He is appointed Justiciar of Ireland in September 1232 and holds the post until 1245. His reputation is marred by rumours that he had contrived the death of Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke in 1234. He meets Marshal at the Battle of the Curragh on April 1, where Marshal is wounded and dies shortly after. It is rumoured that Marshal had been betrayed. FitzGerald then proceeds to London, where he takes an oath before Henry III, that he is innocent of any participation in Marshal’s death. In 1253, he founds Sligo Abbey, a Dominican convent in Sligo, to house a community of monks to say prayers for Earl Marshal’s soul.
In February 1235, the King criticises FitzGerald for his proceedings in office and describes him as “little pleasant, nay, beyond measure harsh in executing the King’s mandates.” The same year, he takes part in the subjugation of Connacht. In the years 1241 and 1242, and later in 1246, 1247, and 1248 he musters armies against the Irish. In 1247, he invades Tír Chonaill and fights the combined forces of Cenél Conaill and Cenél nEógain at the Battle of Ballyshannon. According to various Irish annals, three eminent lords fall in battle against him: Maol Seachlainn Ó Domhnaill, King of Tír Chonaill, An Giolla Muinealach Ó Baoighill, and Mac Somhairle, King of Argyll (a man seemingly identical to Ruaidhrí mac Raghnaill).
In 1245, FitzGerald is dismissed from his post as Justiciar as a result of tardiness in sending the King assistance in the latter’s military campaigns in Wales. His successor is John FitzGeoffrey. That same year he lays the foundations for Sligo Castle. In 1250, he holds both the office of Member of the Council of Ireland and Commissioner of the Treasury. He also founds the Franciscan Friary at Youghal; hence his nickname of an Brathair, which is Irish for The Friar. He is at the English royal court in January 1252, and receives an urgent summons from King Henry in January 1254.
He married Juliana de Grenville and by her, they have four sons:
In 1257, FitzGerald and his Norman army engage the forces led by Gofraidh Ó Domhnaill, King of Tír Chonaill, at the Battle of Creadran Cille, in Cairbre Drom Cliabh, now the northern part of County Sligo. The two men fight each other in single combat and both are gravely wounded. FitzGerald dies of his injuries at South Abbey, wearing the habit of the Franciscans, on May 20, 1257, aged 63 years. In the Annals of the Four Masters, 1257, his death is described thus: “Maurice FitzGerald for some time Lord Justice of Ireland and the destroyer of the Irish, died.” (In Irish this reads as: “Muiris macGerailt lustis Ereann re h-edh diosccaoilteach Gaoidheal d’écc”.)
Upon FitzGerald’s death, the properties of Lea, Rathangan, and Geashill pass to his grandson Maurice, son of Gerald FitzMaurice, who dies in 1243.
FitzGerald is succeeded as Lord of Offaly by his son, Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly, rather than the rightful successor, his grandson, Maurice, son of his eldest son, Gerald.
Kian John Francis Egan, Irish pop singer, songwriter and musician, best known as a member of pop group Westlife, is born on April 29, 1980, in Sligo, County Sligo. Westlife has released twelve albums, embarked on thirteen world tours, and won numerous awards, becoming one of the most successful musical groups of all time.
Egan is born to Kevin Egan and Patricia Egan (née Moore). He is the fifth of their seven children. He attends Summerhill College secondary school in Sligo, where he meets fellow band members Mark Feehily and Shane Filan. He is the cousin of Filan’s wife, Gillian Walsh. Before Westlife, he works at a jeans store.
In his early musical years, Egan is part of a rock band named Skrod. He can play at least five musical instruments, including guitar, piano, and drums. He is a grade 8 pianist and was taught piano by his brother Gavin Egan, a university music graduate and full-time teacher of music in the UK. Before he is in Westlife, he is part of a pop group called Six as One, which later changes its name to IOYOU, with fellow Westlife members Mark Feehily and Shane Filan, alongside Graham Keighron, Michael “Miggles” Garrett and Derrick Lacey.
After IOUYOU is signed by Louis Walsh, its lineup changes to include Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan and two new members – Nicky Byrne and Brian McFadden. The band’s name changes to Westside and later to Westlife. Westlife splits up in 2012 after a Greatest Hits Tour.
During a year long hiatus from Westlife in 2008, Egan launches a new venture with Louis Walsh to put together and co-manage girlband, Wonderland, which includes Jodi Albert, who on May 8, 2009, becomes Egan’s wife. Wonderland’s debut album reaches number 6 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 8 on the UK Albums Chart, however, just four months later, they are dropped by Mercury Records and eventually split up.
In June 2012, Egan announces in an interview with the Sunday Life that he is “looking at doing a TV show with Sky on surfing.” Later reports suggest that the show would be eight episodes long and would broadcast on Sky One later in the year.
In July 2012, Egan presents the British programme This Morning’s Hub on a regular basis, standing in for the regular hosts. Later that year, every Friday morning in October, he begins giving reports on another British programme, This Morning, about the remaining contestants in the ninth series of The X Factor, before the competition’s live shows that weekend.
On October 21, 2012, Egan co-presents the revamped version of Surprise Surprise, but does not return the following year.
In 2013, Egan appears on the thirteenth series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! He is ultimately crowned King Of The Jungle, which contributes to an invitation to being signed by Rhino Records to create his Home album.
In January 2014, Egan signs with Rhino Records of Warner Music Group and his debut album Home is released on March 14 of that year in Ireland and March 17 in the UK. His debut single “Home“, a cover of a song by the band Daughtry, has its first exclusive play on BBC Radio 2 on lunch time with Terry Wogan‘s show. The album peaks at number 2 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 9 on the UK Albums Chart. In May 2014, he releases the second single from the album, “I’ll Be,” a cover of the track by Edwin McCain.
In October 2018, Westlife announces the group’s reunion as a four-piece. In 2019, the group headlines “The Twenty Tour,” named in honour of Westlife’s 20th anniversary since its formation and the release of its first single, “Swear It Again,” in 1999. In addition to touring, Westlife also releases new music. “Hello My Love,” the first single from the group’s upcoming album, debuts on The Graham Norton Show in January 2019.
Egan is one of four coaches on The Voice of Ireland. However, his dreams of winning the show go to tatters as he throws his lot in with Jim Devine from Northern Ireland. This immediately puts him at a disadvantage to the other contestants as, ahead of the final, viewers in Northern Ireland cannot download his single, the tally of which contributes to his vote. He is left fuming and in need of support from Sharon Corr as he expresses his opinion on the unfairness of it all and has “huge rows” about it but to no avail.
Egan and his wife and three sons live in Strandhill, County Sligo. He is ranked number five on Ireland’s Sexiest Man of 2014. As of 2017, his net worth is 18 million euros.
Bardwell is born to Irish parents William Hone and Mary Collise and moves to Ireland at the age of two. Her father’s family are of the Anglo-IrishHone family. She has a difficult childhood growing up in Leixlip, County Kildare. She is educated at Alexandra College and briefly studies in Switzerland. She works in a variety of jobs in Ireland and later Scotland, where, in 1948, she meets poet Michael Bardwell. The couple has two children and later separate.
Bardwell becomes a part of the literary scene of Soho in London, where she socialises with fellow writers, including Anthony Cronin, Francis Bacon, Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Burgess. In the 1950s, she meets Fintan McLachlan, with whom she has three children, including the composer, John McLachlan. The family moves back to Dublin, where she works as a reviewer for Hibernia magazine and as a poetry editor.
From 1970 onward, Bardwell’s work is published regularly, starting with her first volume of poetry, The Mad Cyclist, which is later followed by her first novel, Girl on a Bicycle. She writes a number of plays and short stories, such as Outpatients, and her works are produced for RTÉ and the BBC. In 1984, she writes a musical play, No Regrets, based on the life of Édith Piaf. It opens at the Gaiety Theatre starring Anne Bushnell, and later tours across Ireland.
Bardwell’s work is heavily influenced by her difficult upbringing and her experiences in London and Dublin. In her memoir, A Restless Life, she describes her life as “a crescendo of madness.” She is considered an important poet by her contemporaries, who include Patrick Kavanagh, John Jordan, Paul Durcan, Macdara Woods and Michael Hartnett. On the publication of her fourth collection of poetry, The White Beach, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain states “it is good to see her work of the decades collected – it has inspired many Irish poets, male and female, and should be much more widely known,” adding that her work is “witty, full of sharp intimate honesty, full of truth and surprises.”
In 1975, Bardwell co-founds the long running literary magazine Cyphers with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Macdara Woods, and acts as a co-editor until 2012. She is the recipient of the Marten Toonder Award in 1993, and the Dede Korkut Short Story Award from Turkish PEN in 2010.
In later life, Bardwell moves to Annamakarraig in County Monaghan and later to Cloonagh in County Sligo, where in 1993 she co-founds the Scríobh Literary Festival. She is a member of the Irish artists’ association Aosdána and acts as one of Patrick Kavanagh’s literary executors.
Bardwell dies at the age of 94 in Sligo, County Sligo, on June 28, 2016.
Corcoran is born in Carrowkeel, near Ballymote, County Sligo, on September 21, 1827. As its colonel, he leads the 69th Infantry Regiment (New York) to Washington, D.C. and is one of the first to serve in the defense of Washington by building Fort Corcoran. He then leads the 69th into action at the First Battle of Bull Run. After promotion to brigadier general, he leaves the 69th and forms the Corcoran Legion, consisting of at least five other New York regiments.
Corcoran is the only child of Thomas Corcoran, an officer in the British Army, and Mary McDonagh. Through his mother, he claims descent from Patrick Sarsfield, hero of the Williamite War in Ireland and leader of the Wild Geese. In 1846 he takes an appointment to the Revenue Police, enforcing the laws and searching for illicit stills and distilling activities in Creeslough, County Donegal. He also joins a guerrilla group called the Ribbonmen.
On August 30, 1849, Corcoran emigrates from Sligo to the United States and settles in New York City where he finds work as a clerk in the tavern owned by John Heaney, whose niece, Elizabeth, he marries in 1854.
Corcoran enlists as a Private in the 69th New York Militia. By 1859 he is appointed colonel of the regiment. The regiment is a state militia unit at the time composed of citizens, not soldiers, and is involved in the maintenance of public order. On October 11, 1860, he refuses to march the regiment on parade for the 19-year-old Prince of Wales, who is visiting New York City at the time, protesting the British imposition of the Irish Famine. He is removed from command and a court martial is pending over that matter when the Civil War begins.
Corcoran also becomes involved in Democratic politics at Tammany Hall. He becomes district leader, a member of the judicial nominations committee, an elected school inspector for his ward, and a member of the Fourteenth Ward General Committee. He is one of the founders of the Fenian Brotherhood in America.
With the outbreak of war, the court martial is dropped and Corcoran is restored to his command because he had been instrumental in bringing other Irish immigrants to the Union cause. He leads the 69th to Washington, D.C. and serves for a while in the Washington defenses building, Fort Corcoran. In July 1861 he leads the regiment into action at the First Battle of Bull Run and is taken prisoner.
While Corcoran is imprisoned, the United States makes threats to execute captured Confederateprivateers. Corcoran and several other Union prisoners are selected by lot for execution if the United States carries out its threats against the privateers. This event is known as the Enchantress Affair, but no executions are ever carried out by either side. Corcoran is then offered a parole under the conditions that he does not take up arms against the Confederacy. Intending to resume his place in the Union army upon his release he refuses the offer of parole. He is appointed Brigadier General of volunteers in July and exchanged in August 1862. His role in the Enchantress Affair and his refusal for parole gains him some attention and upon his release he is invited to dinner with President Abraham Lincoln.
In April 1863 Corcoran is involved in an incident that ends with Corcoran shooting and killing Edgar A. Kimball, commander of the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Corcoran attempts to pass through the 9th New York’s area without giving the required password after receiving the challenge from a sentry. When Kimball intervenes on the side of the sentry, Corcoran shoots him. Corcoran is not charged with a crime or reprimanded and continues to serve.
Corcoran returns to the army and sets about recruiting more Irish volunteers. He raises and takes command of what becomes known as the Corcoran Legion. Placed in command of the 1st Division, VII Corps he is engaged in the Battle of Deserted House and takes part in the Battle of Suffolk. In late 1863 he is placed in command of a division in the XXII Corps and returns to serve in the Washington defenses. While riding alone in Fairfax, Virginia he is thrown from a runaway horse and suffers a fractured skull. He dies at the age of 36 at the William Gunnell House on December 22, 1863.
New York City MayorMichael Bloomberg unveils Ireland’s national monument to the Fighting 69th in Ballymote on August 22, 2006. The monument is sculpted by Philip Flanagan. The inscription around the top of the monument reads “Michael Corcoran 1827–1863” Around the base is inscribed “New York Ballymote Creeslough Bull Run.” Underneath the monument is a piece of steel from the World Trade Center, donated by the family of Michael Lynch, who died in the tower on September 11, 2001. Lynch’s family are also from County Sligo.
The road and castle are on the northern bank of the Newry River, which marks the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Republic’s side of the river, the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth, is an ideal spot from which to launch an ambush. It is thickly wooded, which gives cover to the ambushers, and the river border prevents British forces from giving chase.
On the afternoon of August 27, a British Army convoy of one Land Rover and two four-ton lorries carrying soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment is driving from Ballykinlar Barracks to Newry. The British Army is aware of the dangers of using the stretch of road along the Newry River and often declares it out of bounds. However, they sometimes use it to avoid setting a pattern. At 4:40 p.m., as the convoy is driving past Narrow Water Castle, an 800-pound fertiliser bomb, hidden among bales of straw on a parked flatbed trailer, is detonated by remote control by IRA members watching from across the border in County Louth. The explosion catches the last lorry in the convoy, hurling it onto its side and instantly killing six paratroopers, whose bodies are scattered across the road. There are only two survivors amongst the soldiers traveling in the lorry, both of whom receive serious injuries. The lorry’s driver, Anthony Wood (19), is one of those killed. All that remains of his body is his pelvis, welded to the seat by the fierce heat of the blast.
According to the soldiers, immediately after the blast they are targeted by rifle fire from the woods on the Cooley Peninsula on the other side of the border, with this view supported by two part-time firefighters assisting the wounded. Shortly afterwards, the two IRA members arrested by the Garda Síochána and suspected of being behind the ambush, are found to have traces of gunsmoke residue on their hands and on the motorbike they are riding. The IRA’s first statement on the incident, however, denies that any shots had been fired at the troops, and according to Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) researchers, the soldiers might have mistaken the sound of ammunition cooking off for enemy gunfire. Nevertheless, at the official inquiry the soldiers declare on oath that they had been fired on.
The surviving paratroopers radio for urgent assistance, and reinforcements are dispatched to the scene by road. A rapid reaction unit is sent by Gazelle helicopter, consisting of Lieutenant Colonel David Blair, commanding officer of the Queen’s Own Highlanders, his signaler Lance Corporal Victor MacLeod, and army medics. Another helicopter, a Wessex, lands to pick up the wounded. Colonel Blair assumes command once at the site.
William Hudson, a 29-year-old from London, is killed by the British Army and his cousin Barry Hudson, a 25-year-old native of Dingle, is wounded when shots are fired across the Newry River into the Republic of Ireland about 3 km from the village of Omeath, County Louth.
The pair are partners in ‘Hudson Amusements’ and had been operating their amusements in Omeath for the duration of the Omeath Gala. When the first explosion is heard across the Lough, the pair go down to the shore to see what is unfolding. The pair makes their way to Narrow Water on the southern side of the border to get a better view of what is happening on the northern side. Barry Hudson is shot in the arm and as he falls to the ground he sees his cousin, who is the son of a coachman at Buckingham Palace, fall to the ground, shot in the head. He dies almost immediately.
The IRA had been studying how the British Army behaves after a bombing and correctly predicts that they would set up an incident command point (ICP) at the stone gateway on the other side of the road. At 5:12 p.m., thirty-two minutes after the first explosion, another 800-pound bomb hidden in milk pails explodes at the gateway, destroying it and hurling lumps of granite through the air. It detonates as the Wessex helicopter is taking off carrying wounded soldiers. The helicopter is damaged by the blast but does not crash.
The second explosion kills twelve soldiers, ten from the Parachute Regiment and the two from the Queen’s Own Highlanders. Lieutenant Colonel Blair is the second Lieutenant Colonel to be killed in the Troubles up until then, following Lieutenant Colonel Corden-Lloyd of the 2nd Battalion Royal Green Jackets in 1978. Only one of Colonel Blair’s epaulettes remains to identify him as his body had been vaporised in the blast. The epaulette is taken from the scene by BrigadierDavid Thorne to a security briefing with Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher to “illustrate the human factor” of the attack. Mike Jackson, then a major in the Parachute Regiment, is at the scene soon after the second explosion and later describes seeing human remains scattered over the road, in the water and hanging from the trees. He is asked to identify the face of his friend, Major Peter Fursman, still recognisable after it had been ripped from his head by the explosion and recovered from the water by divers from the Royal Engineers.
Press photographer Peter Molloy, who arrives at the scene after the first explosion, comes close to being shot by an angry paratrooper who sees him taking photographs of the dead and dying instead of offering to help the wounded. The soldier is tackled by his comrades. Molloy says, “I was shouted at and called all sorts of things, but I understood why. I had trespassed on the worst day of these fellas’ lives and taken pictures of it.”
The Warrenpoint ambush is a victory for the IRA. It is the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles and the Parachute Regiment’s biggest loss since World War II, with sixteen paratroopers killed. General Sir James Glover, Commander of British forces in Northern Ireland, later says it was “arguably the most successful and certainly one of the best planned IRA attacks of the whole campaign.” The ambush happens on the same day that Lord Mountbatten, a prominent member of the British royal family, is killed by an IRA bomb aboard his boat at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, along with three others.
Republicans portray the attack as retaliation for Bloody Sunday in 1972 when the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 unarmed civilians during a protest march in Derry. Graffiti appears in republican areas declaring “13 gone and not forgotten, we got 18 and Mountbatten.” The day after the Mountbatten and Warrenpoint attacks, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) retaliates by shooting dead a Catholic man, John Patrick Hardy (43), at his home in Belfast‘s New Lodge estate. Hardy is targeted in the mistaken belief that he is an IRA member.
Very shortly after the ambush, IRA volunteers Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan are arrested by the Gardaí. They are stopped while riding a motorbike on a road opposite Narrow Water Castle. They are later released on bail due to lack of evidence. Burns dies in 1988 when a bomb he is handling explodes prematurely. In 1998, former IRA member Eamon Collins claims that Burns had been one of those who carried out the Warrenpoint ambush. No one has ever been criminally charged.
According to Toby Harnden, the attack “drove a wedge” between the Army and the RUC. Lieutenant General Sir Timothy Creasey, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, suggests to Margaret Thatcher that internment should be brought back and that liaison with the Gardaí should be left in the hands of the military. Sir Kenneth Newman, the RUC Chief Constable, claims instead that the British Army practice since 1975 of supplying their garrisons in south County Armagh by helicopter gives too much freedom of movement to the IRA. One result is the appointment of Sir Maurice Oldfield to a new position of Co-ordinator of Security Intelligence in Northern Ireland. His role is to co-ordinate intelligence between the military, MI5 and the RUC. Another is the expansion of the RUC by 1,000 members. Tim Pat Coogan asserts that the deaths of the 18 soldiers hastens the move to Ulsterisation.
Arthur Jacob, Irish ophthalmologist, is born on June 13, 1790, at Knockfin, near Maryborough, Queens County (now Portlaoise, County Laois). He is known for founding several hospitals, a medical school, and a medical journal. He contributes to science and academia through his 41-year term as Professor of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and as the first Irish ocular pathologist. He is elected President of RCSI in 1837 and 1864.
On leaving Macartney, Jacob joins with Robert James Graves and others in founding the Park Street School of Medicine. In 1826 he is elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and holds the chair until 1869. He is elected President of RCSI in 1837 and 1864. He founds an Ophthalmic Hospital in Pitt (now Balfe) Street in 1829 and in 1832, in conjunction with Charles Benson and others, he founds the Baggot Street Hospital, Baggot Street, and later practices there after the opening of a dedicated eye ward. His younger rival, Sir William Wilde, subsequently founds the competing St. Mark’s Ophthalmic Hospital in Lincoln Place (beside Trinity College) in 1844.
In 1839, with Dr. Henry Maunsell, Jacob starts the Dublin Medical Press, a weekly journal of medical science, and edits forty-two volumes from 1839 to 1859, in order “to diffuse useful knowledge… to instil honourable principles, and foster kind feelings in the breast of the student” among other desirable aims. He also contributes to the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. He takes an active part in founding the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund Society of Ireland and the Irish Medical Association.
At the age of seventy-five Jacob retires from the active pursuit of his profession. His fame rests on his anatomical and ophthalmological discoveries.
In December 1860 a medal bearing Jacob’s likeness is struck and presented to him, and his portrait, bust, and library are later placed in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He dies at Newbarnes, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, on September 21, 1874. He is buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin.
In 1819 Jacob announces the discovery, which he had made in 1816, of a previously unknown membrane of the eye, in a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The membrane has been known since as membrana Jacobi and forms the retina. Apart from his discovery of the membrana Jacobi, he describes Jacob’s ulcer, and revives cataract surgery through the cornea with a curved needle, Jacob’s needle. To the Cyclopædia of Anatomy he contributes an article on the eye, and to the Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine treatises on Ophthalmia and Amaurosis.
In 1824 Jacob marries Sarah, daughter of Coote Carroll, of Ballymote, County Sligo. The marriage produces five sons. She dies on January 6, 1839.
(Pictured: Photograph of a marble bust of Arthur Jacob on the main staircase of the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, Dublin, Ireland)
Brooke is born in the rectory of Glendoen, near Letterkenny, County Donegal on November 14, 1832, the eldest son of the Rev. Richard Sinclair Brooke, later incumbent of the Mariners’ Church, Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire). His maternal grandfather, Joseph Stopford, is then rector of the parish. He is educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He is ordained in the Church of England in 1857 and holds various charges in London. From 1863 to 1865 he is chaplain to Victoria, Princess Royal in Berlin. In 1869, with his brother Edward, he makes long tours of Counties Donegal and Sligo, and spends much time at Kells, County Meath studying Irish antiquities. Between 1866 and 1875 he is the minister at St. James’s Chapel, a proprietary chapel. After it closes, he takes services at Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury where he continues to attract large congregations. In 1875, he becomes chaplain in ordinary to Queen Victoria. But in 1880 he secedes from the Church, being no longer able to accept its leading dogmas, and officiates as an independent preacher for some years at Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury.
Bedford Chapel is pulled down about 1894, and from that time Brooke has no church of his own, but his eloquence and powerful religious personality continues to make themselves felt among a wide circle. A man of independent means, he is always keenly interested in literature and art, and a fine critic of both. The two-volume Life and Letters of Stopford Brooke, written by his son-in-law L. P. Jacks and published in 1917, contains many details of different facets of his life.
In 1890-1891 Brooke takes the lead in raising the funds to purchase Dove Cottage, William Wordsworth’s home in Grasmere from 1800 to 1808, and establishing it “for the eternal possession of those who love English poetry all over the world.” Dove Cottage is now administered by the Wordsworth Trust.
Brooke publishes in 1865 his Life and Letters of FW Robertson (of Brighton), and in 1876 writes an admirable primer of English Literature, followed in 1892 by The History of Early English Literature down to the accession of Alfred the Great, and English Literature from the Beginnings to the Norman Conquest (1898).
Brooke gives the inaugural lecture to the Irish Literary Society, London, on “The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue” at Bloomsbury House, March 11, 1893. He delivers a sermon on “The Kingdom of God Within” to the International Council of Unitarian and Other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers, meeting in London in May 1901. He continues preaching at Bedford Chapel and to unitarian congregations throughout Britain until forced to retire because of ill-health in 1895.
Healy is the son of a Guard. As a child the family moves to Cavan, where he attends the local secondary school. In his late teens he moves to London and works in a succession of jobs, including barman, security man and as a labourer. He later returns to Ireland, settling in Ballyconnell, County Sligo, a small settlement on the Atlantic coast.
Often overlooked due to his relatively low public profile, Healy’s work is admired by his Irish literary predecessors, peers and successors alike, many of whom idolise him. Among the writers to have spoken highly of him are Seamus Heaney, Eugene McCabe, Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe and Anne Enright.
Healy dies at his home in Ballyconnell on June 29, 2014, while awaiting an ambulance after suddenly being taken ill. He is laid to rest at Carrigans Cemetery following funeral mass by Fr. Michael Donnelly at St. Patrick’s Church in Maugherow.
O’Donovan is an explosives expert and reputedly invents the “Irish War Flour” (named after the flour sacks in which it was smuggled into Dublin aboard ships) and “Irish Cheddar” devices. He subsequently becomes IRA Director of Chemicals in 1921. During the Irish War of Independence, he is imprisoned in Mountjoy Prison and Kilmainham Gaol and later interned in Newbridge, County Kildare.
In addition to fighting in the Irish War of Independence, O’Donovan fights on the Anti-Treaty side during the Irish Civil War. In 1930 he becomes manager at Electricity Supply Board (ESB) headquarters in Dublin.
In August 1938, at the request of IRA Chief of StaffSeán Russell, O’Donovan writes the S-Plan, a bombing campaign targeting the United Kingdom. In his unpublished memoirs he writes that he “conducted the entire training of cadre units, was responsible for all but locally derived intelligence, carried out small pieces of research and, in general, controlled the whole explosives and munitions end” of S-Plan. During this time, he and Russell are the only GHQ members of the old IRA still in the organisation.
As “Agent V-Held”, O’Donovan visits Germany three times in 1939 on behalf of the IRA. On February 28 he negotiates an arms and radio equipment delivery at the Abwehrstelle in Hamburg. On April 26 he concludes a new arms deal with the Abwehrstelle and establishes, with the help of a Breton, a secret courier connection to Ireland via France. On August 23, he receives the last instructions for the event of war.
On February 9, 1940, Abwehr II agent Ernst Weber-Drohl lands at Killala Bay, County Sligo aboard U-37. He is equipped with an ‘Ufa’ transmitter, cash, and instructions for O’Donovan, who by this time is the chief IRA contact for Abwehr I/II. The transmitter is lost upon landing, but when Weber-Drohl reaches O’Donovan at Shankill, Killiney, County Dublin, he is able to deliver new transmission codes, $14,450 in cash, and a message from “Pfalzgraf Section” asking that the IRA concentrate its S-Plan attacks on military rather than civilian targets.
O’Donovan becomes increasingly enamoured of Nazi ideology during this time, and visits Germany three times. In 1942 he writes an article arguing that Ireland’s future lay in an alliance with a victorious Germany and attacks Britain and the United States for being “centres of Freemasonry, international financial control and Jewry.” Even long after the pact with the Germans falls apart, he continues to express his sympathy for the Nazi regime. His son, Gerard O’Donovan, recalls that every Saturday night a visitor would come to the family home and send messages to Germany.
O’Hara is born and raised in Rosses Point, the daughter of Major John Charles O’Hara, an officer in the British Corps of Royal Engineers and his wife, Mai (née Kirwan). One of her sisters, Mary (born 1935), is a soprano/harpist. Her brother Dermot (born 1934) now lives with his family in Canada. She attends the same Ursulineconvent school as fellow actress and friend Pauline Flanagan.
More recently, O’Hara is best known for appearing in the popular Irish television soap operaFair City, broadcast on RTÉ One. She joins the soap in 1994, portraying the character Eunice Dunstan until her death in 2007. Thus, she is described as both one of Ireland’s most popular actresses and as one of the finest actors of her generation on her death. She admires in particular Samuel Beckett, Federico García Lorca and Ingmar Bergman. While she takes a no-nonsense approach to her craft, famously giving the advice that when in doubt, one should relate to the fireplace, she is educated at the Abbey School of Acting and has a deep appreciation and knowledge of theoretical approaches to acting and is an admirer of the European and American avant-garde. As actor Alan Stanford said after her death, “She had the most amazing energy. She was in the truest sense one of the last of the greats.”
Joan O’Hara Barry (she keeps her maiden name as her stage name) dies in Dublin on July 23, 2007, of complications from heart disease, aged 76. Her death is announced on RTÉ News the following day.
seamus dubhghaill 