Hayes sends a plan for the invasion of Northern Ireland by German troops to Germany in April 1940. This plan later becomes known as Plan Kathleen. He is also known to have met with German agent Hermann Görtz on May 21, 1940, in Dublin shortly after the latter’s parachuting into Ireland on May 5, 1940, as part of Operation Mainau. He is known to have asked Görtz for money and arms to wage a campaign in Northern Ireland, although shortly after this meeting the original Plan Kathleen is discovered. The discovery of the plan leads to the acceleration of joint British and Irish military planning for a German invasion known as Plan W.
Another meeting on August 15, 1940, on Rathgar Road, Dublin, organised by Hayes and attended by senior IRA men Paddy McGrath, Tom Harte and Tom Hunt, is also raided by the Garda Síochána.
On June 30, 1941, Northern-based IRA men kidnap Hayes, accusing him of being a spy. By his own account, he is tortured and “court-martialed” for “treason” by his comrades, and would have been executed, but he buys himself time composing an enormously long confession. He manages to escape on September 8, 1941, and hands himself in to the Garda for protection.
The Officer Commanding (O/C) of the IRA Northern Command, Seán McCaughey, is convicted on September 18, 1941, of the kidnapping. After a long hunger and thirst strike in Portlaoise Prison, he dies on May 11, 1946.
Hayes is later sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by the Special Criminal Court on account of his IRA activities.
Within IRA circles, Hayes is still considered a traitor and an informer. One of the main allegations against him is that he informed the Garda Síochána about IRA arms dumps in Wexford. However, this is later blamed on a Wexford man named Michael Deveraux, an officer of the Wexford Battalion of the IRA who is subsequently abducted and executed by an IRA squad in County Tipperary on Hayes’ orders. George Plant, a Protestant IRA veteran, is later executed in Portlaoise Prison for Devereux’s murder.
After his release, Hayes resumes his clerical position at Wexford County Council. He dies in Enniscorthy on December 28, 1974.
On January 25, 1947, Mullen makes his formal Irish debut in a 12–8 loss to France. He plays as hooker, winning 25 caps for Ireland from 1947 to 1952. A year later, on January 31, 1948, he plays his first game for Barbarian F.C. in a 9–6 victory over Australia in Cardiff, Wales. After helping Ireland to victory over France on January 1, 1948, at the age of 21, he captains Ireland for the first time, on February 14, 1948, leading them to an 11–10 victory over England at Twickenham Stadium.
Mullen captains the Irish team to their first Grand Slam in the 1948 Five Nations Championship and is one of eight players from that team who live to see the country’s next Grand Slam in 2009.
Ireland retains the triple crown in 1949 by beating Wales 5–0 in Swansea, ending a run of defeats on Welsh soil lasting fourteen years. The following season Ireland suffers from injuries and loses to both England and Wales, the latter securing the triple crown.
Mullen is selected to captain the 1950 Lions Tour to Australia and New Zealand. After appearing in the first two tests against New Zealand, a 9–9 draw and an 8–0 loss, he sustains an ankle injury in the latter game and concedes his place to Dai Davies of Wales. Returning for the second test against Australia, a resounding 24–3 victory, he also plays in a semi-official “British Isles RFU” team against Ceylon during their return journey in September.
Under Mullen’s captaincy Ireland regains the international championship in 1951. His last cap comes in a 14–3 loss to Wales at Lansdowne Road on March 8, 1952. In twenty-five successive appearances (fifteen as captain), he secured three international championships and two triple crowns for Ireland in four seasons, their most successful haul of the twentieth century.
Mullen is one of eight surviving members of the 1948 team to witness Ireland’s second grand slam on March 21, 2009. Only weeks later, having suffered from a long illness, he dies on April 27, 2009, at his home, Gilltown Lodge, in Kilcullen.
(Pictured: Karl Mullen, captain of the British Lions rugby union team, 1950)
Mitchell is the younger son of David William Mitchell, owner of a Dublin ironmongery and furniture business, and Francis Elizabeth Mitchell (née Kirby). His elder brother David becomes president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) and his sister Lillias is a noted weaver and teacher. He is educated at The High School, Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), where he is a scholar in 1933 and receives a gold medal the following year. In 1934 he is appointed assistant to the professor of geology at TCD, and later is lecturer in geology (1940), reader in Irish archaeology (1959) and professor of Quaternary studies – a personal chair (1965). He is an efficient administrator and serves TCD successively as registrar, senior lecturer, and tutor, and after retirement is briefly a pro-chancellor of the university.
Mitchell’s major research focuses on the evolution of Ireland during the last two million years, particularly during the Quaternary since the retreat of the glacial ice over Ireland, and the effect man has had on this landscape. His interest in Quaternary studies begins in 1934, when he is appointed by the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) as an assistant to the Danish botanist and Quaternary geologistKnud Jessen, who uses the distribution of ancient pollen grains to reconstruct vegetational history. From 1940 he publishes a series of papers on topics such as the distribution of Irish giant deer and reindeer remains in Ireland, lacustrine deposits in County Meath, interglacial deposits in southeast Ireland, the palynology of Irish raised bogs, cave deposits, fossil pingos in County Wexford, bog flows, and the deposits of the older Pleistocene period in Ireland. His major study in this field is the documentation (1965) of the vegetational history of Littleton bog, County Tipperary, which has given its name to the present interglacial – the Littletonian warm stage.
Mitchell does not confine his studies to Ireland but also carries out work in Glasgow, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man. In 1957, he helps organise the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Dublin and is later chairman of the Geological Society of London sub-commission on British and Irish Quaternary stratigraphy, which produces a comprehensive report in 1973. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and a prolific author of academic papers, and in later life writes several acclaimed books, including The Irish Landscape (1976), which goes through two further editions as Reading the Irish Landscape (1986, 1997), and a volume of semi-autobiography, The Way That I Followed (1990).
In 1940, Mitchell marries Lucy Margaret (‘Pic’) (1911–87), daughter of E. J. Gwynn, provost of TCD. They have two daughters. For many years they live at Townley Hall, near Drogheda, County Louth, which had been TCD’s agricultural facility. A 1985 portrait by David Hone is displayed at Trinity College Dublin.
(From: “Mitchell, George Francis (‘Frank’)” by Patrick N. Wyse Jackson, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
FitzGerald is born in 1238 in Wexford, the second son of Maurice FitzGerald, 2nd Lord of Offaly, and Juliana de Grenville. He has three brothers, Gerald FitzMaurice II, Thomas FitzMaurice and David FitzMaurice. He is known by the nickname of Maurice Mael (from an old word meaning “devotee” in Irish). He is granted his father’s lands in Connacht in exchange for quitclaiming the barony of Offaly sometime before May 20, 1257, when his father, Maurice FitzGerald II, dies at Youghal Monastery.
Before his father’s death, FitzGerald is custos of Offaly, but after the 2nd Lord of Offaly dies, the countess of Lincoln, Margaret de Quincy, sues him for custody of Offaly.
Terrible feuds rage in his time between the Geraldines and the De Burghs. FitzGerald and his nephew John, son of his brother Thomas, capture the justiciar, Richard de la Rochelle, Theobald Butler IV, and John de Cogan I (whose son is married to Maurice FitzGerald III’s sister, Juliana). The capture of the three magnates leads to a private war in Ireland, with the Geraldines on one side and Walter de Burgh and Geoffrey de Geneville on the other. However, the Second Barons’ War in England forces them to come to a temporary peace while they battle Montfortians in the English Midlands in 1266.
In May 1265, FitzGerald is among the chief magnates in Ireland summoned to inform King Henry III of England and his son Prince Edward about conditions in the country, and again in June 1265. These are the result of the private war between the Geraldines and Walter de Burgh, lord of Connacht (who is later made the 1st Earl of Ulster). He is appointed Justiciar of Ireland on June 23, 1272, following the accidental death of his predecessor, James de Audley, on June 11 of that year. His father had served in the same capacity from 1232 to 1245. He holds the post until September 1273, when he is succeeded by Sir Geoffrey de Geneville, Seigneur de Vaucouleurs.
In 1276, FitzGerald leads a force of men from Connacht against the Irish of County Wicklow. His contingent joins the main army of English settlers jointly commanded by his son-in-law, Thomas de Clare, Lord of Inchiquin and Youghal, who had been made Lord of Thomond earlier that same year, and Sir Geoffrey de Geneville, Maurice’s successor as Justiciar of Ireland. The English under Thomas de Clare and Geoffrey de Geneville attack the Irish at Glenmalure, but are defeated and suffer heavy losses.
Shortly before October 28, 1259, FitzGerald married his first wife, Maud de Prendergast, daughter of Sir Gerald de Prendergast of Beauvoir and Matilda de Burgh, daughter of Richard Mór de Burgh. Together they have two daughters:
FitzGerald is Maud’s third husband. She dies on an unknown date. In 1273, he marries his second wife, Emmeline Longespee (1252–1291), daughter of Stephen Longespée and Emmeline de Ridelsford. He and Emeline have no issue.
FitzGerald dies September 2, 1277, at Ross, County Wexford. Emmeline Longespée then fights until her death to claim her dower against her daughter, Juliana, her stepdaughter, Amabilia, and John FitzGerald, who is created 1st Earl of Kildare on May 14, 1316. John is the son of his brother, Thomas by Rohesia de St. Michael. John sues or physically takes lands from the bailiffs of Emmeline, Juliana, and Amabilia.
There is some confusion as to whether Gerald Fitzmaurice FitzGerald is the first or second son of Maurice FitzGerald, 2nd Lord of Offaly. Most, like M. Hickson, of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI) say he is the eldest. Lord Walter FitzGerald says he is the second. In any event, he predeceases his father in 1243. His son, Maurice FitzGerald, drowns in the Irish Channel in July 1268. His son is Gerald FitzMaurice III, born in 1263. Gerald’s marriage is sold to Geoffrey de Geneville, who matches Gerald with his own daughter, Joan, but he dies childless on August 29, 1287.
Maurice FitzMaurice FitzGerald 3rd Earl of Offaly, is succeeded by his nephew John, son of his younger brother Thomas FitzMaurice FitzGerald.
Several of Redmond’s relatives are politicians. He takes over control of the minority IPP faction loyal to Charles Stewart Parnell after Parnell dies in 1891. He is a conciliatory politician who achieves the two main objectives of his political life: party unity and, in September 1914, the passing of the Irish Home Rule Act.
The Irish Home Rule Act grants limited self-government to Ireland, within the United Kingdom. However, implementation of Home Rule is suspended by the outbreak of the World War I. Redmond calls on the National Volunteers to join Irish regiments of the New British Army and support the British and Allied war effort to restore the “freedom of small nations” on the European continent, thereby to also ensure the implementation of Home Rule after a war that is expected to be of short duration. However, after the Easter Rising of 1916, Irish public opinion shifts in favour of militant republicanism and full Irish independence, resulting in his party losing its dominance in Irish politics.
In sharp contrast to Parnell, Redmond lacks charisma. He works well in small committees but has little success in arousing large audiences. Parnell had always chosen the nominees to Parliament. Now they are selected by the local party organisations, giving Redmond numerous weak MPs over whom he has little control. He is an excellent representative of the old Ireland but grows increasingly old-fashioned because he pays little attention to the new forces attracting younger Irishmen, such as Sinn Féin in politics, the Gaelic Athletic Association in sports, and the Gaelic League in cultural affairs.
Redmond never tries to understand the unionist forces emerging in Ulster. He is further weakened in 1914 by the formation of the Irish Volunteers by Sinn Féin members. His enthusiastic support for the British war effort alienates many Irish nationalists. His party has been increasingly hollowed out, and a major crisis, notably the Easter Rising, is enough to destroy it.
Redmond is increasingly eclipsed by ill-health after 1916. An operation in March 1918 to remove an intestinal obstruction appears to progress well initially, but he then suffers heart failure. He dies a few hours later at a Londonnursing home on March 6, 1918.
Condolences and expressions of sympathy are widely expressed. After a funeral service in Westminster Cathedral his remains are interred, as requested in a manner characteristic of the man, in the family vault at the old Knights Templars‘ chapel yard of Saint John’s Cemetery, Wexford, amongst his own people rather than in the traditional burial place for Irish statesmen and heroes in Glasnevin Cemetery. The small, neglected cemetery near the town centre is kept locked to the public. His vault, which has been in a dilapidated state, has been only partially restored by Wexford County Council.
Whitty is born in on January 7, 1904, in Newbawn, County Wexford. He is a Volunteer in the IRA, who serves in the South Wexford Brigade during the Irish War of Independence. After the signing of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, he joins the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War.
In late October 1922, Whitty is arrested (although never charged or convicted of any crime) in a roundup of dissidents. He is initially interned by Irish Free State troops at Wexford Prison and from there is transferred to the Curragh Camp. It has been asserted that his arrest was in revenge for the actions of his brothers who are deeply involved with the IRA. The authorities are unable to locate his brothers, so he is arrested instead.
While at the Curragh Camp, Whitty decides to independently start a hunger strike and dies as a result on August 2, 1923, at the Curragh Camp hospital. At the time, hunger strikes are not an official policy of the IRA and are not directed by its General Headquarters. Instead, each hunger striker makes an individual decision to strike. Due to the newly formed Irish Free State government’s news embargo on conditions in prisons at the time, very little is published on Whitty’s motivations and the circumstances of his hunger strike and death, including the number of days of his strike.
Earlier, the high-profile hunger strike deaths of Thomas Ashe, president of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in 1917 and Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork in 1920, bring international attention to the Republicans’ cause. The Irish Government’s news embargo prevents the embarrassment of having to publicly announce the death by hunger strike of a 19-year-old internee. From 1922, hunger strikes are of value only when a government is likely to be embarrassed sufficiently by the death of a prisoner.
With the ending of the 1923 Irish Hunger Strikes in late November 1923, the news embargo is relaxed. The November 20, 1923 death of Denny Barry from County Cork and the November 22, 1923 death of Andy O’Sullivan from County Cavan are widely reported in the media, while Whitty’s earlier death in August remains largely unreported.
After Whitty’s non-sanctioned hunger strike and death, Michael Kilroy, the Officer Commanding (OC) of IRA prisoners in Mountjoy Prison announces that 300 men will go on hunger strike on October 13, 1923. By late 1923, thousands of Irish republican prisoners are on hunger strike in multiple prisons and internment camps across Ireland. The mass hunger strikes of October/November 1923 see around 8,000 of the 12,000 Anti-Treaty republican prisoners on hunger strikes in Irish prisons, protesting internment without charge/trial, poor prison conditions and demanding immediate release of all political prisoners. Previously, the Irish Free State government had passed a motion outlawing the release of prisoners on hunger strike.
With the death of Whitty and two other recent Irish republican hunger strikers, Michael Fitzgerald (died October 17, 1920) and Joe Murphy (died October 25, 1920) and the large numbers of Irish republican prisoners on hunger strike, the Irish Free State Government sends a delegation to speak with IRA leadership in late October 1923. On November 23, 1923, the day after Andy O’Sullivan’s death, the hunger strike is called off, eventually setting off a release program for many of the prisoners, although some are not released until as late as 1932. The mass hunger strike of 1923 lasts for 41 days and met with little success.
Whitty is buried at Ballymore Cemetery. Killinick, County Wexford. The inscription on his grave reads: “In Memory of Joseph Whitty, Connolly St, Wexford. South Wexford Brigade who died for Ireland 2nd August 1923.”
The Sinn Féin Cumann (Association) in Wexford is named after Joe Whitty. The annual Joe Whitty Commemoration is held each year on Easter Saturday evening in Ballymore, County Wexford.
Abraham Colles, Professor of Anatomy, Surgery and Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and the President of RCSI in 1802 and 1830, is born in Millmount, County Kilkenny, on July 23, 1773. A prestigious Colles Medal & Travelling Fellowship in Surgery is awarded competitively annually to an Irish surgical trainee embarking on higher specialist training abroad before returning to establish practice in Ireland.
Descended from a Worcestershire family, some of whom had sat in Parliament, Colles is born to William Colles and Mary Anne Bates of Woodbroak, County Wexford. The family lives near Millmount, a townland near Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, where his father owns and manages his inheritance which is the extensive Black Quarry that produces the famous Kilkenny black marble. His father dies when he is 6 years old, but his mother takes over the management of the quarry and manages to give her children a good education. While at Kilkenny College, a flood destroys a local physician’s house. He finds an anatomy book belonging to the doctor in a field and returns it to him. Sensing the young man’s interest in medicine, the physician lets him keep the book.
Following his return to Dublin, in 1799, Colles is elected to the staff at Dr. Steevens’ Hospital where he serves for the next 42 years. In October 1803, he is appointed Surgeon to Cork-street Fever Hospital, and subsequently becomes Consulting Surgeon to the Rotunda Hospital, City of Dublin Hospital, and Victoria Lying-in Hospital. He is a well-regarded surgeon and is elected as president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in 1802 at the age of 28 years, subsequently also serving as president in 1830. In 1804, he is appointed Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery at RCSI.
In 1811, Colles writes an important treatise on surgical anatomy and some terms he introduces have survived in surgical nomenclature until today. He is remembered as a skillful surgeon and for his 1814 paper On the Fracture of the Carpal Extremity of the Radius. This injury continues to be known as Colles’ fracture. This paper, describing distal radial fractures, is far ahead of its time, being published decades before X-rays come into use. He also describes the membranous layer of subcutaneous tissue of the perineum, which comes to be known as Colles’ fascia. He also extensively studies the inguinal ligament, which is sometimes called Colles’ ligament. He is regarded as the first surgeon to successfully ligate the subclavian artery.
In 1837, Colles writes “Practical observations on the venereal disease, and on the use of mercury” in which he introduces the hypothesis of maternal immunity of a syphilitic infant when the mother has not shown signs of the disease. His principal textbook is the two-volume Lectures on the theory and practice of surgery. His writings are important, though not voluminous. Some of his papers are collected and edited by his son, William Colles, and published in the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. Selections from the works of Abraham Colles, chiefly relative to the venereal disease and the use of mercury, comprise Volume XOII. of the Library of the New Sydenham Society, published in 1881. They are edited and annotated by one of the most distinguished Fellows of the RCSI, Robert McDonnell. His Lectures on Surgery are edited by Simon M’Coy and published in 1850. In tribute to his distinguished career, he is awarded a baronetcy in 1839, which he refuses.
Upon Colles’s retirement as Professor of Surgery, the Members of RCSI pass a resolution which includes “We have also to assure you that it is the unanimous feeling of the College, that the exemplary and efficient manner in which you have filled this chair for thirty-two years, has been a principal cause of the success and consequent high character of the School of Surgery in this country.”
In 1807, Colles marries Sophia Cope. His son William follows in his footsteps, being elected to the Chair of Anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1863. Another of his sons, Henry, marries Elizabeth Mayne, a niece of Robert James Graves. His grandson is the eminent music critic and lexicographerH. C. Colles. His granddaughter Frances marries the judge Lord Ashbourne, and her sister Anna marries his colleague Sir Edmund Thomas Bewley.
Keating is the youngest of six surviving children of Michael Keating, baker, and his wife Johanna, a native of County Kerry. He was educated at a local school and was an active member of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), playing football and hurling. After the 1916 Easter Rising, he leaves school at the age of thirteen to join the Irish Volunteers, which later becomes the IRA, serving in the 4th Cork Brigade. He is arrested by British troops in November 1920 and badly beaten. He spends a month in the Cork jail and is then interned for a year in Ballykinlar internment camp until December 1921. While interned he participates in several hunger strikes and makes several escape attempts. Following his release, he opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty and serves in the Fianna Cork 4th Brigade on the Republican side under Seán Moylan during the Irish Civil War.
Keating emigrates to New York City in 1927 and becomes involved in Irish cultural organizations and Democratic party politics. He is a founder of American Friends of Irish Neutrality, which opposes Irish involvement in World War II, ostensibly fearing it will result in British re-occupation of Ireland.
Following World War II, Keating is chairman of the executive council of the 1947 Irish Race Convention and president of the American League for an Undivided Ireland, lobbying in support of the Fogarty Amendment, which unsuccessfully attempts to tie the release of Marshall Plan funds to British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.
Between the 1940s and 1960s, Keating serves as president of the County Corkmen Association, president of the United Irish Counties Association, and president of the Irish Institute. In 1956, he serves as Grand Marshal of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Keating serves in various positions under New York City mayors William O’Dwyer, Vincent R. Impellitteri, and Robert F. Wagner, Jr., rising to the position of Deputy Mayor, under Wagner. He is reportedly the first to publicly introduce future President Kennedy as “the next President of the United States” at an Irish Institute event in 1957. He is appointed Regional Director of the United States Postal Service by President Kennedy and serves in that position from 1961 until his retirement in 1966.
In retirement, Keating returns to Kanturk and continues to advocate for the reunification of Ireland. Keating dies at his home in Kanturk on July 2, 1976, and is buried in a local cemetery with military honors. He represents an emigrant political and social milieu which is often treated dismissively by later, more cosmopolitan Irish commentators, but his career reflects not only his own considerable talents but the ways in which this milieu sustains a generation of immigrants, and the contribution of Irish America to Irish development in the post-war decades.
O’Connor is born on June 7, 1874, at Worcester, Massachusetts, the eldest of three sons and two daughters of Andrew O’Connor, a stonecutter from Lanarkshire, Scotland, who becomes a professional sculptor, and Marie Anne O’Connor (née McFadden), of County Antrim. Educated in Worcester public schools, at the age of 14 he becomes apprenticed to his father, helping him to design monuments for cemeteries. He is employed in the early 1890s on sculptural work for the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair), being active in the studio of William Ordway Partridge, and assisting Daniel Chester French on his colossal Statue of the Republic, a landmark of the 1893 Columbian exposition.
Moving to London (1894–98), O’Connor works on bas-reliefs in the studio of the painter John Singer Sargent, who uses him as a model for his mural Frieze of Prophets for the Boston Public Library. His first independent work, Sea Dreams, a relief of a head, is exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1896. Returning to the United States (1898–1903), he becomes a studio assistant of French, through whom he receives his first public commission, for the Vanderbilt Memorial Doors for St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Manhattan, New York, a project completed in 1902 to wide critical acclaim. He also executes the tympanum and lateral friezes.
Around 1900, O’Connor marries an artist’s model named Nora, by whom he has a daughter. In 1902, he hires as studio model Jessie Phoebe Brown from New Jersey and of County Down parentage. The following year he elopes with her to Paris, where they marry and have four sons, the youngest of whom, Patrick O’Connor, becomes an artist and gallery curator. Jessie continues for many years as his primary model, sitting for the heads of both female and male figures, O’Connor coarsening the features for the latter.
During his years in Paris (1903–14), O’Connor is influenced by the work of Auguste Rodin, whom he befriends. Among his pupils in Paris is the American sculptor and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney. He continues to fulfil numerous commissions for funerary and public monuments in the United States, an example of the former being the Recuillement in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, near Tarrytown, New York. From 1906 he exhibits annually at the Salon in Paris, where he is the first foreigner to win a second-class medal, for his bronze statue of Gen. Henry Lawton. Included in his only exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy (1907) is a bronze relief of the prophet Nehemiah adapted from a panel of the Vanderbilt doors. The relief is subsequently included in his one-man show at the Galerie Hébrard, Paris in 1909.
In 1909, O’Connor wins a competition open to sculptors of Irish descent to execute a monument to Commodore John Barry, the County Wexford-born “father of the American navy,” for Washington, D.C. His design includes a frieze depicting events in Irish history, flanked by a group of three nude Irish emigrants entitled Exile from Ireland, and another group representing the Genius of Ireland, which includes a female figure of the “Motherland.” Probably owing to opposition from the Barry family to the depiction of their ancestor as a rough-and-ready sailor, the commission is not completed. His marble statue of Gen. Lew Wallace (author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ), a plaster of which is exhibited at the Salon in Paris in 1909, is placed by the state of Indiana in the National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol, Washington, D.C. Another marble, Peace by Justice, is commissioned as a gift from the United States to the Peace Palace in The Hague in 1913.
Returning to Paris in the mid-1920s, O’Connor becomes the first foreigner to win a gold medal at the Salon des Artistes in 1928, for the marble sculpture Tristan and Iseult, now held in the Brooklyn Museum, New York. The French government makes him a Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour in 1929. In 1926 he had exhibited a plaster group, Monument aux morts de la Grande Guerre, at the Salon in Paris. The sculpture is requested in 1932 by the people of Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, as a memorial to Christ the King, O’Connor obligingly altering the interpretation of his iconography. Imposed on a “Tree of life” are three figures of Christ, representing in turn “Desolation,” “Consolation” and “Triumph.” Cast in bronze, throughout World War II the statue remains hidden in Paris to avoid its being melted down for the valuable metal. Transported to Dún Laoghaire in 1949, due to clerical opposition to its unconventional iconography, it is not at first erected, but for years lay on its side in a garden in Rochestown Avenue until its eventual unveiling in 1978 as Triple Cross in Haigh Terrace, where it stands in Moran Park. His other chief work in Ireland is a bronze statue of Daniel O’Connell in the Bank of Ireland, College Green, Dublin. Inspired by Rodin’s famous Monument to Balzac, the work is executed at his studio in a converted stable at Leixlip Castle, County Kildare in 1931–32.
During the 1930s, O’Connor lives and works in London and Ireland, where he has residences at Glencullen House, County Wicklow, and 77 Merrion Square, Dublin. He dies at the latter address on June 9, 1941, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. His own bronze relief, Le feu sacré, marks the grave. A portrait painting, executed by his son Patrick in 1940, is in Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, which also holds twenty-six sculptures presented by O’Connor late in his life, and posthumously by his family. The collection includes a marble self-portrait bust of 1940, a bronze of the Lafayette cast by the gallery in 1984 from a reduced plaster model presented by the artist, and a bronze group entitled The Victim, on view in Merrion Square Park, from an uncommissioned and uncompleted war memorial conceived by O’Connor under the general title Le Débarquement. The National Gallery of Ireland has the Desolation maquette for the Triple Cross. A centenary exhibition of his work is held at Trinity College Dublin in 1974. His widow dies in Dublin in 1974.
(From: “O’Connor, Andrew” by Lawrence William White and Carmel Doyle, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
Diarmaid Ó Súilleabháin, Irish language writer whose chosen theme is contemporary urban life, dies on June 5, 1985. He is acknowledged as an important Irish language modernist. He is also active in the Irish republican movement and a member of Sinn Féin.
Ó Súilleabháin is born on the Beara Peninsula in County Cork on July 29, 1932. His mother, Máire Áine Ní Dhrisceoil, is a primary school teacher and his father, John O’Sullivan, is a small farmer. He marries Úna Ní Chléirigh on October 28, 1954, and they have two sons and three daughters.
Best known now for his literary work, Ó Súilleabháin writes ten novels, two of them for teenagers. Maeldún (1972) is a pioneering Irish novel that explores sexuality. He writes seven unpublished plays but most of them are shown in Damer Hall and the Peacock Theatre. Three plays that he writes include Bior, Ontos and Macalla and he writes a collection of short stories, Muintir (1970). A story from Muintir called ‘D’ is translated into English and adapted for the stage by Vivian McAlister and is performed by the Dublin University Players in May 1977.
Like Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, Ó Súilleabháin “challenged the critical orthodoxy by openly proclaiming that their standards could not be those of the Gaeltacht and by demanding a creative freedom that would acknowledge hybridity and reject the strictures of the linguistic purists.” He and Máirtín Ó Cadhain are considered the two most innovative Irish language authors to emerge in the 1960s. He often writes in a stream of consciousness, and his style influences younger writers. His writing “explores the problem of recovering idealism and cultural wholeness in an increasingly shallow and materialistic Irish society.” He is elected as a member of the Irish Academy of Letters and wins more literary prizes than any other living Irish author.
Ó Súilleabháin writes a collection of poetry, Cosa Gréine, which is published and launched in Dublin in 2013, twenty-eight years after his death.
Ó Súilleabháin is an active Irish republican, particularly in publicizing the republican struggle, and is a member of Sinn Féin’s ruling body beginning in 1971. He spends short periods in prison because of activities related to his political beliefs.
seamus dubhghaill 