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Tag Archives: County Wicklow


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Birth of Eamonn Duggan, Lawyer & Politician

Eamonn Seán Duggan, Irish lawyer and politician, is born in Richhill, County Armagh, on March 2, 1878. He serves as Minister for Home Affairs (Jan 1922-Sep 1922), Minister without portfolio (Sep 1922-Dec 1922), Parliamentary Secretary to the Executive Council (1922-26), Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (1926-27) and Government Chief Whip and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence (1927-32). He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) (1918-33) and a Senator (1933-36).

Duggan is the son of William Duggan, a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officer, and Margaret Dunne. He is a cousin of revolutionaries Thomas Burke and Christopher Burke through his mother. His parents meet when his father, a native of County Wicklow, is stationed in Longwood, County Meath, where they marry on October 19, 1874. His father is transferred to County Armagh the following year as officers cannot serve in their wife’s native county.

In 1911, Duggan is living with his parents on St. Brigid’s Road Upper in Drumcondra, Dublin. After his school education, he begins work as a law clerk. During his early years, he becomes heavily involved in politics after he qualifies as a solicitor and sets up a practice at 66 Dame Street in Dublin. He marries Evelyn Kavanagh, and they have one son.

In 1916, as a keen supporter of Irish independence, Duggan is serving in the North Dublin Union in the days approaching the 1916 Easter Rising. One of his close friends, Thomas Allen, is shot while Duggan is at the Four Courts. His efforts to get medical assistance are unsuccessful at Richmond Hospital as the British officer who responds to the call declines the message and does not allow it to go through. Eventually medical assistance is received but it is too late for Allen. In Duggan’s region, the volunteers suffer very few injuries with the most violent fighting taking place on Friday night and Saturday morning.

Duggan suffers the consequences and is subject to court-martial and then sentenced to three years penal servitude. He is interned in Maidstone, Portland and Lewes prisons. Under the general amnesty of 1917, he is released after fourteen months in prison and returns to Dublin where he goes back to studying law.

Duggan is elected to the First Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin TD for South Meath following the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland. The Drogheda Independent reports “Never before was a successful candidate accorded such a princely reception.”

Duggan engages in the Irish War of Independence in the role of IRA Director of Intelligence, which comes to an end in November 1920 when he is imprisoned again and is not released until the Anglo-Irish Truce of July 1921. When the truce concludes, he is authorised as one out of the five envoys to discuss and finalise the treaty with the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He signs the Anglo-Irish Treaty at 22 Hans Place, London.

Duggan retains numerous ministerial posts in the Cumann na nGaedheal government. In 1921, he plays a role in the Irish delegation throughout the Anglo-Irish discussions, then playing a dominant role in liaising with British officials.

After the post-treaty government, Duggan is appointed the Minister for Home Affairs and shortly afterward he becomes the Parliamentary Secretary for the Executive Council and the Minister for Defence. He continues in various roles as a TD until 1933. These include Government Chief Whip from 1927 to 1932. Until 1933, he is a Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Meath. In 1933, he declines to go forward for the general election but is elected to Seanad in April 1933. He also is involved in local politics in Dún Laoghaire as the chairman of the borough council until his death in 1936.

Duggan writes papers which reflect on his engagement in the Easter Rising. In his letters, he writes about the tough times of imprisonment. He also writes about his participation in Sinn Féin and his triumph in being a candidate for the South Meath constituency. Most of his papers consist of letters to his fiancée and later wife, May Duggan, which are written while in prison. His time as a TD is also included. In one letter, which he writes on April 25, 1916, he references “the whole damn family” consisting of information as to how his volunteers and he are being “treated as princes” by the nuns in the nearby convent, receiving help from the children in the area and building barricades. In his letter, he also writes about morale among his comrades and hearing of rumours about a German who had landed in County Kerry. In the note, he states that the letter should be sent to May Duggan who is his fiancée at the time. At the end of the letter he refers to himself as “Edmund” by which he is also known.

Duggan dies suddenly at his home in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, on June 6, 1936, at the age of 58, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery on the north side of Dublin.


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Birth of Lilian Davidson, Artist, Teacher & Writer

Lilian Davidson ARHA, Irish landscape and portrait artist, teacher and writer, is born on January 26, 1879, at Castle Terrace, Bray, County Wicklow.

Davidson is the sixth of ten children of clerk of petty session, Edward Ellice Davidson, and Lucy Rising Davidson (née Doe). Her mother dies in 1888, and it is presumed that she receives a private education but as the family are not affluent, the details are unclear. She goes on to attend the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (DMSA) from 1895 to 1905. While at the DMSA, she wins prizes in 1895 and 1896 and is awarded a scholarship and free studentship at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in 1897, the same year her father dies. She completes her studies in 1905. In the early 1910s, she is living in Rathmines and spends some time in England and Wales.

Davidson is commissioned by Switzer’s department store on Grafton Street to draw costumes in 1899. In 1909, her painting After Rain is exhibited by the Dublin Sketching Club, with her continuing to show work there until 1920. She exhibits The Bonfire with the Water Colour Society of Ireland in 1912, becoming a committee member in 1934 and continuing to exhibit with them until 1954. In 1914, she is one of the artists included in a sale of paintings to aid Belgian refugees. She is first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1914, with The Student. Her painting exhibited by the RHA in 1916, The Harbour, St. Ives, demonstrates an influence from Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School, with a bright palette and contrasting illumination, which become characteristic of her work. She illustrates C. H. Bretherton’s collection of humorous poems and recollections about London Zoo, A Zoovenir (1919).

Davidson holds a joint exhibition with Mainie Jellett in 1920, at Mill’s Hall, Merrion Row, Dublin. Jellett produces a pencil portrait of Davison (pictured above), which shows her in a straw hat she frequently wears. The RHA exhibits Davidson’s oil painting, The Flax Pullers, in 1921. This work shows an influence from Paul Henry and French Impressionism in her use of colour-blocking. In the early 1920s, she travels to Switzerland, Belgium, and France, producing works such as Fish Market, Bruges. She lives in Paris in the late 1920s, exhibiting at the Salon de la Societé Nationale in 1924 and 1930. She places a self-portrait in her depiction of a peasant gathering, The Country Races. Reproductions of her drawing of Leinster House and Christ Church Cathedral by Bulmer Hobson are included in A Book of Dublin (1929). Her landscape, Low Tide, Wicklow, which is exhibited at the RHA in 1934, and Boats at Wicklow, Dusk show her ability to depict reflections in water. She continues to paint scenes of rural life, including Cottages – Keel, Achill, which shows an influence from Jack Butler Yeats in her use of space and colour. The fact that her family is not wealthy likely influences her choice of poorer people as her subjects, depicting them in a sympathetic manner. Her work is part of the painting event in the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics.

Davidson’s paintings are exhibited at the Contemporary Picture Galleries, Dublin in 1930, alongside Yeats, Evie Hone, and Harry Kernoff. She is a member of the Picture Hire Club, 24 Molesworth Street, Dublin from 1941 to 1942, and is a frequent contributor to the Munster Fine Arts Club. Her work is exhibited at the Salon des Beaux Arts, Paris, the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and in Amsterdam. A large number of her works from the 1930s show the Irish-speaking area of Galway, Claddagh, such as Night in Claddagh, exhibited with the RHA in 1933. Her Irish landscapes, such as Claddagh Cottages, are included in the Oireachtas Art Exhibitions from 1932 to 1946. From around 1934, she is a member of the Society of Dublin Painters, exhibiting with them from 1939 to 1954. She influences the Society’s move toward the avant-garde in the 1940s. She is elected associate to the RHA in 1940 and continues to exhibit there until her death. Her 1946 work, Gorta, shows influence from Zola, Rilke, Dostoyevsky and Picasso.

Davidson teaches drawing at her studio at 1 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin. Her pupils include Bea Orpen, Anne Yeats, and Mo Irwin. She also is a teacher at a number of Dublin schools, such as Belgrave school, Rathmines, Wesley College, St. Stephen’s Green, and Castle Park School, Dalkey. She travels to Abbeyleix, County Laois, once a week to teach at Glenbawn boarding school.

As well as painting, Davidson writes a number of plays, short stories, and monologues under a pseudonym, “Ulick Burke.” In 1927, a collection of her poems and Donegal rhymes is published. In 1931, Hilton Edwards directs her stage play Bride, at the Gate Theatre. Her short story, Her Only Son, is published in The Bell under a pseudonym in 1942. In 1935, she is a founder-member of the Torch Theatre, Dublin. She designs scenery, and is the co-director with Hugh Hyland in 1936, under the stage name “Jennifer Maude.”

Davidson dies at her home at 4 Wilton Terrace, Dublin on March 29, 1954. She is buried in an unmarked grave in Mount Jerome Cemetery. The National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) holds her 1938 portrait of Yeats, as well as her crayon drawing of Sarah Purser. She is a regular attendee at Purser’s “Second Tuesdays” gatherings. The Abbey Theatre holds her portrait of Joseph Holloway. She bequeaths The Golden Shawl to the Hugh Lane Gallery, which is a large self-portrait. Two of her works are included in the NGI’s 1987 exhibition, Irish Women Artists from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day.


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Birth of Kevin Barry, IRA Volunteer & Medical Student

Kevin Gerard Barry, Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer and medical student, is born on January 20, 1902, at 8 Fleet Street, Dublin. He becomes the first Irish republican to be executed by the British Government since the leaders of the Easter Rising.

Barry is the fourth of seven children born to Thomas Barry, dairyman, and Mary Barry (née Dowling), both originally from northeast County Carlow. His father dies of heart disease on February 8, 1908, at the age of 56. His mother then moves the family to the family’s farm at Tombeagh, Hacketstown, County Carlow, while retaining the family’s townhouse on Fleet Street. As a child he goes to the National School in Rathvilly. In 1915, he is sent to live in Dublin and attends the O’Connell Schools for three months, before enrolling in the Preparatory Grade at St. Mary’s College, Rathmines, in September 1915. He remains at that school until May 31, 1916, when it is closed by its clerical sponsors. With the closure of St. Mary’s College, he transfers to Belvedere College, a Jesuit school in Dublin. He joins the Irish Volunteers, the forerunner of the IRA, while still at Belvedere College, and enters University College Dublin (UCD) in 1919 to study medicine.

As a member of 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, he takes part in a successful raid for arms on the military post in King’s Inns, Dublin, on June 1, 1920. Within only six minutes the raiders secure rifles, light machine guns, and large quantities of ammunition, and depart the site with no casualties. He also takes part in an abortive attempt to burn Aughavanagh House, Aughrim, County Wicklow in July 1920, and an attack on a British ration party in Church Street, Dublin, on September 20, with the aim of seizing arms. The final operation fails. Gunfire breaks out, three soldiers of around Barry’s own age are killed or fatally wounded, and he becomes the first Volunteer to be captured in an armed attack since 1916.

During interrogation, Barry is threatened with a bayonet and is mistreated. A general court-martial on October 20, which he refuses to recognise, condemns him to death for murdering the three soldiers, although one of the bullets taken from Private Marshall Whitehead’s body is a .45 calibre, while all witnesses state that Barry was armed with a .38 Mauser Parabellum. Despite widespread appeals on grounds of both clemency and expediency, the cabinet in London and officials in Dublin decide separately against a reprieve, probably because of its likely effect on the morale of soldiers and police.

On October 28, the Irish Bulletin, the official propaganda newspaper produced by Dáil Éireann‘s Department of Publicity, publishes Barry’s statement alleging torture. The headline reads English Military Government Torture a Prisoner of War and are about to Hang him. The Irish Bulletin declares Barry to be a prisoner of war, suggesting a conflict of principles is at the heart of the conflict. The British do not recognise a war and treat all killings by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as murder. The public learns on this day that the date of execution has been fixed for November 1.

He was hanged in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, on November 1, after hearing two Masses in his cell. The timing of the execution, only seven days after the death by hunger strike of Terence MacSwiney, the republican Lord Mayor of Cork, brings public opinion to a fever-pitch. He is buried in unconsecrated ground on the jail property. His comrade and fellow student Frank Flood is buried alongside him four months later. A plain cross marks their graves and those of Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Thomas Traynor, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Bryan, Bernard Ryan, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher who are hanged in the same prison before the Anglo-Irish Treaty of July 1921 which ends hostilities between Irish republicans and the British. The graves go unidentified until 1934. They become known as the Forgotten Ten by republicans campaigning for the bodies to be reburied with honour and proper rites. On October 14, 2001, the remains of the ten men are given a state funeral and moved from Mountjoy Prison to be re-interred at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Barry is the first person to be tried and executed for a capital offence under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920, passed twelve weeks earlier. Together with his youth, this makes him a republican martyr celebrated in many ballads and verses. The best-known, set to a tune popular with British servicemen, is recorded by the American singer Paul Robeson, among others. A memorial stained-glass window by Richard King of the Harry Clarke Studio is later installed in the former UCD council chamber (afterward called the Kevin Barry Room), Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin.


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Birth of Richard Orpen, Architect, Painter & Illustrator

Richard Francis Caulfield Orpen, Irish architect, painter, illustrator and designer, is born on December 24, 1863.

Orpen is born to Anne (née Caulfield) and Arthur Herbert Orpen, a solicitor of Oriel, Blackrock, Dublin. His maternal grandfather is the Bishop of Nassau, Charles Caulfield. He is the eldest of four brothers and two sisters. His youngest brother is William, the painter. He attends St. Columba’s College in Whitechurch, Dublin, and graduates from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) with a BA in 1885. While attending St. Columba’s, he publishes an Irish comic alphabet for the present times in 1881, which is a mix of cartoons and verse mocking Charles Stewart Parnell and the home rule movement.

Orpen wants to pursue painting, but “for family reasons” he becomes an architect. He spends eleven years with Thomas Drew, initially as a pupil, and later as a managing assistant from 1885 to 1892. From around 1884, he attends the annual excursions of the English Architectural Association. Around 1890, he establishes his own architectural practice in Drew’s offices at 22 Clare Street, Dublin. In 1896, he moves his office to 7 Leinster Street. In 1888 he is elected as a member of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), serving as a council member from 1902 to 1910, as honorary secretary from 1903 to 1905, and as president from 1914 to 1917. He designs the institute’s official seal in 1909. In 1904, the Irish Builder describes him as the “originator of the bungalow in Ireland.”

From 1888, Orpen exhibits with the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), with watercolours and architectural drawings. He continues to exhibit with them until 1936. He collaborates with Percy French on a number of projects, including illustrating Racquetry Rhymes (1888) and The First Lord Liftinant and Other Tales (1890). He provides cartoons for French’s periodical, The Jarvey. His architectural illustrations are included in H. Goldsmith Whitton’s Handbook of the Irish Parliament Houses… (1891). He is one of the original members of the Architectural Association of Ireland, serving as its first president in 1896, and as vice-president in 1910.

Orpen is appointed the architect to St. Columba’s from 1897 to 1938, following a fire at the college in 1896. He becomes a fellow of the college, and the sanatorium becomes known as the Orpen building. He is an active member of the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland, serving as secretary in 1895, on the committee in 1904, and in 1917 sits on the organising committee for the fifth exhibition. In 1906, he is a founding member of the Arts Club. In 1906 he moves his architectural practice to 13 South Frederick Street, and moves into a house he designed, Coologe, Carrickmines, County Dublin.

At the 1907 Irish International Exhibition, Dublin, Orpen exhibits a number of chalk drawings. The same year he designs the cover of a satirical pamphlet, The Abbey row, not edited by W. B. Yeats, which mocks The Arrow and the riots at the first production of The Playboy of the Western World. He unveils a bust of Hugh Lane at the opening of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art on Harcourt Street in 1908. He is appointed secretary to the municipal gallery committee by Lane. In 1910, he is appointed architect to Christ Church Cathedral, as well as architect to St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. In 1911 he is elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy, a full member in 1912, and was the academy’s secretary from 1925 to 1937.

From 1910 to 1914, Orpen is in an architectural partnership with Page Dickinson, with the two collaborating on plans for the new Dublin municipal gallery and conversion of the Turkish Baths, Lincoln Place. Lane rejects his and Dickinson’s gallery plans, leading to him refusing to work with Lane’s choice of architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens. In 1914, he is appointed a guardian of the National Gallery of Ireland, and lectures at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art on architectural history in 1914 and 1915. He is involved in the design of a number of memorials including the setting for a bronze relief by Beatrice Campbell for the members of the Royal Irish Regiment killed in the Second Boer War and the war memorial at the Rathgar Methodist church. He serves as president of the arts and crafts section of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS). He is also a governor of the Royal National Hospital for Consumption for Ireland in Newcastle, County Wicklow.

Orpen marries Violet Caulfield in 1900. They are both descended from William Caulfeild, 1st Viscount Charlemont. He dies on March 27, 1938, at his home, Coologe, and is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery.

Orpen features as one of the many portraits in Seán Keating‘s Homage to Sir Hugh Lane. St. Columba’s College holds a portrait of Orpen by his brother, William, as well as a memorial stained-glass window to him by Catherine O’Brien.


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Death of Sheila Pim, Crime Novelist & Horticulturalist

Sheila Pim, Irish crime novelist and horticulturalist, dies in Dublin on December 16, 1995.

Pim is born in Dublin on September 21, 1909, to a Quaker father and English mother. She is a twin, but her brother dies. She is sent to the French School in Bray, County Wicklow, before being sent to Lausanne, Switzerland to finishing school. She then goes on to Girton College, Cambridge to study modern languages, intending to graduate with a degree in French and Italian. Her mother’s ill health and ultimate death in 1940, causes her to return to Ireland to look after her and she remains there taking care of her father, who dies in 1958, and an older incapacitated brother, Tom.

But these are good years for Pim with time to write, and during the 1950s and early 1960s she writes no fewer than seven novels, mostly crime fiction in a lighthearted style. During this time, she is a member of Irish PEN. She is also an avid amateur horticulturalist and writes for the magazine My Garden. Her more serious undertaking is a biography of the Irish plant collector Augustine Henry, The Wood and the Trees: A Biography of Augustine Henry (Macdonald, London). Her brother Tom dies in an accident in 1964 leaving Pim with no further responsibilities. This allows her to spend significant time researching through Henry’s papers. The book is published in 1966.

When Pim has completed the biography, she focuses on philanthropy. She dedicates her time to the Friends Historical Society and is particularly interested in helping out in the traveller community. She supports a young group of children and their grandfather. They bring her considerable joy. The Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland awards her the Society’s Medal of Honour and makes her an honorary life member for her services to the study of horticulture.

In Pim’s later years increasing deafness makes socialising difficult for her, but she still keeps up with the world of books, the theatre and painting. She reads The Irish Times from cover to cover every day, and her reading includes the Bible, Marcel Proust (in French) and the stories of Roddy Doyle.

Pim’s deafness finally forces her to move into sheltered housing in Dublin where she dies on December 16, 1995.


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Birth of J. B. Malone, Hillwalking Enthusiast

John James Bernard (J. B.) Malone, an Irish hillwalking enthusiast who popularises the pastime through his television programmes and books, is born on December 13, 1913, in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. He is responsible for the establishment of the Wicklow Way as a recognised walking trail, having first proposed it in 1966.

Malone is born to James Bernard Malone and his wife, Agnes (née Kenny), both from Dublin. He is raised mainly in England and completes his secondary education at the Marist Brothers College, Grove Ferry, Kent.

Malone moves to Ireland in 1931 where he finds employment in a builders’ providers firm and an insurance company before joining the Irish Army in 1940. There he becomes a cartographer in the intelligence section. In 1947, having left the army, he goes to work at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs as a draughtsman. He remains employed in the Irish civil service until his retirement in 1979. Also in 1947, he marries Margaret Garry, and they have three children.

Malone starts hillwalking in 1931 when he climbs Montpelier Hill to visit the ruins of the Hell Fire Club. Later, while on leave during his military career, he develops a detailed knowledge of walking routes throughout the hills of County Wicklow. He sits on the Board of An Taisce in Ireland from 1970 to 1974.

Following his retirement from the civil service, Malone is appointed as a field officer with the Long-Distance Walking Routes Committee of Cospóir, the Irish Sports Council. There, he negotiates rights of way with landowners to enable his vision of the Wicklow Way to become a reality. He first proposes a guided walking route through the Wicklow hills in 1966, although he had first raised the idea as early as 1942.

From 1938 to 1975 Malone contributes a regular column to the Evening Herald entitled Over the Hills. Between 1967 and 1968 he writes the column Know your Dublin, illustrated by Liam C. Martin. The column features information on a Dublin landmark and is later compiled into a book published in 1969.

During the 1960s, Malone presents a television documentary series on RTÉ entitled Mountain and Meadow, in which, accompanied by a cameraman, he introduces viewers to a variety of hill walks in Wicklow and surrounding counties. In 1980, he presents a one-hour TV programme on the newly opened Wicklow Way.

From 1950 to 1988, Malone writes several books on hillwalking in the Dublin Mountains and the Wicklow Mountains.

In 1980, Malone is made an honorary life member of An Óige, the Irish Youth Hostel Association (IYHA), in recognition of his contribution to promoting the Irish countryside.

Malone dies at the age of 75 on October 17, 1989, at St. James’s Hospital in Dublin. He is buried in Bohernabreena Cemetery, Tallaght, County Dublin.

Following his death in 1989, Malone’s contribution to hillwalking in Ireland is marked by the erection of the J.B. Malone Memorial Stone plaque in his honour on a section of the Wicklow Way overlooking Lough Tay.

In October 2014, on the 25th anniversary of Malone’s death, the South Dublin Libraries hold an exhibition on his life and work.

(Pictured: The John James Bernard Malone memorial, on the Wicklow Way overlooking Lough Tay and Luggala)


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Death of Katy French, Socialite, Model & TV Personality

Katy Ellen French, Irish socialite, model, writer, television personality and charity worker, dies on December 6, 2007, in Navan, County Meath, after collapsing at a friend’s house on December 2. According to the BBC, “in the space of less than two years, she had become one of Ireland’s best-known models and socialites.” Her cause of death is given as hypoxic ischemic brain injury caused by cocaine and ephedrine.

French is born on October 31, 1983, in Basel, Switzerland, to John and Janet French, from Australia and Britain respectively. At the age of two, she moves with her family to Ireland, briefly living in the Sandyford area before settling in Enniskerry, County Wicklow, and later to Stillorgan, County Dublin. She attends Alexandra College in Milltown, Dublin, from the age of seven. While still in school she works part-time as a hostess at the Dublin branch of the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain.

French studies psychology and marketing before working for the Assets Modelling Agency and later writing articles for several Dublin magazines and newspapers. She represents Sony Ericsson and Suzuki among many other brands, becoming more famous in 2007 as a result of her fiancé, restaurateur Marcus Sweeney, ending their relationship in a very public fashion after she is photographed for a lingerie shoot for the Sunday Independent in his restaurant in January of that year. As a result of this publicity, her image appears more regularly in daily Irish tabloid newspapers, and she makes numerous television appearances on shows such as RTÉ‘s The Podge and Rodge Show in April 2007 and Tubridy Tonight a week before her death.

French is known for deliberately courting controversy to promote her career. On Tubridy Tonight she speaks of her appearance on Celebrities Go Wild as well as her relationship break up with Sweeney. Mention is also made of her birthday party which she is to celebrate the following week, having missed her birthday due to Celebrities Go Wild. Host Ryan Tubridy is invited to the event. Footage is shown of the charity single “Down in the Bog” which is to be released as a Christmas single. She works for several Irish charities including Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin and GOAL in Calcutta, India. She writes a column for Social & Personal magazine.

In an interview with Hot Press‘s Jason O’Toole, French says that she would consider having an abortion if she became pregnant during the peak of her career, a controversial statement in Ireland where abortion is at that time effectively illegal, and that she loves fur despite being a “massive animal lover.” She also airs her religious beliefs, being a member of the Church of England as well as a practising Catholic and speaks highly of Islam and her Muslim friends saying, “When you read the Koran, you realise that Islam is a beautiful religion.” In the same interview she is asked if she has ever used cocaine and denies ever having done so. In November 2007, she tells an Irish tabloid that she has used cocaine but has stopped. A week before she dies, she celebrates her 24th birthday with celebrity and media friends.

French dies on the evening of December 6, 2007, in Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, County Meath, having collapsed at a house in Kilmessan, County Meath, in the early hours of Sunday, December 2. There is widespread speculation in the media that her death is the result of a drug overdose. A postmortem finds she has suffered brain damage, and that traces of cocaine are found in her body. A senior Garda states, “We strongly suspect that drugs contributed to her death. This was a previously healthy person being brought to hospital in a collapsed state.” In 2010 two people are charged with supplying cocaine to French and in failing to get medical assistance in a timely fashion. She is buried in her hometown of Enniskerry, County Wicklow, on December 10. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern‘s aide de camp, Captain Michael Tracey, attends her funeral.

On November 13, 2012, two friends of French, Kieron Ducie and Ann Corcoran, plead guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply on the weekend of French’s death. Trim Circuit Court is told that a second charge against the pair is not being pursued, that they had intentionally or recklessly engaged in behaviour relating to the supply of cocaine to French and failed to get medical assistance in a timely fashion. In July 2013 the pair are sentenced to a 2-1⁄2 year suspended sentence and three-year good behaviour bond, and a two-year suspended sentence and two-year good behaviour bond respectively. At the verdict, French’s cause of death is given as hypoxic ischemic brain injury caused by cocaine and ephedrine.


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Birth of Karl Mullen, Rugby Union Player & Gynecologist

Dr. Karl Daniel Mullen, rugby union player and consultant gynecologist who captains the Irish rugby team and captains the British Lions on their 1950 tour to Australia and New Zealand, is born on November 26, 1926, in Courtown Harbour, County Wexford.

Mullen is one of three sons and seven daughters of Daniel Mullen, an officer of the customs and excise, and his wife Annie (née Hargrove). After his parents move to Home Farm Road, Drumcondra, Dublin, he is educated at the Dominican St. Thomas’s Academy, Eccles Street, the Jesuit Belvedere College, Great Denmark Street, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He plays rugby and cricket at school, association football with Home Farm F.C., and golf in the summer months. Initially a centre, he becomes a prop on the Belvedere junior cup team and, after injury to a teammate, hooker on the senior cup team, which loses the Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup final to Castleknock College in 1944.

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’s distinguished rugby career has to be fitted around his medical studies. In 1945, he enters the RCSI, graduating L and LM (RCSI and RCPI) in 1949. Awarded the diploma in obstetrics (1952) and membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (1956), he trains at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, Jervis Street Hospital and the Rotunda hospitals. After serving as senior obstetrics registrar at the Derby City General Hospital (1953–56), he returns to Dublin to become a consultant obstetrician, based at Mount Carmel Community Hospital, Churchtown, Dublin, and develops a considerable private practice. By his retirement in 2002, he is estimated to have delivered over 40,000 babies. A proponent of sex education in schools, he appears on RTÉ‘s 7 Days in December 1970, outlining various methods of birth control and calling for a more honest and realistic approach to artificial contraception.

Mullen marries Doreen Kilbride, an accomplished soprano, on April 30, 1952, in Donnybrook, Dublin, interrupting their honeymoon to play for Old Belvedere R.F.C. in the Leinster Senior Cup final. They have eight children, three boys and five girls. In 1975, they move from Altamount, Dundrum, Dublin, to Tulfarris House, Blessington, County Wicklow, adjacent to Poulaphouca Reservoir, where they farm and bred Irish draught horses. In 1985, he sells the property and much of his art collection and moves to Kilcullen, County Kildare.

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)


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Death of Seán T. O’Kelly, Second President of Ireland

Seán Thomas O’Kelly (Irish: Seán Tomás Ó Ceallaigh), the second President of Ireland, dies on November 23, 1966, at the Mater Private Nursing Home in Dublin, after an illness of sixteen months. He serves two terms as President from 1945 to 1959. He is a member of Dáil Éireann from 1918 until his election as President. During this time, he serves as Minister for Local Government and Public Health (1932–1939) and Minister for Finance (1939–1945). He serves as Vice-President of the Executive Council from 1932 until 1937 and is the first Tánaiste from 1937 until 1945.

O’Kelly is born on August 25, 1882, on Capel Street in the north inner-city of Dublin. He joins the National Library of Ireland in 1898 as a junior assistant. That same year, he joins the Gaelic League, becoming a member of the governing body in 1910 and General Secretary in 1915.

In 1905 O’Kelly joins Sinn Féin who, at the time, supports a dual monarchy. He is an honorary secretary of the party from 1908 until 1925. In 1906 he is elected to Dublin Corporation, which is Dublin’s city council. He retains the seat for the Inns Quay Ward until 1924.

O’Kelly assists Patrick Pearse in preparing for the Easter Rising in 1916. After the rising, he is jailed, released, and jailed again. He escapes from detention at HM Prison Eastwood Park in Falfield, South Gloucestershire, England and returns to Ireland.

O’Kelly is elected Sinn Féin MP for Dublin College Green in the 1918 Irish general election. Along with other Sinn Féin MPs he refuses to take his seat in the British House of Commons. Instead, they set up an Irish parliament, called Dáil Éireann, in Dublin. O’Kelly is Ceann Comhairle (Chairman) of the First Dáil. He is the Irish Republic’s envoy to the post-World War I peace treaty negotiations at the Palace of Versailles, but the other countries refuse to allow him to speak as they do not recognise the Irish Republic.

O’Kelly is a close friend of Éamon de Valera, and both he and de Valera oppose the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. When de Valera resigns as President of the Irish Republic on January 6, 1922, O’Kelly returns from Paris to try to persuade de Valera to return to the presidency but de Valera orders him to return to Paris.

During the Irish Civil War, O’Kelly is jailed until December 1923. Afterwards he spends the next two years as a Sinn Féin envoy to the United States.

In 1926 when de Valera leaves Sinn Féin to found his own republican party, Fianna Fáil, O’Kelly follows him, becoming one of the party’s founding members. In 1932, when de Valera is appointed President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, he makes O’Kelly the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. He often tries to publicly humiliate the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, James McNeill, which damages O’Kelly’s reputation and image, particularly when the campaign backfires.

In 1938, many believe that de Valera wants to make O’Kelly the Fianna Fáil choice to become President of Ireland, under the new Irish constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann. When Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alfie Byrne, says he wants to be president there is an all-party agreement to nominate Douglas Hyde, a Protestant Irish Senator, Irish language enthusiast and founder of the Gaelic League. They believe Hyde to be the only person who might win an election against Alfie Byrne. O’Kelly is instead appointed Minister of Finance and helps create Central Bank in 1942.

O’Kelly leaves the cabinet when he is elected President of Ireland on June 18, 1945, in a popular vote of the people, defeating two other candidates. He is re-elected unopposed in 1952. During his second term he visits many nations in Europe and speaks before the United States Congress in 1959. He retires at the end of his second term in 1959, to be replaced by his old friend, Éamon de Valera. Following his retirement, he is described as a model president by the normally hostile newspaper, The Irish Times. Though controversial, he is widely seen as genuine and honest, but tactless.

O’Kelly’s strong Roman Catholic beliefs sometimes cause problems. Éamon de Valera often thinks that O’Kelly either deliberately or accidentally leaks information to the Knights of Saint Columbanus and the Church leaders. He ensures that his first state visit, following the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949, is to the Vatican City to meet Pope Pius XII. He accidentally reveals the Pope’s private views on communism. This angers the Pope and Joseph Stalin and is why he is not given the papal Supreme Order of Christ which is given to many Catholic heads of state.

On his retirement O’Kelly gives a series of radio talks about his early life and the independence movement. These form the basis of an account serialised in The Irish Press (July 3 to August 9, 1961) and subsequently translated into Irish and published as Seán T. (1963), echoing the nickname by which he is commonly known. The book relies heavily on memory and its accuracy on points of detail has been questioned by scholars such as F. X. Martin. In retirement he lived at his home, Roundwood Park in County Wicklow.

O’Kelly dies at the Mater Private Nursing Home in Dublin on November 23, 1966, at the age of 84, fifty years after the Easter Rising that first brought him to prominence. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Glasnevin, Dublin. His perceived unctuousness and his opportunistic tendencies in his later career should not efface his significance as a separatist organiser and an effective populist politician, who played a major role in the establishment of Fianna Fáil political hegemony.


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Death of Máirín Cregan, Playwright & Novelist

Máirín Cregan, Irish nationalist who is involved in the 1916 Easter Rising and Irish War of Independence, dies in Dublin on November 9, 1975. She makes her name writing for children, as well as writing plays and novels for adults.

Mary Ellen Cregan is born in Killorglin, County Kerry, on March 27, 1891, to Morgan Cregan and Ellen O’Shea. Her father is a stonemason from Limerick. The family are strong believers in the Gaelic revival movement and Cregan herself learns the Irish language and performs songs at Gaelic League concerts. Although she goes to primary school locally, she goes away to secondary school to St. Louis Convent in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. After finishing school, she becomes a teacher, working in Goresbridge, County Kilkenny from 1911 to 1914.

In September 1914 Cregan goes to Dublin to study music in the Leinster School of Music, under Madame Coslett Heller. It is while she is in Dublin that she becomes friends with the Ryan family, who are strong nationalists as well as interested in the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin. She begins to sing for concerts which are fundraisers for the Irish Volunteers. The last concert is just two weeks before the Easter Rising.

During Easter week Cregan is sent to Tralee with “automatics and ammunition” by Seán Mac Diarmada. While she is carrying a violin case of munitions, she is also carrying details for the wireless technology needed for communicating with the SS Aud, the boat which is carrying more weapons for the rebellion. The communications with the SS Aud go wrong when the car carrying the Volunteers goes off a pier and the occupants are drowned. She is still in the area to assist with the surviving Volunteer, who unfortunately knows nothing of the details for the SS Aud. She is not easily able to get back to Dublin, because owing to the Rising the city is cut off. By the time she gets back, her friends have been arrested.

When Cregan is going to school in Dublin she is also working in a school in Rathmines. Like many of the teachers, she loses her job after the rising because of her connection to the rebels. However, she is able to get new positions over the next few years in both Ballyshannon and Portstewart until she marries. In Ballyshannon she experiences the early expressions of support and sympathy, but Portstewart is a Unionist enclave with many houses flying union flags on polling day in 1918.

Cregan is a member of Cumann na mBan and with them is active during the Irish War of Independence. She is given a medal for her participation. On July 23, 1919, she marries Dr. James Ryan in Athenry, County Galway. His entire family had been deeply involved in the Easter Rising, as well as the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. They have three children, Eoin, who becomes a Senator, Nuala (Colgan) and Seamus.

The family is initially based in Wexford during the War. The house is often raided when the British soldiers are looking for her husband and Cregan herself is arrested in February 1921 for refusing to put up martial law posters. Later the family sells the house and remains mobile while she works for the Sinn Féin government, and her husband is in prison. It is during this time that she works as a courier to the continent and to London. After the war, they purchase Kindlestown House in Delgany, County Wicklow, where they remain for the rest of their lives.

Cregan works as a journalist for The Irish Press and The Sunday Press. Her political awareness and involvement mean that her work there is on political articles.

Cregan’s first book for children is Old John and gains her considerable international success and attention. Sean Eoin is also published in Irish and is illustrated by Jack Butler Yeats. Her work is also aired on the BBC and RTÉ. Rathina wins the Downey Award in the United States in 1943. She also writes two plays: Hunger strike (1933), based on experience of her husband’s involvement in such a strike, which is broadcast on Radio Éireann on May 5, 1936, and Curlew’s call (1940).

Cregan dies on November 9, 1975, in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, and is buried in Redford cemetery near her home in County Wicklow.

(Pictured: Máirín Cregan and her husband, Dr. James Ryan)