The Tribunal of Inquiry into the Beef Processing Industry, also known as the Beef Tribunal, is established on May 31, 1991, chaired by Justice Liam Hamilton. It is set up to inquire into malpractice in the Irish beef processing industry, mainly centred on Goodman International, owned and controlled by Larry Goodman. It also examines accusations of special dispensations given by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Albert Reynolds, to Goodman.
The Tribunal begins hearings on June 21, 1991, and it reports its conclusions in July 1994, at the time Ireland’s longest-running inquiry.
The Tribunal is tasked with “inquiring into the following definite matters of urgent public importance: (i) allegations regarding illegal activities, fraud and malpractice in and in connection with the beef processing industry made or referred to:– (a) in Dáil Éireann, and (b) on a television programme transmitted by ITV on May 13, 1991; (ii) any matters connected with or relevant to the matters aforesaid which the Tribunal considers it necessary to investigate in connection with its inquiries into the matters mentioned at (i) above; and 2. making such recommendations (if any) as the Tribunal, having regard to its findings, thinks proper.”
The Tribunal comes weeks after the broadcast of a World in Action programme. The allegations made in Dáil Éireann cover many of the allegations made in the television programme and included the following:
Abuses of the system under which subsidies are paid by the European Economic Community (EEC) to those engaged in the beef processing industry
Failure of regulatory authorities and allegations of political influence in relation to alleged abuses of the system
Tax evasion and Political influence in regard thereto
The Beef Tribunal concludes that tax evasion occurred at Goodman International and shined a light on widespread improper relationships between the beef industry, particularly Goodman, and the government. However, no criminal charges are brought, aside from the journalistSusan O’Keeffe who is charged and acquitted for not revealing sources.
Though not directly charged with wrongdoing, Albert Reynolds’s government is ultimately brought down by the fallout of the Beef Tribunal.
Ten years later, Fintan O’Toole comments that while a “shocking set of scandals” were uncovered (including the aforementioned tax evasion, fraud, and theft), “virtually nothing happened,” eroding public trust in the system.
(Pictured: Larry Goodman, founder and Executive Chairman of Goodman International, which is now ABP Food Group)
Boland is enrolled in the IRB along with his younger brothers Harry in 1904, following in the footsteps of his father. He and his brothers Harry and Ned subsequently join the Irish Volunteers when that organisation is established in 1913, serving in the same company as Arthur Griffith. When news breaks out of the Easter Rising in 1916 he immediately leaves his job, however, he is bitterly disappointed when he finds out that the order has been countermanded. When the rebellion begins in earnest on Easter Monday, he makes his way to Jacob’s Mill where he fights under Thomas MacDonagh. Following the official surrender, he is arrested and interned at Frongoch internment camp in Wales, where he comes into contact with other notable revolutionary leaders, including his brother Harry’s friend Michael Collins.
Boland is released after a general amnesty in December 1916, however, he remains involved in revolutionary circles, although he declines to rejoin the IRB, believing the organisation is no longer needed. He is arrested and imprisoned in Belfast from May to December 1918 for practising military drills in the Dublin Mountains. Meanwhile, a number of his colleagues secure their release by winning seats in the 1918 United Kingdom general election.
Boland and his brothers are opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. He is Battalion Commandant of 3 Battalion, 2 Dublin Brigade (South Dublin) in Blessington, County Wicklow, but is captured early on in the Irish Civil War on July 7, 1922, and is interned until his release in July 1924. On the outside, his brother Harry dies some days after being shot, in August 1922, after two National Army officers attempt to arrest him at the Grand Hotel in Skerries, County Dublin. Boland applies to the Irish government for a service pension under the Military Service Pensions Act of 1934 and is awarded 11 and 5/12 years of service at Grade C for his service with the Irish Volunteers and the IRA between April 1, 1916 and September 30, 1923.
Following the end of the Irish Civil War, Boland helps to build up Sinn Féin as the main Republican party. While still imprisoned, he is selected to stand for Dáil Éireann as the Teachta Dála (TD) for Roscommon, Harry’s old seat, for the 1923 Irish general election, in which he is successful. He is among those in Kilmainham Gaol who go on hunger strike in October 1923. The hunger strike does not result in his release and he credits his practice of yoga with keeping him alive at the time.[3]
Boland is eventually released from the custody of the state in July 1924. Upon his release, he becomes secretary of Sinn Féin and stands on the executive of the party.
Boland is among the first in Sinn Féin to call for an end to the party’s abstentionism from DáilÉireann, believing it to be a political dead end. Party leader Éamon de Valera proposes that the party abandon this policy and take their seats in the Dáil if changes are made to the oath of allegiance to the British monarch. His proposal is defeated and de Valera and his supporters, including Boland, leave Sinn Féin. Shortly after this split, a new party emerges called Fianna Fáil, with de Valera acting as leader and the other disillusioned Republican TDs joining. Boland is vital in transferring many members from Sinn Féin to Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil briefly also has an abstentionist policy but in 1927 a new law forces Fianna Fáil TDs to take the oath of allegiance and take their seats in the Dáil. Fianna Fáil dismisses the oath as “an empty formula.”
Boland works alongside Seán Lemass in building up Fianna Fáil’s grassroots support and organisation, giving particular attention to the party’s rural apparatus. In the September 1927 Irish general election Fianna Fáil comes within four seats of the ruling Cumann na nGaedheal party. The latter forms a coalition of sorts with the Farmers’ Party and returns to government.
Following the 1932 Irish general election, Fianna Fáil forms a new government. Boland is appointed Government Chief Whip, a position which allows him to attend cabinet meetings but not vote at them.
Fianna Fáil remains in power with an increased mandate following the 1933 Irish general election and Boland is promoted to the position of Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. Despite being the Minister in charge of the postal service, he does not own a telephone until some time later. During his tenure, the postal service makes considerable progress. It is also during this time that the Post Office becomes a paying concern. During his time as minister, he oversees a major expansion of the telephone service in Ireland, improvements in the transmission capacity of Radio Éireann, and construction of new provincial post offices and a new central postal sorting office.
Boland is acting Minister for Justice briefly for a time when P. J. Ruttledge is ill. It is during this time that he declares the Irish Republican Army a proscribed organisation.
A cabinet reshuffle in 1936 sees Boland become Minister for Lands. The Land Act 1939 reforms land distribution, broadening the criteria by which the state can take control over undeveloped land while offering the tenant of the land more favourable terms of compensation. He is critical of the policy of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Seán Lemass, of centralising industrial development in Dublin. He instead wishes to see a more decentralised economy based around food production. The differing viewpoint causes a rift between Boland and Lemass, but despite this Boland favoured Lemass’s policy of state intervention in the economy over Seán MacEntee‘s more laissez-faire approach.
In 1937 Boland is highly vocal during the drafting of a new constitution of Ireland by Fianna Fáil against any word which would give the Catholic Church special status, something heavily considered at the time. He declares that if the constitution elevates the position of the Catholic Church above others, it would be sectarian, anti-republican, and a hindrance to any prospects of Irish reunification. As a compromise, the term “special position” is used in the approved text of the Constitution.
Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, known in Ireland as the Emergency, there is a cabinet reshuffle, and Boland is appointed as Minister for Justice. He takes over at a time when the IRA has once again declared war against the British state and has begun their Sabotage Campaign. He is charged with the task of crushing the organisation and preventing the IRA from drawing the Irish state into conflict with the United Kingdom. Although he always considers himself a republican, he takes a hardline against the IRA and uses his powers to order the internment of hundreds of IRA members before introducing military courts and special criminal courts.
In 1940, several imprisoned IRA members go on hunger strike but Boland refuses to grant their release. Two of the men eventually die, one of whom is the nephew of one of his Fianna Fáil colleagues. Tony D’Arcy dies at the age of 32 on April 16, 1940, as a result of a 52-day hunger strike, and Jack McNeela dies three days later after 55 days on hunger strike. These deaths spark reprisals by the IRA on the Garda Síochána. Boland subsequently introduces tougher measures by setting up a military court with the death penalty and no provision for appeal except for a review by the government. In all, twelve men are found guilty with six of them facing death and the remaining six having their sentences changed to imprisonment. Among those executed is Charlie Kerins, an acting Chief of Staff of the IRA.
As Minister of Justice, Boland is also asked to enforce policies of wartime censorship, however, finding the idea of the state censorship distasteful he establishes a censorship board to avoid accusations of bias.
During the Emergency, Boland is also responsible for the detention of several foreign agents in pursuit of Ireland’s strict policy of neutrality. During this time some 500 individuals are interned and 600 are sentenced under the newly introduced Offences against the State Act, 1939. By 1943 the IRA is in disarray, particularly after the Chief of Staff is arrested and imprisoned, leaving the organisation without leadership. Boland and Fianna Fáil feel their hardline is backed by the electorate following strong returns for the party at the 1944 Irish general election.
In 1947, Boland is among four leading Fianna Fáil figures (including de Valera) involved in the “Locke’s Distillery Scandal”, an accusation brought by Oliver J. Flanagan that foreign businessmen are bribing members of Fianna Fáil to gain the right to purchase the distillery. A tribunal of inquiry finds no evidence to support the claims, but the event taints the public’s view of Fianna Fáil.
By 1948, Fianna Fáil has been in government for an uninterrupted 16 years. With World War II finally over, the electorate seeks change and a fresh start. Arising to meet this desire is the new political party Clann na Poblachta. Led by Seán MacBride, this new party seeks to kick off a new post-war political era in Ireland, and to do this means removing Fianna Fáil from power. Many in Clann na Poblachta have republican backgrounds and in some ways, the party can be partially described as an organic reaction to Fianna Fáil and Boland’s hardline stance during the war years. Many in political circles, including inside Fianna Fáil, believe Clann na Poblachta can be a new force to reckon with.
However, de Valera always holds a reputation for being cunning in selecting the dates of general elections, and he once again cements that notion, when he calls for a general election in early 1948 before Clann na Poblachta is completely ready to contest a national election. At the 1948 Irish general election Clann na Poblachta and other Fianna Fáil opponents do well, but not as well as expected. To remove Fianna Fáil from government, every single party in the Dáil and several independents have to form the unwieldy “First Inter-Party Government.” The coalition sees Clann na Poblachta forced to work with Fine Gael, considered the traditional “enemy” of Irish republicanism. By 1951, the coalition collapses and Fianna Fáil returns to government following that year’s election, with Boland re-appointed Minister for Justice.
Boland does not seek ministerial office in 1957 when Fianna Fáil returns to power after its defeat in 1954. However, his son, Kevin, is appointed to the cabinet as Minister for Defence at the beginning of his first term in the Dáil. By this stage, Boland is beginning to be seen as an aging warhorse, with his base in Roscommon starting to slip and Fianna Fáil unhappy that he is unable to get a Fianna Fáil running mate elected alongside himself.
At the 1961 Irish general election, Boland is defeated for the first time in fourteen general election campaigns. Despite losing his Dáil seat, he subsequently secures election to Seanad Éireann. Four years later in 1965, he returns to the Seanad, this time as a nominee by the Taoiseach Seán Lemass.
In 1970, the outbreak of the Arms Crisis sees Kevin Boland resign as a Minister and as Secretary of Fianna Fáil in protest at the government’s policy on Northern Ireland and in response to the sackings of Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney from the cabinet over allegations they had arranged for weapons to be provided to the Provisional IRA. Gerald Boland, in a similar protest, resigns as a vice president and as a trustee of Fianna Fáil, although he remains a member of the party. He also articulates his loss of confidence in the leadership of TaoiseachJack Lynch.
Boland dies in Dublin at the age of 87 on January 5, 1973. He is buried in the republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, Glasnevin, County Dublin. His wife, Annie Boland, predeceases him in 1970. He is survived by his three daughters and four sons.
Madigan is a qualified solicitor, who practises in family law for twenty years, prior to her election to Dáil Éireann. She is also certified as a mediator by the Mediators’ Institute of Ireland (MII) and is a previous Council member of the MII. She is a former Specialist Liaison Officer for Family Mediation in the MII.
Madigan is the author of the first book in Ireland on mediation: Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Ireland, a handbook for family lawyers and their clients (Jordan Publishing, 2012). She has also self-published a novel called Negligent Behaviour.
Madigan issues a leaflet in 2014 claiming that providing accommodation for Travellers in her constituency would be “a waste of valuable resources.” When asked about this later, she claims, “Some people won’t want to live beside people in halting sites […] there might be more crime, that there might be anti-social behaviour.”
Madigan is elected to the 32nd Dáil at the 2016 Irish general election as a Fine Gael TD for the Dublin Rathdown constituency, defeating sitting Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter by nearly 1,000 votes. She is appointed Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight in July 2017. She is a member of the Public Accounts Committee. She introduces a private member’s bill to reduce the waiting time for divorce in Ireland from four years to two, which is passed by the Dáil.
On November 30, 2017, Madigan is appointed to the cabinet as Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, in a reshuffle following the resignation of the TánaisteFrances Fitzgerald.
In 2019, Madigan receives widespread coverage for her role in the personal injury legal claim of Fine Gael politician, Maria Bailey. It is alleged that her law practice, Madigan Solicitors, advised Bailey on her claim, however, Madigan refuses to make any comments on this citing client-solicitor confidentiality. In July 2019, an internal unpublished Fine Gael probe into the affair clears Madigan of any wrongdoing in regard to the claim. In late July 2019, the Irish Independent reports that “it is now known that she advised Ms. Bailey in the early stages of the claim.” It is also reported that her firm would earn €11,500 in fees if the Maria Bailey case were successful.
Madigan is re-elected at the 2020 Irish general election, taking the third seat behind Green Party Deputy Leader Catherine Martin and party colleague Neale Richmond. On July 1, 2020, she is appointed by the new government as Minister of State at the Department of Education with special responsibility for special education and inclusion. On January 14, 2021, she comes under fire for describing children without additional needs as “normal” while speaking in the Dáil. “We all know that even for normal children remote teaching is difficult but for children who have additional needs it is particularly difficult,” she says. Later that day on Twitter, she says she “sincerely apologises for the language she used. It is absolutely not what I meant to say.”
On January 20, 2021, speaking on RTÉ‘s Today with Claire Byrne, Madigan compares children with additional needs not attending school to the mother and baby homes. “We’ve spent the last week talking about mother and baby homes, where our most vulnerable were left to their own devices in less than satisfactory conditions and we’re now allowing further anxiety and upset to be placed on the shoulders of parents whose children desperately need to go back to school.” The Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Related Matters is published the week prior to her comments. She later apologises in a statement: “I am, as are all involved in supporting these children [children with additional needs], passionate about vindicating their rights and in reaching for an analogy I chose poorly. I apologise fully.”
Shortly after the first report of the Creeslough explosion on October 7, 2022, Madigan tweets that she hopes “they find the culprits” and, after being criticised as irresponsible and insensitive, she quickly deletes the tweet.
On March 22, 2024, Madigan announces that she will resign as Minister of State and will not contest the next general election.
FitzGerald joins Fine Gael, attaching himself to the liberal wing of the party. and in 1969 is elected to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. He later gives up his university lectureship to become Minister for Foreign Affairs in the coalition government of Liam Cosgrave (1973–77). When the coalition government is resoundingly defeated in the 1977 Irish general election, Cosgrave yields leadership of Fine Gael to FitzGerald. In his new role as Leader of the Opposition and party leader, he proceeds to modernize and strengthen the party at the grass roots. He briefly loses power in 1982 when political instability triggers two snap elections.
By the time of the 1981 Irish general election, Fine Gael has a party machine that can easily match Fianna Fáil. The party wins 65 seats and forms a minority coalition government with the Labour Party and the support of a number of Independent TDs. FitzGerald is elected Taoiseach on June 30, 1981. To the surprise of many, FitzGerald excludes Richie Ryan, Richard Burke and Tom O’Donnell, former Fine Gael stalwarts, from the cabinet.
On May 5, 2011, it is reported that FitzGerald is seriously ill in a Dublin hospital. Newly elected Fine Gael Taoiseach Enda Kenny sends his regards and calls him an “institution.” On May 6 he is put on a ventilator. On May 19, after suffering from pneumonia, he dies at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin at the age of 85.
In a statement, Irish PresidentMary McAleese hails FitzGerald as “a man steeped in the history of the State who constantly strove to make Ireland a better place for all its people.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny pays homage to “a truly remarkable man who made a truly remarkable contribution to Ireland.” Henry Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State, who serves as an opposite number to FitzGerald in the 1970s, recalls “an intelligent and amusing man who was dedicated to his country.”
FitzGerald’s death occurs on the third day of Queen Elizabeth II‘s state visit to the Republic of Ireland, an event designed to mark the completion of the Northern Ireland peace process that had been “built on the foundations” of FitzGerald’s Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher in 1985. In a personal message, the Queen offers her sympathies and says she is “saddened” to learn of FitzGerald’s death.
On his visit to Dublin, United States PresidentBarack Obama offers condolences on FitzGerald’s death. He speaks of him as “someone who believed in the power of education; someone who believed in the potential of youth; most of all, someone who believed in the potential of peace and who lived to see that peace realised.”
FitzGerald is the author of a number of books, including Planning in Ireland (1968), Towards a New Ireland (1972), Unequal Partners (1979), All in a Life: An Autobiography (1991), and Reflections on the Irish State (2003).
MacNeill is one of five children born to Archibald McNeill, a Roman Catholic working-class baker, sailor and merchant, and his wife, Rosetta McNeill (née McAuley), also a Catholic. He is raised in Glenarm, an area which “still retained some Irish-language traditions.” His niece is nationalist and teacher, Máirín Beaumont.
MacNeill marries Agnes Moore on April 19, 1898. The couple has eight children, four sons and four daughters (though the 1911 census entry for MacNeill notes eleven children, seven of whom are still alive).
The Gaelic League is from the start strictly non-political, but in 1915, a proposal is put forward to abandon that policy and become a semi-political organisation. MacNeill strongly supports this and rallies to his side a majority of delegates at the 1915 Oireachtas. Douglas Hyde, a non-political Protestant, who had co-founded the League and been its president for 22 years, resigns immediately afterward.
Through the Gaelic League, MacNeill meets members of Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), and other nationalists and republicans. One such colleague, The O’Rahilly, runs the league’s newspaper An Claidheamh Soluis, and in October 1913 asks MacNeill to write an editorial for it on a subject broader than Irish language issues. He submits a piece called “The North Began,” encouraging the formation of a nationalist volunteer force committed to Irish Home Rule, much as the unionists had done earlier in the year with the Ulster Volunteers to thwart Home Rule in Ireland. In July 1915, he comments on the threat that the unarmed nationalists in Ulster might face: “…a demented…English driven Orange Army would be let loose upon the helpless Catholic people of Ulster, who would be driven out of the province or massacred where they stood.”
Bulmer Hobson, a member of the IRB, approaches MacNeill about bringing the idea to fruition, and, through a series of meetings, MacNeill becomes chair of the council that forms the Irish Volunteers, later becoming its chief of staff. Unlike the IRB, he is opposed to the idea of an armed rebellion, except in resisting any suppression of the Volunteers, seeing little hope of success in open battle against the British army.
The Irish Volunteers have been infiltrated by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which plan on using the organisation to stage an armed rebellion, to separate Ireland from the United Kingdom and establishing an Irish Republic. The entry of the UK into World War I is, in their view, a perfect opportunity to do that. With the cooperation of James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army, a secret council of IRB officials plan a general rising at Easter 1916. On the Wednesday before Easter, they present MacNeill with a letter, allegedly stolen from high-ranking British staff in Dublin Castle, indicating that the British are going to arrest him and all the other nationalist leaders. Unbeknownst to MacNeill, the letter—called the Castle Document—is a forgery.
When MacNeill learns about the IRB’s plans, and when he is informed that Roger Casement is about to land in County Kerry with a shipment of German arms, he is reluctantly persuaded to go along with them, believing British action is now imminent and that mobilization of the Irish Volunteers will be justified as a defensive act. However, after learning that the German arms shipment has been intercepted and Casement arrested, and having confronted Patrick Pearse, who refuses to relent, MacNeill countermands the order for the Rising by sending written messages to leaders around the country, and placing a notice in the Sunday Independent cancelling the planned “manoeuvres.” This greatly reduces the number of volunteers who report for duty on the day of the Easter Rising.
Pearse, Connolly and the others agree that the uprising will go ahead anyway, but it begins one day later than originally intended to ensure that the authorities are taken by surprise. Beginning on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the Rising lasts less than a week. After the surrender of the rebels, MacNeill is arrested although he has taken no part in the insurrection. The rebel leader Tom Clarke, according to his wife Kathleen, warns her on the day before his execution, “I want you to see to it that our people know of his treachery to us. He must never be allowed back into the National life of this country, for so sure as he is, so sure will he act treacherously in a crisis. He is a weak man, but I know every effort will be made to whitewash him.”
In 1923, MacNeill, a committed internationalist, is also a key member of the diplomatic team that oversees Ireland’s entry to the League of Nations.
MacNeill’s family is split on the treaty issue. One son, Brian, takes the anti-Treaty side and is killed in disputed circumstances near Sligo by Free State troops during the Irish Civil War in September 1922. Two other sons, Niall and Turloch, as well as nephew Hugo MacNeill, serve as officers in the Free State Army. One of his brothers, James McNeill, is the second and penultimate Governor-General of the Irish Free State.
In 1924, the three-man Irish Boundary Commission is set up to settle the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State. MacNeill represents the Irish Free State. He is the only member of the Commission without legal training and has been described as being “pathetically out of his depth.” However, each of the Commissioners is selected out of political expediency rather than for any established competence or insight into boundary making. On November 7, 1925, a conservative British newspaper, The Morning Post, publishes a leaked map showing a part of eastern County Donegal (mainly The Laggan district) that is to be transferred to Northern Ireland, the opposite of the main aims of the commission. Perhaps embarrassed by that, especially since he said that it had declined to respect the terms of the Treaty, MacNeill resigns from the commission on November 20. Hus performance in the Boundary Commission has been deemed highly negative in a 2025 study The Root of All Evil: The Irish Boundary Commission.
On November 24, 1925, MacNeill also resign as Minister for Education, a position unrelated to his work on the commission.
On December 3, 1925, the Free State government agrees with the governments in London and Belfast to end its onerous treaty requirement to pay its share of the United Kingdom’s “imperial debt” and, in exchange, agrees that the 1920 boundary will remain as it is, overriding the commission. This angers many nationalists and MacNeill is the subject of much criticism, but in reality, he and the commission have been sidestepped by the intergovernmental debt renegotiation. In any case, despite his resignations, the intergovernmental boundary deal is approved by a Dáil vote of 71–20 on December 10, 1925, and MacNeill is listed as voting with the majority in favour. He loses his Dáil seat at the June 1927 Irish general election.
MacNeill is an important scholar of Irish history and among the first to study Early Irish law, offering both his interpretations, which at times are coloured by his nationalism, and translations into English. He is also the first to uncover the nature of succession in Irish kingship, and his theories are the foundation for modern ideas on the subject.
MacNeill is a contributor to the Royal Irish Academy‘s Clare Island Survey, recording the Irish place names of the island. His disagreements and disputes with Goddard Henry Orpen, particularly over the latter’s book Ireland under the Normans, generate controversy.
MacNeill retires from politics completely and becomes Chair of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. In his later years he devotes his life to scholarship and publishes several books on Irish history. He dies in Dublin of natural causes, aged 78, on October 15, 1945. He is buried in Kilbarrack Cemetery.
Flynn publishes the novel Nothing To Say in 1983. It is subsequently translated into German, Italian, and Polish. He founds his arts company, Farcry Productions, in 2004, which produces visual art, performance and installation work around taboo issues such as child sexual abuse, violence, and addiction.
Flynn is first elected to Dublin City Council in the 2009 Irish local elections as an independent candidate representing the South-East Inner City electoral area. He is re-elected to the revised Pembroke-South Dock electoral area in the 2014 Irish local elections.
Flynn tables a motion to move the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, a State company set up in 1991 as a regeneration agency for Temple Bar, under the direct control of Dublin City Council. The trust is subsequently found to be in breach of corporate governance and accountability in a number of public reports. He also expresses critical views of the way public money is spent as part of a Grafton Street regeneration project in Dublin.
Flynn supports tougher regulation around the amplification of busking on public streets, which leads to his office being vandalised in February 2015. He is involved in a number of challenges to cycle lane provision, with a High Court challenge against the Strand Road cycle lane COVID-19 mobility trial and is a spokesperson for a group opposed to this cycle lane trial. Critics accuse him of consistently voting against policies that would provide more active travel infrastructure and in favour of policies which negatively impact pedestrians and cyclists. His legal challenges to cycling provision have the potential to revert a number of cycle lanes which have been created back to servicing predominantly cars.
In 2015, Flynn resigns from the Dublin City Council Arts SPC over what he perceives as a lack of cohesive overall policy, strategy, and vision.
In 2016, Flynn protests against the Artane Band, due to its association with the Artane Industrial School. The band responds saying it has had no association with the former industrial school. His peaceful protest, which includes him protesting on a window sill in his Dublin City Council office, is criticised by some as “attention seeking” and a “publicity stunt full stop.”
In 2019, Flynn is involved in a protest march against plans to open the state’s largest homeless shelter in his ward. Protesters march northbound on Aungier Street blocking traffic and shouting slogans against the Peter McVerry trust for providing the services in conjunction with Dublin City Council. In 2020, he takes further legal action against the council, who are working in conjunction with the Peter McVerry Trust, so that he can ensure the homeless facilities will not be built in the area.
Byrne is Head of Communications with the Higher Education Authority (HEA) until 2019, and has been Vice-President of the National Youth Council of Ireland. In 2014, he is named as one of the European 40 Under 40, in the European Young Leaders Programme.
In January 2006, The Sun includes Byrne’s picture on the cover of its Irish edition beneath the headline “Bertie‘s FF Man in Gay Web Shame,” revealing that Byrne has a profile on the dating website Gaydar. He responds at the time, “I have not, nor have I ever, done anything illegal and I am not a hypocrite in any way. My views on gay rights issues are well known. I am not married with four children or anything like that, so there is no suggestion of hypocrisy.” His family and political career suffer as a result and he is not selected for candidacy in the 2007 Irish general election following this incident. He later describes how a journalist from The Gorey Echo first approaches him, “The first few questions were about roads. Then the journalist said, ‘Are you aware you have a profile on this dating website?'” When he confirms that the profile is his, he experiences a sleepless night before The Gorey Echo outs him locally: “I was ringing around people I knew and my parents were ringing around people … my grandmother didn’t know and a lot of my extended family and my friends didn’t know.” Gorey Echo group editor Tom Mooney defends the publication by saying he believes Byrne’s behaviour to be “unfitting of a public representative.”
Byrne contests the 2019 European Parliament election for Fianna Fail in the South constituency, having unexpectedly beaten Cork TD Billy Kelleher in the vote for the party’s nomination. However, Kelleher is later added to the ticket. Fianna Fáil then divides the constituency geographically, asking people in counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois, Offaly, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow to vote for Byrne, and those in counties Cork, Kerry, Clare and Limerick to vote for Kelleher. Kelleher wins 11.69% of the first-preference votes (FPV) and is elected on the 17th count. Byrne wins 9.62% of the FPV, and is eliminated on the 16th count.
Byrne is elected as a TD at the 2019 Wexford by-election. Andrew Bolger is co-opted to Byrne’s seat on Wexford County Council following his election to the Dáil. His maiden speech is about housing solutions and the need to address the challenges facing Generation Rent. In an interview he says he can envisage a United Ireland where the 12th of July and Saint Patrick’s Day are public holidays and speaks about how Ireland needs to ensure Unionists feel at home in a new agreed state and that may mean addressing issues such as Ireland joining the Commonwealth.
Byrne loses his Dáil seat at the 2020 Irish general election, following what he calls “a dirty campaign.” His defeat after only 71 days makes him the TD with the second-shortest term of service, after the Anti H-Block TD Kieran Doherty, who dies on hunger strike in August 1981, only 52 days after his election.
On March 31, 2020, Byrne is elected to Seanad Éireann at the 2020 Seanad election. He is named as Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Higher Education, Innovation and Science by TaoiseachMicheál Martin in July 2020.
At the 2024 Irish general election, Byrne is elected to the Dáil. He is subsequently appointed Cathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
Byrne is openly gay. As of 2020, he is single and describes politics as “almost like an addiction,” which makes relationships difficult. He lives in Gorey.
In March 2025, Byrne is injured during the theft of his phone in London.
Devlin is born into a Roman Catholic family and attends St. Patrick’s Girls Academy in Dungannon. She is studying Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in 1968 when she takes a prominent role in a student-led civil rights organisation, People’s Democracy. She is subsequently excluded from the university.
After engaging on the side of the residents in the Battle of the Bogside, Devlin is convicted of incitement to riot in December 1969, for which she serves a short jail term.
Having witnessed the events of Bloody Sunday, Devlin is infuriated that she is consistently denied the floor in the House of Commons by the Speaker Selwyn Lloyd, despite the fact that parliamentary convention decrees that any MP witnessing an incident under discussion would be granted an opportunity to speak about it. She slaps Reginald Maudling, the Home Secretary in the Conservative government, across the face when he states in the House of Commons that the paratroopers had fired in self-defence on Bloody Sunday.
In 1971, Devlin gives birth to a daughter, Róisín, which costs her some political support because she is unmarried. She later marries Róisín’s father, Michael McAliskey, on her 26th birthday on April 23, 1973.
McAliskey stands as an independent candidate in support of the prisoners at Long Kesh prison in the 1979 European Parliament elections in Northern Ireland and wins 5.9% of the vote. She is a leading spokesperson for the Smash H-Block Campaign, which supports the hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981.
On January 16, 1981, McAliskey and her husband are shot by members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), who break into their home near Coalisland, County Tyrone. She is shot fourteen times in front of her children. British soldiers are watching the McAliskey home at the time but fail to prevent the assassination attempt. The couple are taken by helicopter to a hospital in nearby Dungannon for emergency treatment and then transported to the Musgrave Park Hospital, Military Wing, in Belfast, under intensive care. The attackers, all three members of the South Belfast UDA, are captured by the army patrol and subsequently jailed.
In 1982, McAliskey twice fails in an attempt to be elected to the Dublin North–Central constituency of Dáil Éireann. In 2003, she is barred from entering the United States and is deported on the grounds that the United States Department of State has declared that she “poses a serious threat to the security of the United States,” apparently referring to her conviction for incitement to riot in 1969.
On May 12, 2007, McAliskey is the guest speaker at Éirígí‘s first Annual James Connolly commemoration in Arbour Hill, Dublin. She currently co-ordinates a not-for-profit community development organisation based in Dungannon, the South Tyrone Empowerment Programme, and works with migrant workers to improve their treatment in Northern Ireland.
Maher is born on April 29, 1922, at Castlemoyle, Boherlahan, Cashel, County Tipperary, the seventh child of Thomas Maher, farmer, and his wife Julianne Maher. Raised on the family’s forty-five-acre holding and educated locally at Ardmaylenational school and at the Christian Brothers school and VEC school in Cashel, he takes over the farm in 1948 when ill health forces his father into retirement. He subsequently enlarges it to 120 acres. Mechanically adept, a talented sportsman, and a member of Cashel Dramatic Society, he joins Macra na Feirme and is a founder member of the National Farmers’ Association (NFA) in January 1955.
Maher is a member and chairman of the dairy committee of the NFA before coming to national attention through his participation in the historic farmers’ rights march to Dublin led by Rickard Deasy (October 7-19, 1966), part of the militant campaign for fairer agricultural prices and for reform of taxation and rates on farmland. His part in the subsequent three-week sit-down protest and meeting with incoming minister Neil Blaney, at the Department of Agriculture, confirms his reputation as a tenacious campaigner for agricultural causes. In August 1967, shortly after 100 farmers have served prison sentences for withholding rates, he succeeds Deasy as NFA president. Charismatic, articulate, and decisive, he also has a strong sense of personal responsibility, which governs his expectations of colleagues and associates. With exhausting rounds of travel and meetings, he is impossible to ignore and grist to the media mill, with his apparently impromptu but, in reality, carefully rehearsed speeches criticising politicians, parties, bureaucracy, and tardy national policy. He warns of national economic failure unless government and public services take radical modernising initiatives. He is at once nationalist, internationalist, and a revolutionary campaigner for change, an idealistic firebrand who is essentially conservative in social matters.
Maher’s campaign for agriculture is tempered by a wider interest in the social and economic future of Ireland ahead of crucial negotiations for membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). He becomes a household name, gadfly of bureaucrats and hero of farmers. In November 1967 he attends the European Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers in Rome as an advance action prior to taking part in the subsequent negotiations leading to Ireland’s “entry to Europe” in January 1973. He is re-elected president of the NFA in 1970.
Amalgamating the NFA with several of the agricultural producers’ organisations, Maher oversees its reemergence as the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) in January 1971 and remains president until 1976. Strengthened by his pro-European leadership, the IFA withstands the counter-propaganda which, in the referendum of May 1972, urges rejection of the EEC on economic, social, and religious grounds. Despite his own moderately conservative social views and unequivocal opposition to abortion in Ireland, his commitment to European integration is not in question.
Maher is a director of prestigious state-sponsored bodies including Bord Bainne, the Irish Sugar Company, and the B & I shipping line. He also serves six terms between 1976 and 1983 as president of the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS). Such relative sinecures are balanced by adherence to humanitarian causes that occupy most of his subsequent life. Passionate about practical support for developing countries, he becomes a founder and chairman of Bóthar, the Irish self-help relief agency for supply of livestock overseas. He urges prison reform and supports Amnesty International in its prisoners’ rights campaigns. Running as an independent candidate, he is elected Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Munster in 1979, beating the strong Fine Gael candidate Alan Dukes. Describing himself as a public representative rather than a politician, he sits in the Liberal and Democratic parliamentary group and continues to fly agricultural and other kites as a non-party deputy. Typically, he criticises the scale of Irish embassies abroad, suggesting alternative teams of trade and tourism personnel. He advocates fairer agricultural policies towards developing countries in spite of prevailing European attitudes of self-interest, and urges the transfer of Northern Ireland from British jurisdiction to European protectorate status. At home he seeks all-party consensus on economic recovery from the depressed condition of the mid 1980s, well intentioned and lonely causes that fail to draw significant political support.
Maher’s habit of traveling with tools to unlock sealed hotel windows is an example of his sometimes eccentric practicality. His unsuccessful attempt to win a Dáil seat for Tipperary South in the 1981 Irish general election postpones his return to Ireland, although he is twice reelected an MEP before retiring in 1994. During his time in Strasbourg he is a quaestor of the European Parliament and a member of its committees on rural development, regions and petitions. He advocates decentralisation of power in Ireland while also criticising local authorities for laxity in their commitment to environmental protection.
For all his outspokenness, Maher is widely respected for the courageous positions he adopts. When time permits, he is an avid reader of history. He maintains his rural pastimes, especially attendance at Gaelic sports, where he can test the political pulse of his constituents. Following a short illness, he dies on April 19, 2002, aged 79, at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. He is buried at Boherlahan cemetery following a Requiem Mass, celebrated by his surviving brother, the Rev. Michael Maher CSSp (a former veterinary surgeon), and his cousin Denis.
Maher marries Elizabeth (Betty) Kennedy from Bansha, near Cashel, on January 8, 1958. They live at Castlemoyle and have one daughter, Julianne, and two sons, Thomas and Denis. His brother James (Jamesie), who predeceases him in October 1975, had been a medical consultant at St. Vincent’s and consultant surgeon to the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU).
(From: “Maher, Thomas Joseph” by Patrick Long, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
Ginnell is born in Delvin, County Westmeath, in 1852, (baptised April 9, 1852) the son of Laurence Ginnell and Mary Monaghan and twin to Michael Ginnell. He is self-educated and is called to the Irish bar as well as the Bar of England and Wales. In his youth, he is involved with the Land War and acts as private secretary to John Dillon.
The last great social and agrarian campaign of the Irish home rule movement, the Ranch War (1906 and 1909), is largely led and organised by Ginnell from the central office of the United Irish League. He is elected an MP in 1906, takes his seat at Westminster and swears allegiance to Edward VII. On October 14, 1906, he launches the “war” at Downs, County Westmeath.
The purpose of the war is to bring relief to the large numbers of landless and smallholders, particularly in the West, who are relatively untouched by the Wyndham Land Act (1903) and by the larger policy of purchase. The strategy that Ginnell pursues is the Down’s Policy, or cattle driving, a proceeding designed to harass the prosperous grazier interests, whose “ranches” occupy large, under populated and under worked tracts. The Down’s Policy is also meant to draw public attention to the scandalous inequalities that survive in the Irish countryside. The conservatives within the home rule leadership are understandably suspicious about the revival of agrarian disturbances, but the mood of the party organisation is hardening in the aftermath of a disappointing devolution bill in May 1907, from the new Liberal government, so that it seems logical to turn to the traditional mechanism for reactivating the national question: agrarian agitation.
Ginnell’s cattle drives begin to tail off after the summer of 1908, and the agitation is finally dissolved with the passage of a 1909 Act by the Liberal Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell that allows the transfer to the Irish Land Commission of farmland by compulsory purchase, which is hailed by the national movement as an historic victory. In reality, the Ranch War involves an implosion within sectors of the Irish Parliamentary Party, as its leadership has not facilitated the working of the Wyndham Land Act in the first place because John Dillon and his like want conflict above victory.
In 1909, Ginnell is expelled from the Irish Parliamentary Party for the offence of asking to see the party accounts after which he sits as an Independent Nationalist. During this time, he is addressed frequently as “The MP for Ireland.” At Westminster, he is highly critical of the British government‘s war policy and its holding of executions of certain participants in the Easter Rising of 1916. On May 9, he accuses British Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith, of “Murder” and is forcibly ejected from the Chamber. He visits many of the prisoners who are interned in various prisons in Wales and England.
At the Sinn Féin ardfheis in 1917, at which the party is reconstituted as a republican party with de Valera as president, Ginnell and W. T. Cosgrave are elected Honorary Treasurers. He is imprisoned in March 1918 for encouraging land agitation and later deported to Reading Gaol. In the 1918 United Kingdom general election, he is elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Westmeath constituency by comfortably defeating his IPP challenger. After his release from prison, he attends the proceedings of the First Dáil. Along with fellow TDJames O’Mara, he is one of the only TDs to serve as a member in both the House of Commons and Dáil Éireann.
He is one of the few people to have served in the House of Commons and in the Oireachtas. He is appointed Director of Propaganda in the Second Ministry of the Irish Republic. After spending a year as a republican campaigner in Chicago, he is appointed the Representative of the Irish Republic in Argentina and South America by de Valera. He carries out his propaganda work here to distribute copies of the Irish Bulletin and to provide the Sinn Féin version of the conflict during the Irish War of Independence. On August 16, 1921, he returns home to attend the first meeting of the Second Dáil. He travels back to Argentina some months later to serve as the Representative of the Republic there.
On September 9, 1922, Ginnell is the only anti-Treaty TD to attend the inaugural meeting of the Provisional Parliament or Third Dáil. Before signing the roll, he says, “I want some explanation before I sign. I have been elected in pursuance of a decree by Dáil Éireann, which decree embodies the decree of May 20, 1922. I have heard nothing read in reference to that decree, nothing but an Act of a foreign Parliament. I have been elected as a member of Dáil Éireann. I have not been elected to attend any such Parliament. Will anyone tell me with authority whether it is…”.
Ginnell is at this point interrupted but resumes by saying that he will sign the roll and take his seat in the Assembly if the Assembly is Dáil Éireann. He is informed he is not allowed raise any such question until a Ceann Comhairle has been elected. He continues to ask questions regardless to which he gets no answer including his question: “Will any member of the Six Counties be allowed to sit in this Dáil?” W. T. Cosgrave moves at this point that he be excluded from the House. Ginnell protests, and he is dragged out by force.
De Valera later appoints Ginnell a member of his “Council of State,” a twelve-member body set up to advise him on the deteriorating situation in the civil war. He returns to the United States soon afterward to serve as the Republic‘s envoy in the country. He orders Robert Briscoe and some of his friends to take possession of the Consular Offices in Nassau Street, New York City, then in the hands of the Irish Free State Government, to obtain the list of the subscribers to the bond drive organized to aid the struggle in the War of Independence. At the time, a court case is ongoing to decide on who has the right to the funds: the newly installed Provisional Government or de Valera, as one of the three trustees among the anti-Treatyites.
Ginnell dies in Washington, D.C. on April 17, 1923, at the age of 71, still campaigning against the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
seamus dubhghaill 