seamus dubhghaill

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Birth of Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, Actress & Republican Activist

Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, Irish actress and republican activist, is born Mary Elizabeth Walker in Charlemont Street, Dublin, on May 8, 1883. She starts acting in her teens and appears in the first Irish language play performed in Ireland. She is a founder-member of the Abbey Theatre and is leading lady on its opening night in 1904, when she plays the title role in W. B. Yeats‘s Cathleen ni Houlihan. She later joins the Theatre of Ireland, which she helps to found.

Nic Shiubhlaigh is born into a nationalist and Irish-speaking family. Her father, Matthew, comes from County Carlow and is a printer and publisher who becomes proprietor of the Gaelic Press. Her mother, Mary, is a dressmaker from Dublin. She grows up in 56 High Street in the Dublin Liberties.

Nic Shiubhlaigh joins the Gaelic League about 1898 and comes into contact with Arthur Griffith and William Rooney. She joins the cultural and revolutionary women’s group Inghinidhe na hÉireann in 1900. With the help of drama enthusiasts William and Frank Fay, she starts acting with the drama group of Inghinidhe na hÉireann. In 1901, the drama group takes part in a feis with two plays, Tobar Draoidheachta by Patrick S. Dinneen and Red Hugh by Alice Milligan. George Russell and W.B. Yeats, who are in attendance at the performance, are moved by the dedication of the amateur players. Russell, who had already offered the Fays his mythic play Deirdre, persuades Yeats to offer them his patriotic play, Cathleen ni Houlihan.

In 1902, Nic Shiubhlaigh joins W. G. Fay’s Irish National Dramatic Company, along with others such as Maire Quinn, Brian Callender, Charles Caulfield, James H. Cousins, P. J. Kelly, Dudley Digges and Frederick Ryan. Their first production of the two one-act plays, Cathleen ni Houlihan, with Maud Gonne in the lead role, and Deirdre, is on April 2, 1902. The company, which has no funds to speak of, acquires a couple of bare rooms at 34 Lower Camden Street, which with the help of friends from Irish-revival societies, they turn into a tiny theatre. They rehearse at the Coffee Palace and also use the Molesworth Hall for productions. In March 1903, with other members of her family, she appears in the first production of Yeats’ morality play, The Hour-Glass, in which she plays the part of the Angel.

In 1903, the playwrights and most of the actors and staff from these productions go on to form the Irish National Theatre Society, which has its registered offices in the Camden Street theatre. Nic Shiubhlaigh is a founder member and on the management committee of the society. Yeats is president, while Russell, Maud Gonne and Douglas Hyde are vice-presidents. William Fay is stage manager. The society founds the Abbey Theatre.

Nic Shiubhlaigh acts in the Abbey Theatre from the time of its founding. On its opening night on December 27, 1904, she plays the name part in Cathleen ni Houlihan. Her portrait is painted by John Butler Yeats for the occasion and hangs in the vestibule. She is the principal actress of the company after Máire Quinn’s departure to the United States, and when she leaves, the burden of the chief women’s rôles falls upon Sara Allgood.

In September 1905, the Abbey administrator and financial backer, an English theatre impresario called Annie Horniman, in hopes of improving the artistic quality of the productions at the Abbey, offers to guarantee salaries (a sum of £500 per year) for the actors and for Willie Fay as producer. To her mind, this will allow the actors and Fay to dispense with their day jobs and concentrate wholly upon their acting. The more nationally-minded members of the staff disagree. Nic Shiubhlaigh writes, “It was pointed out that the old Irish National Theatre Society had been founded in 1902 on the understanding that its independence as a national movement was to be secured only through the efforts of its members. It would be contrary to these ideals to accept a subsidy from an independent source.” For them it would mean a choice between a national theatre and an artistic theatre. At a meeting of the society, supported by Yeats, Gregory and Synge, the motion to accept Miss Horniman’s proposition is passed by a majority of shareholdings rather than a majority of votes. Nic Shiubhlaigh along with others resign, but they agree to remain until the end of the year, as part of an upcoming tour of England.

Nic Shiubhlaigh remains with the Abbey until December 1905, when along with Honor Lavelle (also known as Helen Laird), Emma Vernon, Máire Garvey, Frank Walker, Seumas O’Sullivan, Padraic Colum and George Roberts, she leaves. She joins the Theatre of Ireland, which she helps to found. This is formed in June 1906 with aims similar to the Irish National Theatre Society. She returns to the Abbey in 1910.

At the time of the 1916 Easter Rising, Nic Shiubhlaigh is living in Glasthule, a suburb of Dublin. She cycles into the city and, along with other members of Cumann na mBan, makes her way to Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, whose garrison under the command of Thomas MacDonagh guards the city against the troops of Portobello Barracks, and acts as an information and supplies hub for other garrisons around the city. She commands the women of the garrison. They remain there until the surrender, cooking and rendering first aid to the garrison, and bringing despatches through the city.

Nic Shiubhlaigh had retired from professional acting in 1912, and seldom works in professional theatre again. In 1929, she marries former IRA Director of Organisation, Major General Eamon “Bob” Price, and they move to Laytown, County Meath.

Nic Shiubhlaigh’s last stage appearance, alongside her sister Gypsy, is in a production of Gaol Gate at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on November 21, 1948, staged to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Theobald Wolfe Tone.

Nic Shiubhlaigh dies on September 9, 1958, in the Drogheda cottage hospital.

Her book, The Splendid Years, written with the help of her nephew Edward Kenny, recalls the years of the national revival and the Easter Rising.

On July 23, 1966, a plaque bearing Nic Shiubhlaigh’s name is unveiled at the Abbey Theatre by the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass. The others named on the plaque are Ellen Bushell, Sean Connolly, Helena Molony, Arthur Shields, Peadar Kearney and Barney Murphy.

(Pictured: 1904 portrait of Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, as painted by John Butler Yeats)


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The Beginning of the Belfast Blitz

A Luftwaffe bomb kills thirteen people in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on the night of April 7, 1941. Ultimately, the city is devastated by air raids. Seven hundred people are killed and 400 seriously injured in what becomes known as the Belfast Blitz. The Blitz consists of four German air raids on strategic targets in Belfast, in April and May 1941 during World War II.

There had been a number of small bombings, probably by planes that missed their targets over the River Clyde in Glasgow or the cities of North West England. On March 24, 1941, John MacDermott, Minister for Public Security, writes to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, John Andrews, expressing his concerns that Belfast is so poorly protected. “Up to now we have escaped attack. So had Clydeside until recently. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. There [is] ground for thinking that the … enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn.” MacDermott is proved right.

The first deliberate raid takes place on the night of April 7. It targets the docks. Neighbouring residential areas are also hit. Six Heinkel He 111 bombers, from Kampfgruppe 26, flying at 7,000 feet, drop incendiaries, high explosive and parachute mines. By British mainland blitz standards, casualties are light. Thirteen die, including a soldier killed when an anti-aircraft gun at the Balmoral show-grounds misfires. The most significant loss is a 4.5-acre factory floor for manufacturing the fuselages of Short Stirling bombers. The Royal Air Force (RAF) announces that Squadron Leader J.W.C. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. The Luftwaffe crews return to their base in Northern France and report that Belfast’s defences are “inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient.” This raid overall causes relatively little damage, but a lot is revealed about Belfast’s inadequate defences.

On Easter Tuesday, April 15, 1941, spectators watching a football match at Windsor Park notice a lone Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 aircraft circling overhead. That evening over 150 bombers leave their bases in northern France and the Netherlands and head for Belfast. There are Heinkel He 111s, Junkers Ju 88s and Dornier Do 17s. At 10:40 p.m. the air-raid sirens sound. Accounts differ as to when flares are dropped to light up the city. The first attack is against the city’s waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. High explosives are dropped. Initially it is thought that the Germans had mistaken this reservoir for the harbour and shipyards, where many ships, including HMS Ark Royal are being repaired. However, that attack is not an error. Three vessels nearing completion at Harland & Wolff are hit as is its power station. Wave after wave of bombers drop their incendiaries, high explosives and landmines. When incendiaries are dropped, the city burns as water pressure is too low for effective firefighting. There is no opposition. In the mistaken belief that they might damage RAF fighters, the anti-aircraft batteries cease firing. But the RAF does not respond. The bombs continued to fall until 5:00 a.m.

Outside of London, with some 900 dead, this is the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz. A stray bomber attacks Derry, killing fifteeen. Another attacks Bangor, County Down, killing five. By 4:00 a.m. the entire city seems to be in flames. At 4:15 a.m., John MacDermott, the Minister of Public Security, manages to contact Minister of Agriculture Basil Brooke seeking permission to seek help from the Irish government. Brooke notes in his diary, “I gave him authority as it is obviously a question of expediency.” Since 1:45 a.m. all telephones have been cut. Fortunately, the railway telegraphy link between Belfast and Dublin is still operational. The telegram is sent at 4:35 a.m. asking the Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, for assistance.

By 6:00 a.m., within two hours of the request for assistance, 71 firemen with 13 fire tenders from Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, and Dún Laoghaire are on their way to cross the Irish border to assist their Belfast colleagues. In each station volunteers are requested, as it is beyond their normal duties. In every instance, all step forward. They remain in Belfast for three days, until they are sent back by the Northern Ireland government. By then 250 firemen from Clydeside have arrived.

Taoiseach Éamon de Valera formally protests to Berlin. Frank Aiken, the Irish Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures, is in Boston, Massachusetts, at the time. He gives an interview saying, “the people of Belfast are Irish people too.”

There is a second massive air raid on Belfast on Sunday, May 4-5, 1941, three weeks after the Easter Tuesday raid. Around 1:00 a.m., Luftwaffe bombers fly over the city, concentrating their attack on the Harbour Estate and Queen’s Island. Nearby residential areas in east Belfast are also hit when “203 metric tonnes of high explosive bombs, 80 land mines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs” are dropped. Over 150 people die in what becomes known as the “Fire Blitz.” Casualties are lower than at Easter, partly because the sirens sound at 11:45 p.m. while the Luftwaffe attack more cautiously from a greater height. St. George’s Church in High Street is damaged by fire. Again, the Irish emergency services cross the border, this time without waiting for an invitation.

(Pictured: Rescue workers search through the rubble of Eglington Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland, after a German Luftwaffe air raid, May 7, 1941)


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Birth of Political Economist John Elliott Cairnes

John Elliott Cairnes, Irish-born political economist, is born on December 26, 1823, at Castlebellingham, County Louth. He has been described as the “last of the classical economists.”

Cairnes is the son of William Elliott Cairnes (1787–1863) of Stameen, near Drogheda, and Marianne Woolsey, whose mother is the sister of Sir William Bellingham, 1st Baronet of Castlebellingham. William decides upon a business career, against the wishes of his mother, Catherine Moore of Moore Hall, Killinchy, and becomes a partner in the Woolsey Brewery at Castlebellingham. In 1825, he starts on his own account in Drogheda, making the Drogheda Brewery an unqualified success. He is remembered for his great business capacity and for the deep interest he takes in charity.

After leaving school, Cairnes spends some years in the counting house of his father at Drogheda. His tastes, however, lay altogether in the direction of study, and he is permitted to enter Trinity College Dublin, where he takes the degree of BA in 1848, and six years later that of MA. After passing through the curriculum of Arts, he engages in the study of Law, and is called to the Irish bar. But he lacks a desire to pursue the legal profession, and over some ensuing years, he devotes himself to writing in various publications about social and economic questions and treatises that relate to Ireland. He focuses mostly on political economy, which he studies thoroughly.

While residing in Dublin, Cairnes makes the acquaintance of the Archbishop of Dublin Richard Whately, who conceives a very high respect for Cairnes’ character and abilities. In 1856, a vacancy occurs in the chair of political economy at Dublin, founded by Whately, and Cairnes receives the appointment. In accordance with the regulations of the foundation, the lectures of his first year’s course are published. The book appears in 1857 with the title Character and Logical Method of Political Economy. It follows up on and expands John Stuart Mill‘s treatment in the Essays on some Unsettled Questions in Political Economy, and forms an admirable introduction to the study of economics as a science. In it the author’s peculiar powers of thought and expression are displayed to the best advantage. Logical exactness, precision of language, and firm grasp of the true nature of economic facts, are the qualities characteristic of this as of all his other works. If the book had done nothing more, it would still have conferred inestimable benefit on political economists by its clear exposition of the true nature and meaning of the ambiguous term law. To the view of the province and method of political economy expounded in this early work the author always remains true, and several of his later essays, such as those on Political Economy and Land, Political Economy and Laissez-Faire, are but reiterations of the same doctrine. His next contribution to economical science is a series of articles on the gold question, published partly in Fraser’s Magazine, in which the probable consequences of the increased supply of gold attendant on the Australian and Californian gold discoveries are analysed with great skill and ability. And a critical article on Michel Chevalier‘s work, On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold, appears in the Edinburgh Review for July 1860.

In 1861, Cairnes is appointed to the professorship of jurisprudence and political economy in Queens College Galway, and in the following year he publishes his admirable work The Slave Power, one of the finest specimens of applied economical philosophy. The inherent disadvantages of the employment of slave labour are exposed with great fullness and ability, and the conclusions arrived at have taken their place among the recognised doctrines of political economy. The opinions expressed by Cairnes as to the probable issue of American Civil War are largely verified by the actual course of events, and the appearance of the book has a marked influence on the attitude taken by serious political thinkers in England towards the Confederate States of America.

During the remainder of his residence at Galway, Cairnes publishes nothing beyond some fragments and pamphlets, mainly upon Irish questions. The most valuable of these papers are the series devoted to the consideration of university education. His health, at no time very good, is still further weakened in 1865 by a fall from his horse. He is ever afterwards incapacitated from active exertion and is constantly liable to have his work interfered with by attacks of illness.

In 1866 Cairnes is appointed professor of political economy in University College, London. He is compelled to spend the session 1868–1869 in Italy, but on his return continues to lecture until 1872. During his last session he conducts a mixed class, ladies being admitted to his lectures. His health soon renders it impossible for him to discharge his public duties. He resigns his post in 1872, and retires with the honorary title of professor emeritus of political economy. In 1873 his own university confers on him the degree of LL.D.

Cairnes dies at the age of 51 at Blackheath, London, England, on July 8, 1875.


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Birth of Feargal Quinn, Businessman, Politician & TV Personality

Feargal Quinn, Irish businessman, politician and television personality, is born in Dublin on November 27, 1936. He is the founder of the Superquinn supermarket chain and serves as a Senator in Seanad Éireann representing the National University of Ireland constituency from 1993 to 2016.

Quinn’s father, Eamonn, founds a grocery brand and later the Red Island resort in Skerries, Dublin. He is a first cousin of Labour Party politician Ruairi Quinn and of Lochlann Quinn, former chairman of Allied Irish Banks (AIB). He is educated at Newbridge College and is a commerce graduate of University College Dublin (UCD). He builds a career in business and later takes on a range of public service roles.

Quinn founds the national supermarket chain Superquinn (originally Quinn’s Supermarkets), of which he remains non-executive president for some years after his family sells out their interest in August 2005 for over €400 million. Superquinn is known for its focus on customer service and pioneers a number of innovations, including Ireland’s first supermarket loyalty card in 1993, SuperClub. It also introduces self-scanning of goods by customers in a number of its outlets. Superquinn becomes the first supermarket in the world to guarantee the absolute traceability of all its beef from pasture to plate, using DNA TraceBack, a system developed at Trinity College, Dublin by IdentiGEN.

Quinn becomes the chairman of the Interim Board for Posts and serves as chairman of its successor An Post (the Irish postal administration) until 1989. He also serves on several other public authorities and boards. From 1993 to 1998, he chairs the steering committee which oversees the development of the Leaving Certificate Applied. In 2006, he is appointed an Adjunct Professor in Marketing at National University of Ireland Galway. He is also chairman of Springboard Ireland.

Quinn is a former President of EuroCommerce, the Brussels-based organisation which represents the retail, wholesale and international trade sectors in Europe. He also serves on the board of directors of CIES, the Food Business Forum based in Paris, as well as the American-based Food Marketing Institute.

In 2009, Quinn works with independent shops and helps them to revamp, modernise and stave off stiff competition from multi-national retailers. It airs as RTÉ‘s six-part television series, Feargal Quinn’s Retail Therapy. A second series airs in 2011, and a third series airs in 2012. In 2011, he fronts RTÉ’s Local Heroes campaign in Drogheda, County Louth, which is an assembled team of experts to kick-start the local economy. It airs as RTÉ One‘s six-part television series, Local Heroes – A Town Fights Back.

Quinn is first elected as a senator in 1993 from the National University of Ireland constituency and is re-elected in 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2011. He is a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs, the Joint Committee on Finance and Public Service and is an Oireachtas member of the National Economic and Social Forum, along with the Joint Committee on Jobs and Innovation.

Quinn is one of the co-founders and is a driving force behind Democracy Matters – a civil society group that is formed to oppose the Government’s plans to abolish Seanad Éireann. In May 2013, with Senators Katherine Zappone and Mary Ann O’Brien, he introduces the Seanad Bill 2013 to reform the system of electing the elected members of Seanad Éireann (as provided for in Article 18.10 of the Constitution of Ireland) through a one-person, one vote franchise. The Seanad Bill 2013 succeeds in being passed at Second Stage in the Seanad. During the Seanad abolition referendum campaign, the Bill demonstrates to the electorate, in a very palpable way, that reform of the Seanad is achievable if they vote for its retention. In a referendum held in October 2013 on the Abolition of Seanad Éireann, the people vote to retain the Seanad by 51.7%.

In 2014, Quinn reveals that since being first elected to Seanad Éireann, he has donated his entire salary to charity and in more recent years he has refused to accept any salary. In March 2015, he opposes the Marriage Equality bill in the Seanad, and votes ‘No’ in the referendum. He serves as Chairman of the Independent Alliance. He does not contest the 2016 Seanad election.

Quinn is the recipient of five honorary doctorates from education institutions, including NUI Galway in 2006, a papal knighthood along with a fellowship and the French Ordre National du Mérite. He shares with Oprah Winfrey the 2006 “Listener of the Year” award of the International Listening Association.

Quinn dies peacefully at his home in Howth, County Dublin, on April 24, 2019, following a short illness. His funeral Mass takes place at St. Fintan’s Church in Sutton, north County Dublin. In attendance is President Michael D. Higgins, a representative for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, Senator Michael McDowell, and a host of other current and former politicians, business figures, and past colleagues of the “Superquinn family.” Fittingly, the coffin is carried from the church to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”


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Execution of Oliver Plunkett, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh

Oliver Plunkett (Irish: Oilibhéar Pluincéid), Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland who is the last victim of the Popish Plot, is executed in Tyburn, London, England, on July 1, 1681. He is beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1975, thus becoming the first new Irish saint in almost seven hundred years.

Plunkett is born on November 1, 1625 (earlier biographers give his date of birth as November 1, 1629, but 1625 has been the consensus since the 1930s) in Loughcrew, County Meath, to well-to-do parents with Hiberno-Norman ancestors. A grandson of James Plunket, 8th Baron Killeen (c. 1542-1595), he is related by birth to a number of landed families, such as the recently ennobled Earls of Roscommon, as well as the long-established Earls of Fingall, Lords Louth, and Lords Dunsany. Until his sixteenth year, his education is entrusted to his cousin Patrick Plunkett, Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, and brother of Luke Plunket, 1st Earl of Fingall, who later becomes successively Bishop of Ardagh and of Meath.

As an aspirant to the priesthood, Plunkett sets out for Rome in 1647, under the care of Father Pierfrancesco Scarampi of the Roman Oratory. At this time the Irish Confederate Wars are raging in Ireland. These are essentially conflicts between native Irish Catholics, English and Irish Anglicans and Nonconformists. Scarampi is the Papal envoy to the Catholic movement known as the Confederation of Ireland. Many of Plunkett’s relatives are involved in this organisation.

Plunkett is admitted to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome and proves to be an able pupil. He is ordained a priest in 1654, and deputed by the Irish bishops to act as their representative in Rome. Meanwhile, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–53) had defeated the Catholic cause in Ireland. In the aftermath the public practice of Catholicism is banned and Catholic clergy are executed. As a result, it is impossible for Plunkett to return to Ireland for many years. He petitions to remain in Rome and, in 1657, becomes a professor of theology. Throughout the period of the Commonwealth and the first years of Charles II‘s reign, he successfully pleads the cause of the Irish Catholic Church, and also serves as theological professor at the College of Propaganda Fide. At the Congregation of Propaganda Fide on July 9, 1669 he is appointed Archbishop of Armagh, the Irish primatial see, and is consecrated on November 30 at Ghent by the Bishop of Ghent, Eugeen-Albert, count d’Allamont. He eventually sets foot on Irish soil again on March 7, 1670, as the Stuart Restoration of 1660 had begun on a basis of toleration. The pallium is granted him in the Consistory of July 28, 1670.

After arriving back in Ireland, Plunkett tackles drunkenness among the clergy, writing, “Let us remove this defect from an Irish priest, and he will be a saint.” The Penal Laws had been relaxed in line with the Declaration of Breda in 1660 and he is able to establish a Jesuit College in Drogheda in 1670. A year later 150 students attend the college, no fewer than 40 of whom are Protestant, making this college the first integrated school in Ireland. His ministry is a successful one and he is said to have confirmed 48,000 Catholics over a four-year period. The government in Dublin, especially under the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde (the Protestant son of Catholic parents), extend a generous measure of toleration to the Catholic hierarchy until the mid-1670s.

On the enactment of the Test Act in 1673, to which Plunkett does not agree for doctrinal reasons, the college is closed and demolished. He goes into hiding, travelling only in disguise, and refuses a government edict to register at a seaport to await passage into exile. For the next few years he is largely left in peace since the Dublin government, except when put under pressure from the English government in London, prefer to leave the Catholic bishops alone.

In 1678 the so-called Popish Plot, concocted in England by clergyman Titus Oates, leads to further anti-Catholic action. Archbishop of Dublin Peter Talbot is arrested, and Plunkett again goes into hiding. Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, he refuses to leave his flock. He is arrested in Dublin on December 6, 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, where he gives absolution to the dying Talbot. He is tried at Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. Though this is unproven, some in government circles are worried about the possibility that a repetition of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 is being planned and, in any case, this is a convenient excuse for proceeding against Plunkett.

Plunkett is found guilty of high treason in June 1681 “for promoting the Roman faith,” and is condemned to death. Numerous pleas for mercy are made but Charles II, although himself a reputed crypto-Catholic, thinks it too politically dangerous to spare Plunkett.

Plunkett is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on July 1, 1681, the last Catholic martyr to die in England. His body is initially buried in two tin boxes, next to five Jesuits who had died previously, in the courtyard of St. Giles in the Fields church. The remains are exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at Lamspringe, near Hildesheim in Germany. The head is brought to Rome, and from there to Armagh, and eventually to Drogheda where since June 29, 1921 it has rested in St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. Most of the body is brought to Downside Abbey, England, where the major part is located today, with some parts remaining at Lamspringe. On the occasion of his canonization in 1975 his casket is opened and some parts of his body given to the St. Peter’s Church in Drogheda.


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The Arrest of Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh

Oliver Plunkett,  Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, is accused of instigating the Popish Plot and arrested on December 6, 1679. He is the last victim of the Popish Plot.

Plunkett is born on November 1, 1625 in Loughcrew, County Meath, to parents of Hiberno-Norman ancestors. Until his sixteenth year, his education is entrusted to his cousin Patrick Plunkett, Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, and brother of Luke Plunkett, 1st Earl of Fingall, who later becomes successively Bishop of Ardagh and of Meath. As an aspirant to the priesthood, he sets out for Rome in 1647.

Plunkett is admitted to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome and proves to be an able pupil. He is ordained a priest in 1654, and deputed by the Irish bishops to act as their representative in Rome. Meanwhile, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) has defeated the Roman Catholic cause in Ireland. As a result, it is impossible for Plunkett to return to Ireland for many years so he petitions to remain in Rome. At the Congregation of Propaganda Fide on July 9, 1669, he is appointed Archbishop of Armagh and is consecrated on November 30 at Ghent. He returns to Ireland on March 7, 1670, as the English Restoration of 1660 has begun on a basis of toleration.

Plunkett sets about reorganising the ravaged Roman Church and builds schools both for the young and for clergy. The Penal Laws have been relaxed in line with the Declaration of Breda in 1660 and he is able to establish a Jesuit College in Drogheda in 1670, which becomes the first Catholic-Protestant integrated school in Ireland.

On the enactment of the Test Act in 1673, to which Plunkett does not agree for doctrinal reasons, the college is closed and demolished. Plunkett goes into hiding, traveling only in disguise, and refuses a government edict to register at a seaport to await passage into exile.

In 1678 the so-called Popish Plot, concocted in England by clergyman Titus Oates, leads to further anti-Roman Catholic action. Archbishop Peter Talbot of Dublin is arrested, and Plunkett again goes into hiding. Despite being on the run and with a price on his head, he refuses to leave his flock.

Plunkett is arrested in Dublin on December 6, 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin Castle. He is tried at Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country, and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. The trial soon collapses as the prosecution witnesses are themselves wanted men and afraid to appear in court. Plunkett is moved to Newgate Prison in London in order to face trial at Westminster Hall. The first grand jury finds no true bill, but he is not released. The second trial is generally regarded as a serious miscarriage of justice as Plunkett is denied defending counsel.

Archbishop Plunkett is found guilty of high treason in June 1681 “for promoting the Roman faith,” and is condemned to death. Plunkett is hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on July 1, 1681, the last Roman Catholic martyr to die in England. His body is initially buried in two tin boxes in the courtyard of St. Giles in the Fields church. The remains are exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at Lamspringe, near Hildesheim in Germany. His head is brought to Rome, and from there to Armagh, and eventually to Drogheda where it has rested in St. Peter’s Church since June 29, 1921. Most of the body is brought to Downside Abbey, England, where the major part is located today, with some parts remaining at Lamspringe.

Sir Oliver Plunkett is canonised in Rome by Pope Paul VI on October 12, 1975, the first new Irish saint in almost seven hundred years, and the first of the Irish martyrs to be beatified. For the canonisation, the customary second miracle is waived.


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The Battle of Julianstown

The Battle of Julianstown is fought on November 29, 1641 at Julianstown, County Meath during the Irish Rebellion of 1641 where an English Royalist relief force is soundly defeated by Irish rebels.

After the Irish Rebellion starts, the rebels first attempt to move into Ulster and capture Belfast. When they meet stiff Protestant resistance in Ulster, the rebels turn their focus southward with the goal of taking Dublin. En route to attack Dublin, the rebels come upon the town of Drogheda and begin the siege of the garrison. Approximately one week after the rebels have encircled Drogheda, the English authorities in Dublin put together a relief force and send them to reinforce the Royalist strongpoint. En route to Drogheda, the English force is ambushed and routed by the rebels in Julianstown.

The English relief force is hastily put together and largely untrained. Many of the soldiers in the relief force are emaciated and sick refugees from the northern counties who are pressed into service. The detachment is commanded by Sir Patrick Wemyss and is composed of 600 foot and 50 horse. The rebel forces are led by Philip O’Reilly and Miles O’Reilly, both Irish leaders from County Cavan. Their force of 3,000 men including 300 horse has experienced commanders and appears to have been assigned to the south of Drogheda to complete the encirclement of the garrison.

On the morning of the battle, the rebels become aware of the approach of the Royalists and prepare an ambush. As the rebels spring their trap, the English commander does not immediately order his men to attack and fire upon the enemy. By mistake Wemyss orders his men to “countermarch” which causes them to move backwards as if they are retreating. The rebels take full advantage of the situation and immediately charge the Royalists. The rebel attack causes panic and confusion among the English and prevents them from coordinating an effective counter-attack. Many of the Royalists throw down their weapons and attempt to escape. The Royalist horse flee the field. In the end, the rebels kill almost all of the Royalist foot soldiers.

The victory has several short term benefits for the rebels. From the manner in which they rout the Royalists, the rebel forces gain respect as a military force. It boosts rebel morale and helps to spread the revolt throughout Ireland. For the commander of the Royal Irish Army, James Butler, Earl of Ormond, the battle shows the determination of the rebels and the degree of support for their cause. Ultimately, the Battle of Julianstown as a small part of the Irish Rebellion indirectly leads to the English Civil War and Confederate Ireland.


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Edward Poynings Appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland

Edward Poynings, best known for his introduction of “Poynings‘ Law,” which prevents the Irish Parliament from meeting without royal permission and approval of its agenda, is appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland under King Henry VII of England on September 13, 1494.

Poynings is the only son of Sir Robert Poynings, second son of the 5th Baron Poynings, and Elizabeth Paston, the only daughter of William Paston. He is likely born at his father’s house in Southwark in 1459. His father is a carver and sword-bearer to Jack Cade, and is killed at the Second Battle of St. Albans on February 17, 1461. He is raised by his mother.

Robert Poynings is implicated in Jack Cade’s rebellion, and Edward is himself concerned in a Kentish rising against Richard III, which compels him to escape to Continental Europe. He attaches himself to Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII, with whom he returns to England in 1485.

Poynings is employed in the wars on the continent, and in 1493 he is made governor of Calais. In the following year he goes to Ireland as Lord Deputy under the viceroyalty of Prince Henry, afterwards King Henry VIII. He immediately sets about anglicizing the government of Ireland, which he thoroughly accomplishes, after inflicting punishment on the powerful Irish clans who support the imposture of Perkin Warbeck.

Poynings then summons the celebrated parliament of Drogheda, which meets in December 1494 and enacts the “Statutes of Drogheda,” famous in Irish history as “Poynings’s law,” which make the Irish legislature subordinate to, and completely dependent on, that of England, until its repeal in 1782.

After defeating Perkin Warbeck at Waterford and driving him out of Ireland, he returns to England in 1496, and is appointed warden of the Cinque Ports. He is employed both in military commands and in diplomatic missions abroad by Henry VII, and later by Henry VIII, his most important achievement being the successful negotiation of the “holy league” between England, Spain, the emperor, and the pope, in 1513. In 1520 Poynings is present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in the arrangement of which he has taken an active part. He is also present at Henry’s meeting with Emperor Charles V at Gravelines on July 10.

Poynings dies at Westenhanger in October 1521. By his wife, Elizabeth Scot, he leaves no surviving issue, and his estates pass through a collateral female line to the Earl of Northumberland. He has several illegitimate children, one of whom, Thomas Poynings, is created Baron Poynings in 1545, but dies in the same year without heirs.


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The Siege of Drogheda Ends

The Siege of Drogheda ends on September 11, 1649 during the outset of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The siege began on September 3, 1649.

The Royalist rebellion that breaks out in Ireland against the new English republic in 1649 is met by a prompt English response. On August 15 Oliver Cromwell and 15,000 troops land in Dublin. His merciless policy toward the Irish Royalists becomes brutally clear within a month.

The defeat of the Irish Royalists in the Battle of Rathmines in early August is fortuitous for Cromwell, for without it, the English would have held only the small port of Derry (known as Londonderry from 1662) in the north, making his invasion almost impossible to effect. Cromwell quickly finds that the Irish Royalists have retreated into fortified towns. He therefore prepares for a series of sieges.

The first such siege occurs at Drogheda, 28 miles north of Dublin. Cromwell arrives at Drogheda on September 3. His siege guns, brought up by sea, arrive two days later. He finds the town surrounded by high but relatively thin walls and its governor, Sir Arthur Ashton, is confident of his defenses and refuses an order to surrender. On September 10 Cromwell begins an artillery bombardment of the walls. These are breached the following day, but the gap created is too small to allow troops to enter the city. Twice they are repelled until Cromwell himself leads an assault and overwhelms the defenders on September 11.

The carnage inside the city is appalling. Cromwell’s troops kill priests and monks on sight and set fire to a Catholic church sheltering some soldiers. Civilians as well as soldiers are massacred, and Ashton is bludgeoned to death with his own wooden leg. The few Royalist soldiers who survive are transported to Barbados. What happens at Drogheda is replicated at Wexford the following month and Clonmel the next May. By the time Cromwell has put down the rebellion and returned to England in that same month, he has become forever hated by Irish Catholics.

During the eight day siege the British lose 150 of their 12,000 men while 2,800 Irish are killed and 200 captured of the 3,100 at Drogheda.

(Pictured: St Laurence’s Gate – the last remaining of the ten original defensive gates at Drogheda)


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Birth of George Barrington, Pickpocket, Socialite & Pioneer

George Barrington, Irish-born pickpocket, popular London socialite, Australian pioneer, and author, is born in Maynooth, County Kildare on May 14, 1755. His father is either a working silversmith named Waldron, or a Captain Barrington, English troop commander.

Barrington’s escapades, arrests, and trials are widely chronicled in the London press of his day. For over a century following his death, and still perhaps today, he is most celebrated for the line “We left our country for our country’s good.” The attribution of the line to Barrington is considered apocryphal since the 1911 discovery by Sydney book collector Alfred Lee of the 1802 book in which the line first appears.

In 1771 Barrington robs his schoolmaster in Dublin and runs away from school, becoming a member of a touring theatrical company at Drogheda under the assumed name of Barrington. At the Limerick races he joins the manager of the company in picking pockets. The manager is detected and sentenced to penal transportation, and Barrington flees to London, where he assumes clerical dress and continues his pickpocketing. At Covent Garden theatre he robs the Russian Count Orlov of a snuff box, said to be worth £30,000. He is detected and arrested but, as Count Orlov declines to prosecute, is discharged, though subsequently he is sentenced to three years’ hard labour for pocket-picking at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

On his release, Barrington is again caught at his old practices and sentenced to five years’ hard labour, but influence secures his release on the condition that he leave England. He accordingly goes for a short time to Dublin and then returns to London, where he is once more detected pocket-picking, and, in 1790, sentenced to seven years’ penal transportation.

One account states that on the voyage out to Botany Bay a conspiracy is hatched by the convicts on board to seize the ship. Barrington discloses the plot to the captain, and the latter, on reaching New South Wales, reports him favourably to the authorities, with the result that Barrington obtains a warrant of emancipation in 1792, becoming subsequently superintendent of convicts and later high constable of Parramatta.

While enjoying the beginnings of his prosperity in Australia, Barrington romances and cohabits with a native woman, Yeariana, who soon leaves him to return to her family. He says that Yeariana possessed “a form that might serve as a perfect model for the most scrupulous statuary.”

Barrington dies on December 27, 1804 at the age of 49 in Parramatta, New South Wales.

At some point in the 1785–1787 period Barrington marries and the couple has a child, but the names of the wife and child, and their eventual fates, are not known.