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Tag Archives: Dublin


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Publication of the First Issue of the “Northern Star”

northern-star

The first issue of the Northern Star, the newspaper of the Society of United Irishmen, is published in Belfast on January 4, 1792. It is published from 1792 until its suppression by the British army in May 1797.

The publication of an Irish newspaper that reflects and disseminates liberal views is an early goal of Irish republicans in the late 18th century. By the founding of the Society of United Irishmen in October 1791, the project is well underway, and the first edition of the Northern Star appears in Belfast in January 1792. Like the United Irishmen, the first financial backers of the Northern Star are Presbyterian and one of the United Irish leadership, Samuel Neilson, is made editor.

Political content dominates the Northern Star but its publication of local news, as opposed to the focus on British and international affairs of other Irish newspapers of the time, brings it wide popularity. Leading members of the United Irishmen are regular contributors and mixed direct political analyses with cutting political satire. William Orr is among those who contributed to its content and his letters lead to his eventual arrest and execution under the Insurrection Act of 1797. The newspaper also enjoys an excellent voluntary distribution network as its penetration follows rapidly wherever the United Irishmen set up new branches. It was estimated that for each copy of the Northern Star sold there are at least five readers, as the reading aloud of articles from the paper is a regular feature of United Irish meetings.

The newspaper is initially protected from the authorities due to the support of well-connected liberals but following the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Revolutionary France in 1793 and the subsequent banning of the United Irishmen as a seditious body it begins to draw increasing attention. The massive popularity of the newspaper protects it from serious harassment until January 1797 when the establishment goes into a state of panic following the French invasion scare at Bantry Bay. The paper is alleged to be behind the Dublin-based Union Star, a militant, low-circulation newssheet, often posted in public places, which specializes in naming informers, “notorious Orangemen,” and other enemies of the United Irishmen, being regarded by Dublin Castle as a republican hitlist.

The extensive distribution network and potency of the Northern Star in spreading United Irish opinion alarms the authorities and possession of a copy comes to be regarded as an admission of seditious intent. The end finally comes with the uncovering of supposed United Irish infiltration of the Monaghan militia in Belfast, which results in the execution of four soldiers. General Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake, already engaged in a brutal counter-insurgency campaign, is quick to put much of the blame on the Northern Star and requests permission to suppress the paper.

As it turns out, official suppression is not necessary as on May 19, 1797, three days after the execution of their ex-comrades, a mob of Monaghan militiamen anxious to prove their loyalty attack the offices of the Northern Star and destroy not only the printing presses but the building itself. The attack results in the demise of the Northern Star to the undoubted satisfaction of the authorities as no action is taken against those involved in the destruction. The Chartist movement later pays tribute to the Northern Star by using the same name for their newspaper that is founded in 1837 by Feargus O’Connor.


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Death of Novelist & Translator Patrick O’Brian

Patrick O'Brian

Patrick O’Brian, English novelist and translator, dies in Dublin on January 2, 2000.

O’Brian is born Richard Patrick Russ, in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, to Charles Russ, an English physician of German descent, and Jessie Russ (née Goddard), an English woman of Irish descent. His literary career begins in his childhood with the publishing of his earliest works, including several short stories, the book Hussein, An Entertainment, and the short story collection Beasts Royal. The latter two bring him considerable critical praise especially considering his youth. He publishes his first novel, Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda Leopard, at the age of 15 with help from his father.

O’Brian is best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and centered on the friendship of the English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. The 20-novel series, the first of which is Master and Commander, is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and evocative language. A partially finished 21st novel in the series is published posthumously containing facing pages of handwriting and typescript.

O’Brian write a number of other novels and short stories, most of which were published before he achieves success with the Aubrey–Maturin series. He also translates works from French to English, and writes two biographies.

O’Brian’s major success as a writer comes late in life, when the Aubrey-Maturin series catches the eye of an American publisher. The series draws more readers and favourable reviews when the author is in his seventies. Near the end of his life, and in the same year he loses his beloved wife, British media reveals details of O’Brian’s early life, first marriage, and post-war change of name, causing distress to the very private author and to many of his readers at that time.

Between 1946 and 1949 O’Brian and his wife Mary live in Cwm Croesor, a remote valley in north Wales, where they initially rent a cottage from Clough Williams-Ellis. In 1949 they move to Collioure, a Catalan town in southern France. He and Mary remain together in Collioure until her death in 1998.

O’Brian dies on January 2, 2000 at Trinity College, Dublin where he had been living and working on his next book. His body is returned to Collioure, where he is buried next to his wife.


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Death of Actor Peter Caffrey

peter-caffrey

Peter Caffrey, Irish actor best known for playing Padraig O’Kelly on Series 1-4 of Ballykissangel, dies in Shrewsbury, England, on January 1, 2008.

Caffrey is also well regarded for his role as a transvestite in the film Night Train, and for his role as an unlikely protagonist in I Went Down. He is also known for playing the role of the judge in the Irish comedy Father Ted on the episode A Song For Europe and for voicing a popular Christmas radio advertisement for Barry’s Tea in 1994.

Caffrey is born in Dublin on April 18, 1949. He studies at a seminary for two years before switching to an English degree. He works for a year as a primary school teacher, before becoming involved with Dublin’s Project Theatre. He appears in nearly thirty television and film roles, and also has a solid theatre career in both Dublin and London. After moving to London in 1983 he becomes a familiar face on UK television, with minor roles in Casualty, The Bill and Peak Practice. His success in Ballykissangel comes after overcoming oral cancer for which he is diagnosed in 1990, and, despite suffering a stroke in 2000 which leaves him paralysed on the right side, he manages to play a similarly afflicted character in the unreleased film Sweet Dancer in 2005.

Caffrey never fully recovers from the stroke and dies at the age of 58 on January 1, 2008, in Shrewsbury. His body is returned to Ireland for cremation in Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium, Dublin, on January 8, 2008. Caffrey is survived by three sisters, Linda, Carol, and Sheila. His brother David pre-deceases him in July 2007.

Caffrey marries Brenda Banks in 1980 but the marriage ends in divorce in 1990.


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Birth of Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford

Francis Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford

Edward Arthur Henry Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford and an Irish peer, politician, and littérateur, is born on December 29, 1902. Also known as Eamon de Longphort, he is a member of the fifth Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas, in the 1940s.

Pakenham is the elder son of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford and Mary, Countess of Longford, née Child-Villiers. He is the only one of the Pakenham children on whom his mother dotes, apparently because he is to succeed to the earldom on his father’s death and because he is always in delicate health.

As a pupil at Eton College, where he twice received the Wilder Divinity Prize, Pakenham succeeds to the earldom when his father is killed in action at the Battle of Gallipoli on August 21, 1915. He is an Irish Nationalist since his days at Eton, taking inspiration from the Easter Rising in 1916 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. He learned Irish and adopted the name Eamon de Longphort.

Pakenham becomes an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford and meets his future wife, Christine Patti Trew, an Oxford “undergraduette.” They are married on July 18, 1925. His political views make him unpopular at both Eton and Christ Church, where he is famously put in “Mercury,” the pond containing a statue of Mercury in Tom Quad.

Pakenham becomes Chairman of the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1930 and continues to work for the theatre until 1936, when he founds the Longford Players. His plays include Ascendancy, The Melians, The Vineyard, and Yahoo. An excellent linguist and Classical scholar, he translates Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, Le Malade Imaginaire, L’école des femmes, Tartuffe, Le Barbier de Séville, Agamemnon and Oedipus Rex and adapts the novella Carmilla for the stage.

Pakenham also has several volumes of poetry published, some at the expense of his mother when he is still at Eton, but he is not considered to have been a very good poet.

Pakenham is an Anglo-Catholic who never leaves the Church of Ireland. On November 13, 1946, he is nominated by the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, as a member of 5th Seanad Éireann, filling a vacancy caused by the death of Professor William Magennis. He is not re-appointed to the 6th Seanad.

Pakenham often collaborates with his wife with whom he is also responsible for redecorating Pakenham Hall, now Tullynally Castle, in Chinese style. Pakenham Hall is often the scene of gatherings of Oxford-educated intellectuals such as John Betjeman, Evelyn Waugh, and Maurice Bowra.

Edward Pakenham dies without issue on February 4, 1961, and is succeeded by his younger brother Frank. He is buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.


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Constance Markievicz Elected to British House of Commons

constance-markievicz

Constance Markievicz, while detained in Holloway Prison for her part in conscription activities, becomes the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on December 28, 1918.

Markievicz, an Irish nationalist, who is elected for the Dublin St. Patrick’s constituency, refuses to take her seat in the House of Commons along with 72 other Sinn Féin MPs. Instead, her party, which wins the majority of Irish seats in Westminster, establishes the Dáil, a breakaway Dublin assembly, and triggers the Irish War of Independence.

Markievicz, who inherits the title of “countess” from her noble Polish husband, and 45 other MPs are in jail when the first meeting takes place on January 21, 1919. They are described in Gaelic as being “imprisoned by the foreign enemy” when their names are read out during roll call at the Mansion House.

The 27 MPs who attend the Dáil’s first session ratify the Proclamation of the Irish Republic of Easter 1916, which had not been adopted by an elected body but merely by the Easter rebels claiming to act in the name of the Irish people. They also claim there is an “existing state of war, between Ireland and England” in a Message to the Free Nations of the World.

When Markievicz is released in April 1919, she becomes Minister for Labour. Having also been part of the suffragette movement, her deep political convictions contrast deeply with Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. She believes Astor, a Tory who is elected in a 1919 Plymouth by-election after her husband is forced to give up the seat when he becomes a peer, is “out of touch.”

Her political views are also influenced by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, who is a regular visitor to the family home, Lissadell House in County Sligo. She becomes involved in the women’s suffrage movement after studying art in London, where she meets and marries Count Casimir Markievicz. In 1903, the couple, who has one son, settles in Dublin, where she becomes involved in nationalist politics. She joins both Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann.

Like Astor, Markievicz has an irrepressible personality and is in no mood to play coy and simply blend in. She comes to her first Sinn Féin meeting wearing a satin ball-gown and a diamond tiara after attending a function at Dublin Castle, the seat of British rule in Ireland.

Markievicz spends a year in the Dáil before walking out along with Éamon de Valera, the future dominant figure in Irish politics, after opposing the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The document, which grants southern Ireland independence but keeps the north as part of the UK, splits Sinn Féin and triggers the Irish War of Independence.

Following the conflict, which the Pro-Treaty forces win, Markievicz is elected again to the Dáil, but does not take her seat in protest. In 1927, she is elected for a third time as part of de Valera’s new party Fianna Fáil, which pledges to return to the Irish parliament. But before she can take her seat, she dies at age 59 on July 15, 1927, of complications related to appendicitis.


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Joshua Dawson Sells the Mansion House

mansion-house-dublin

On December 25, 1715, Joshua Dawson, Irish public servant, land developer and politician, sells the Mansion House with its gardens and park to Dublin Corporation for £3,500 plus 40 shillings per annum and a “loaf of double refined sugar of six pounds weight” which is to be paid to the Dawsons every Christmas.

Dawson is born in 1660 at the family seat, which becomes Castledawson, County Londonderry, the son of Thomas Dawson, Commissary of the Musters of the Army in Ireland. He resides in County Londonderry and Dublin. His ancestral family had owned land and lived in the area where, in 1710, he founds Dawson’s Bridge, named after the bridge over the River Moyola, which becomes present-day Castledawson. In his estate he builds Moyola House in 1713.

Dawson is appointed clerk to the Chief Secretary of Ireland, Matthew Prior, in 1697. In that role he petitions for the establishment of a Paper & Patent Office. He becomes the Collector of Dublin in 1703, and holds the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland to the Lords Justices from 1710 under Queen Anne. He is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the Irish House of Commons for Wicklow Borough from 1705 to 1714.

Dawson develops an area of Dublin in 1705-1710 which includes the setting out and construction of the streets of Dawson Street, Anne Street, Grafton Street and Harry Street. These streets are named after, respectively, himself, Queen Anne (widow of William III), and Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, the son of Charles II and cousin of Queen Anne. This development includes the construction of the Mansion House in Dawson Street in 1710 which is purchased in 1715 to be the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, which it has remained for 300 years.

(Pictured: Mansion House, official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin)


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Alan Brodrick Appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench

alan-brodrick

Alan Brodrick, 1st Viscount Midleton, a leading Anglo-Irish lawyer and politician of the early eighteenth century, is appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench on December 24, 1709. He is a man of great gifts, but so hot-tempered and passionate that even Jonathan Swift is said to have been afraid of him.

Brodrick is the second son of Sir St. John Brodrick of Ballyannan, near Midleton in County Cork, by his wife Alice, daughter of Laurence Clayton of Mallow, County Cork. His father receives large land grants during The Protectorate, and thus the family has much to lose if the land issue in Ireland is settled to the satisfaction of dispossessed Roman Catholics. He is educated at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Middle Temple, being called to the English bar in 1678. He and his relatives flee Ireland during the Glorious Revolution. They are attainted under the rule of King James II in Ireland. In exile in England, Brodrick argues for a speedy reconquest.

In 1690 Brodrick returns to Dublin and is given the legal office of Third Serjeant. He also becomes Recorder of Cork. He is dismissed as Serjeant in 1692, apparently on the ground that there is no work for him to do. While complaining bitterly about his dismissal, he admits privately that his post has been a superfluous one.

As a prominent Whig supporter of the outcome of the Glorious Revolution he is not always in agreement with court policies in Ireland, which he considers too lenient on the Jacobites. The dismissal of the First Serjeant, John Osborne, at the same time as Brodrick is due to his even stronger opposition to Court policy. Despite this he often holds Irish government offices and aspires to manage the Irish Parliament for English ministers. He represents Cork City in the Irish Parliament, which meets in 1692 and holds this seat until 1710. He is a vocal opponent of court policies, until the new Whig Lord Deputy of Ireland, Lord Henry Capell, decides to appoint him Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1695. He promotes penal laws against Catholics, whilst also supporting greater powers for the Irish Parliament.

Brodrick is Speaker of the Irish House of Commons from September 21, 1703. After promoting resolutions critical of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he loses his post as Solicitor-General in 1704. From 1707 until 1709 he is Attorney-General for Ireland. He becomes Chief Justice of Ireland in 1710 and is replaced as Speaker on May 19, 1710, but again holds the office in the next Parliament (November 25, 1713 – August 1, 1714), where he also represents County Cork. He is appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1714 and is ennobled in the Peerage of Ireland in 1715, as the 1st Baron Brodrick. He is advanced to the rank of 1st Viscount Midleton in 1717.

Brodrick feuds with his successor as Speaker William Conolly, as they are rivals to be the leading figure in Irish politics. Despite intrigues in England, he loses out and resigns as Lord Chancellor in 1725. He leaves behind him a legacy of bitterness and ill-will for which he is not really responsible as the Irish peers choose to blame him for the loss of their powers under the Sixth of George I, rather than their own misjudgment in imprisoning the Barons of the Exchequer.


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Birth of Actor Noel Purcell

noel-purcell

Patrick Joseph Noel Purcell, distinguished Irish actor of stage, screen and television, is born in Dublin on December 23, 1900. He appears in the 1956 film Moby Dick and the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty.

Purcell is the son of auctioneer Pierce Purcell and his second wife Catherine (née Hoban) of 4 Ashbrook Terrace, South Circular Road, Dublin. He is baptised six days after his birth at St. Kevin’s Church, Harrington Street. Within a few months, the Purcell family moves to 12 Mercer Street Lower. He is educated at Synge Street CBS. He loses the tip of his right index finger while making cigarette vending machines and also loses his entire left index finger due to an accident while he is an apprentice carpenter, a feature which he exploits for dramatic effect in the film Mutiny on the Bounty (1962).

Purcell begins his show business career at the age of 12 in Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre. Later, he tours Ireland in a vaudeville act with Jimmy O’Dea. Stage-trained in the classics in Dublin, he moves into films in 1934. He appears in Captain Boycott (1947) and as the elderly sailor whose death maroons the lovers-to-be in the first sound film version of The Blue Lagoon (1949). He plays a member of Captain Ahab‘s crew in Moby Dick (1956), Dan O’Flaherty in episode one, The Majesty of the Law, of The Rising of the Moon (1957), a gamekeeper in The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), and a barman in The Mackintosh Man (1973). The last two films are directed by John Huston.

In 1955, Purcell is an off-and-on regular on the British filmed TV series The Buccaneers and he narrates a Hibernian documentary, Seven Wonders of Ireland (1959). In 1962, he portrays the lusty William McCoy in Lewis Milestone‘s Mutiny on the Bounty. He plays a taciturn Irish in-law to Lebanese American entertainer Danny Thomas‘ character Danny Williams in a 1963 episode of The Danny Thomas Show. In 1971, he plays the caring rabbi in the children’s musical drama Flight of the Doves.

Purcell is the subject of This Is Your Life in 1958 when he is surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre. He also gains some recognition as a singer. Shortly after World War II, songwriter Leo Maguire composes “The Dublin Saunter” for him. He performs the song live for many years and later records it for the Glenside label, but the recording is not a hit. However, over time it becomes one of the most favourite songs about Dublin, receiving countless airplays on radio programmes.

In 1981, Purcell records a spoken word version of Pete St. John‘s “The Rare Ould Times.” In June 1984, he is given the Freedom of the City of Dublin. Nine months later, on March 3, 1985, he dies at the age of 84 in Dublin. He is buried in Deans Grange Cemetery in Blackrock, Dublin.


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Birth of Marcus O’Sullivan, Middle Distance Runner

marcus-osullivan

Marcus O’Sullivan, Irish middle distance runner, is born in Cork, County Cork, on December 22, 1961. Although he does not plan to enroll at any of Ireland’s universities, his running encourages him to go to Villanova University. After four years of education at Villanova, he graduates with a degree in accounting and later attains an MBA and a CPA.

O’Sullivan quickly becomes a world class runner and takes part in four summer Olympic Games. He wins three gold medals at the IAAF World Indoor Championships over 1500m in Indianapolis (1987), Budapest (1989), and Toronto (1993). In his victories in 1987 and 1989, he sets championship records. He is third all-time in total sub-4 minute miles with 101, trailing Steve Scott (137) and John Walker (127).

At the 1985 European Athletics Indoor Championships, O’Sullivan wins a silver medal in the 1500m. He finishes 4th in the 1991 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Seville, Spain. He qualifies for Ireland for Olympic Games in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996, at both 800 metres and 1500 metres. He reaches the 1500 metre finals at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.

O’Sullivan sets an indoor 1500 metres world record of 3:35.4 on February 10, 1989, and is generally regarded as a better competitor running indoors. This is evidenced by the fact that he wins the prestigious Wanamaker Mile in Madison Square Garden‘s Millrose Games six times (1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, and 1996).

O’Sullivan’s personal best for the mile, which is set indoors in 1988, is 3:50.94. His personal best for the 1500 metres, which is set outdoors in 1996, is 3:33.61.

O’Sullivan, along with Irish runners Ray Flynn, Eamonn Coghlan, and Frank O’Mara (who ran collegiately at the University of Arkansas) establish the still standing world record in the 4 x 1 mile relay, when they combine in Dublin on August 17, 1985 to run 15:49.08.

O’Sullivan now runs the Running Works cross country summer camp in Canadensis, Pennsylvania, along with Cricket Batz, and is the head coach of Villanova cross country and track and field. He is coached by Tom Donnelly of Haverford College and advises Bob Kennedy in the later years before Kennedy’s retirement.

In addition to his ties to American record holder Bob Kennedy, O’Sullivan has coached elite professional runners such as Canadian indoor world silver medalist Carmen Douma-Hussar and New Zealander Adrian Blincoe.


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Death of Author Violet Florence Martin

violet-florence-martin

Violet Florence Martin, Irish author, dies in Drishane, County Cork, on December 21, 1915. She is the co-author of a series of novels with her cousin Edith Somerville under the pen name of Martin Ross in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Martin is born at Ross House in Connemara, County Galway, the youngest of sixteen children of James Martin of Ross (1804–1872). The Martin family, a branch of the Martyn family – one of the Tribes of Galway – had settled at Ross by the early seventeenth century, having previously inhabited the town of Galway for some three hundred years. Her father is a Protestant, his grandfather having converted from the Catholic faith in order to retain the family estates under the Penal Laws. Nevertheless, each child of the family is secretly ‘baptised’ by the family servants.

Martin is a kinswoman of Richard Martin and her contemporary, Edward Martyn, two other notable members of the tribe. Her older brother, Robert Jasper Martin, is a noted songwriter and a well-regarded member of the Tory party in London. She shares a great-grandmother with the writer Maria Edgeworth, whose use of Irish vernacular speech she follows in her work.

Martin’s father manages to save both his estate and his tenants during the Great Famine boasting that not one of his people died during the disaster, but at the cost of bankruptcy. Following his death in 1872, the family moves to Dublin and only returns to Ross in 1888 following revelations of financial fraud of the estate by their agent.

Violet Martin and Edith Somerville are second cousins. They originally meet on January 17, 1886, at Castletownshend, after which they become lifelong companions and literary partners. They come to share a home in Drishane, County Cork. In 1889, Violet adopts the pseudonym Martin Ross, which comprises her surname and the name of her ancestral home. Thus, the authors are called Somerville and Ross. Their works include The Real Charlotte (1889), Some Reminiscences of an Irish R.M. and In the Vine Country.

Martin is a convinced Irish Unionist, in opposition to Somerville’s open nationalism. Both she and her brother Robert are well-regarded members of the literary circle in Irish unionism. However, unlike her brother, Martin is a convinced suffragette, becoming vice-president of the Munster Women’s Franchise League. While on friendly terms with the leading members of the Gaelic literary revival such as W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, she objects to their romantic version of Irish peasantry. She is on good terms with Edward Martyn, partner of Gregory and Yeats – and her kinsman – and shares his love of the Irish language and culture.

Martin is seriously injured in a riding accident in November 1898, from which she never fully recovers. This is a contributing factor to her death in Drishane, County Cork, on December 21, 1915. Edith Somerville continues to write under their joint literary names, claiming that they are still in contact. The two women leave thousands of letters and 116 volumes of diaries, detailing their lives, much of them yet unpublished. Edith dies at Castletownshend in October 1949, aged 91, and is buried alongside Violet Florence Martin at Saint Barrahane’s Church, Castletownsend, County Cork, Ireland.