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Birth of Tana French, Writer & Theatrical Actress

Tana Elizabeth French, American-Irish writer and theatrical actress, is born in Burlington, Vermont, on May 10, 1973. She is a longtime resident of Dublin. Her debut novel, In the Woods (2007), a psychological mystery, wins the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery, and the Barry Award for Best First Novel. The Independent refers to her as “the First Lady of Irish Crime.”

French is born to Elena Hvostoff-Lombardi and David French. Her father is an economist who works on resource management for the developing world, and she lives in numerous countries as a child including Ireland, Italy, the United States and Malawi.

French attends Trinity College Dublin, and trains in acting. She settles in Ireland and has lived in Dublin since 1990. She and her husband have two daughters.

French is enthralled by both acting and writing since her childhood but eventually focuses more on acting. She grows up reading mystery and crime novels. She trains as a professional actor at Trinity, and she works in theatre, film, and voice-over.

In her later 30s, her passion for writing is rekindled. She begins writing her debut novel in the months-long lulls between castings. In the Woods is published in 2007 to international acclaim and receives rave reviews from many publications. Publishers Weekly praises her, saying she “expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller in her debut” and that “Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, whose partnership and friendship elevate the narrative beyond a gory tale of murdered children and repressed childhood trauma.” It receives several literary prizes, is a bestseller in hardcover and paperback, and has been termed a “dream debut.” In 2014, Flavorwire includes it in their 50 of the Greatest Debut Novels Since 1950. As of 2015 more than one million copies of In the Woods have been sold.

French’s second novel, The Likeness (2008), presents the story of the first novel’s co-lead, Cassie Maddox. It quickly achieves high positions on bestseller lists in various countries and stays on The New York Times Best Seller list for several months. In its reviews of the novel, Kirkus Reviews praises its mix of “police procedures, psychological thrills and gothic romance beautifully woven into one stunning story.” In an interview with The Guardian, French states that Donna Tartt‘s The Secret History was an influence on The Likeness, opening up the “landscape of friendship as something worthy of exploration and something that could be powerful enough to trigger a murder.”

French’s first six novels are part of the Dublin Murder Squad series. After publishing The Trespasser in 2016, she publishes two standalone novels. Both The Witch Elm and The Searcher also take place in Ireland.

In 2015, Euston Films & Veritas acquire TV production rights. Sarah Phelps writes the screenplay, which she bases on both In the Woods and The Likeness, for the eight-episode series of Dublin Murders, commissioned by the BBC for BBC One and Starz, with RTÉ later joining the project. Filming commences in 2018 in Belfast and Dublin and continues in Dublin to late February 2019. Broadcast begins on BBC One on October 14, 2019, on RTÉ One on October 16, 2019, and on Starz on November 10, 2019.


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Birth of Garret FitzGerald, Eighth Taoiseach of Ireland

Garret Desmond FitzGerald, Fine Gael politician, economist and barrister who serves twice as Taoiseach (1981 to 1982 and 1982 to 1987), is born into a very politically active family in Ballsbridge, Dublin on February 9, 1926, during the infancy of the Irish Free State. He serves as Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 1965 to 1969, a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1969 to 1992, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1973 to 1977, Leader of Fine Gael from 1977 to 1987 and twice Leader of the Opposition between 1977 and 1982.

FitzGerald’s father, Desmond FitzGerald, is the Free State’s first Minister for External Affairs. He is educated at the Jesuit Belvedere College, University College Dublin and King’s Inns, Dublin, and qualifies as a barrister. Instead of practicing law, however, in 1959 he becomes an economics lecturer in the department of political economy at University College, Dublin, and a journalist.

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 (1973–1977). 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.

In his prime ministry, FitzGerald pushes for liberalization of Irish laws on divorce, abortion, and contraception and also strives to build bridges to the Protestants in Northern Ireland. In 1985, during his second term, he and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sign the Anglo-Irish (Hillsborough) Agreement, giving Ireland a consultative role in the governing of Northern Ireland. After his party loses in the 1987 Irish general election, he resigns as its leader and subsequently retires in 1992.

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 President Mary 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 President Barack 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 buried at Shanganagh Cemetery in Shankill, Dublin.

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).


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Birth of Mathew Carey, Irish American Publisher & Economist

Mathew Carey, Irish-born American publisher and economist who lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is born into a middle-class Catholic family in Dublin on January 28, 1760. He is the father of economist Henry Charles Carey.

Carey enters the bookselling and printing business in 1775 and, at the age of seventeen, publishes a pamphlet criticizing dueling. He follows this with a work criticizing the severity of the Irish penal code, and another criticizing Parliament. As a result, the British House of Commons threatens him with prosecution. In 1781 he flees to Paris as a political refugee. There he meets Benjamin Franklin, the ambassador representing the American Revolutionary forces, which achieves independence that year. Franklin takes Carey to work in his printing office.

Carey works for Franklin for a year before returning to Ireland, where he edits two Irish nationalist newspapers, the Freeman’s Journal and The Volunteer’s Journal. He gains passage on a ship to emigrate to the newly independent United States in September 1784.

Upon Carey’s arrival in Philadelphia, he finds that Franklin has recommended him to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, who gives him a $400 check to establish himself. He uses this money to set up a new publishing business and a book shop. He founds The Pennsylvania Herald (1785), Columbian Magazine (1786), and The American Museum (1787). None of these ventures proves very profitable. The American Museum is the first American periodical to treat American culture as rich and original, instead of a poor imitation of Great Britain’s. He prints the first American version of the Douay–Rheims Bible in 48 weekly installments, this Roman Catholic edition popularly known as the Carey Bible. It is the first Roman Catholic version of the Bible printed in the United States. He also prints numerous editions of the King James Version, fundamental to English-speaking peoples.

In 1794–96, Carey publishes America’s first atlases. His 1802 map of Washington, D.C. is the first to name the stretch of land west of the United States Capitol as the “Mall.”

Carey frequently writes articles on various social topics, including events during the 1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic, which proves a crisis for the city. He reports on debates in the state legislature as well as providing political commentary in his essays. He is a Catholic and a founding member of the American Sunday-School Society, along with Quaker merchant Thomas P. Cope, Dr. Benjamin Rush and Episcopal bishop William White.

In 1822 Carey publishes Essays on Political Economy; or, The Most Certain Means of Promoting the Wealth, Power, Resources, and Happiness of Nations, Applied Particularly to the United States. This is one of the first treatises favoring Alexander Hamilton‘s protectionist economic policy.

During Carey’s lifetime, the publishing firm evolves to M. Carey & Son (1817–21), M. Carey & Sons (1821–24), and then to Carey & Lea (1824). He retires in 1825, leaving the publishing business to his son, Henry Charles Carey and son-in-law Isaac Lea. Lea and Henry Carey make the business economically successful and, for a time, it is one of the most prominent publishers in the country.

In 1821, Carey is elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society (APS) in Philadelphia.

Upon arriving in America, Carey quickly develops political connections in the developing country. One of his most important supporters is John Adams, still a leading figure of the Federalist Party at the time. His passionate support for the establishment of an American Navy contributes significantly to his alliance with the Federalists.

Throughout his political career in America, Carey supports the development and maintenance of American naval strength, even after joining Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans in 1796. His political realignment occurs shortly before the American ratification of the Jay Treaty, primarily intended to ensure peace with Britain, while distancing America from France. His publishing in America channels his energy toward productive political objectives. His published works are credited with swaying public opinion toward the establishment of a powerful American navy.

Carey’s book Naval History of the United States, is meant to influence the public. Its conspicuous omission of naval activity during the American Quasi-War with France shows his political intentions. It helps direct political energy against the British, with which the U.S. is at war at the time of the book’s publication on May 6, 1813.

Focus on the British, known around the world for their naval power, makes an influential case for extending the reach of the American navy. Along with his publication of Naval History, Carey writes Olive Branch, published in 1814. He tries to eliminate competition between the two American political parties to create unity during the War of 1812. To many people, these efforts, and his early relationship with Franklin, make him the logical choice as Franklin’s political successor. Scholars believe that he contributed significantly by his books and publications to the establishment of the United States Whig Party.

Carey is elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in 1815. A significant portion of his business papers, as well as a very large number of original copies of works printed and/or published by him reside in the collections of the AAS.

Carey dies on September 16, 1839, and is buried in St. Mary’s Catholic Churchyard in Philadelphia.

In 1943, Publishers Weekly creates the Carey-Thomas Award for creative publishing, naming it in honor of Mathew Carey and Isaiah Thomas.

(Pictured: Portrait of Mathew Carey by John Neagle, 1825, The Library Company of Philadelphia)


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Birth of Michael George Mulhall, Author & Newspaper Editor

Michael George Mulhall, Irish author, statistician, economist and newspaper editor, is born in Dublin on September 29, 1836. He co-founds the Buenos Aires Standard, which in 1862 becomes the first English-language newspaper to be published daily in South America. He co-authors the first English-language book published in that continent, The Handbook of the River Plate, a work that goes to six editions, is widely consulted by immigrants and is now a historical sourcebook. His Dictionary of Statistics (1883 and later editions) becomes a standard work of reference.

Mulhall is the third son of Thomas Mulhall. He is educated for the priesthood at the Pontifical Irish College, Rome, but not having the vocation emigrates to Argentina to work with his brother Edward Thomas Mulhall, then a large sheep farmer in that country. In 1861 the Mulhall brothers found the Buenos Aires Standard, which in the next year becomes a daily. It is the preferred newspaper of the Anglo-Argentine community and claims to be the only English-language daily newspaper to be published south of the equator. A third brother, Francis Healey Mulhall, also emigrates to Argentina and founds the Southern Cross, a newspaper of the Irish-Argentine community.

By 1864 Mulhall, despite his relative youth, is regarded as a spokesman for the entire British community in the region.

In 1878 (1868 by another source) Mulhall marries Marion McMurrough Murphy, herself an author who’s works include Between the Amazon and the Andes (1881) and Explorers in the New World (1909). She cooperates with him closely on his statistical work.

Mulhall dies in Dublin on December 13, 1900.


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Birth of Classical Scholar Sir William Ridgeway

Sir William Ridgeway, FBA, Anglo-Irish classical scholar and the Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, is born on August 6, 1853 at Ballydermot, Kings County (now County Offaly).

Ridgeway is the son of Rev. John Henry Ridgeway and Marianne Ridgeway. He is a direct descendant of one of Oliver Cromwell’s settlers in Ireland. He is educated at Portarlington School and Trinity College Dublin, after which he studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge then Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, completing the Classical tripos there in 1880.

In 1880, Ridgeway marries Lucinda Maria Kate Samuels in Rathdown, County Dublin. Their daughter Lucy Marion Ridgeway (1882–1958) marries economist John Archibald Venn in 1906.

In 1883, Ridgeway is elected Professor of Greek at Queen’s College, Cork, then Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge in 1892. He also holds tenure as Gifford lecturer in Religion at the University of Aberdeen from 1909 to 1911 from which is published The Evolution of Religions of Ancient Greece and Rome.

Ridgeway contributes articles to the Encyclopedia Biblica (1903), Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) and writes The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards (1892), and The Early Age of Greece (1901) which are significant works in Archaeology and Anthropology.

Ridgeway is President of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland from 1908-10 and is instrumental in the foundation of the Cambridge school of Anthropology.

Ridgeway receives an honorary Doctorate of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of Dublin in June 1902 and is elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1904. For his research on horses he receives the Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) of Cambridge in 1909. He is knighted in the 1919 Birthday Honours list.

Ridgeway dies on August 12, 1926.

(Pictured: “Sir William Ridgeway” by Richard Jack (1866-1952), oil on canvas, 1921, Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge)


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Birth of Margaret Hassan, Irish-born Aid Worker in Iraq

Margaret Hassan, Irish-born aid worker also known as “Madam Margaret,” is born Margaret Fitzsimons in Dalkey, County Dublin on April 18, 1945. She works in Iraq for many years until she is abducted and murdered by unidentified kidnappers in Iraq in 2004. Her remains have never been recovered.

Soon after the end of World War II Hassan’s family moves to London, where she spends most of her early life and where her younger siblings are born. At the age of 27, she marries Tahseen Ali Hassan, a 29-year-old Iraqi studying engineering in the United Kingdom. She moves to Iraq with him in 1972, where she begins work with the British Council of Baghdad, teaching English. Eventually she learns Arabic and becomes an Iraqi citizen.

During the early 1980s, Hassan becomes the assistant director of studies at the British Council, later becoming director. Meanwhile, her husband works as an economist. She remains in Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War, although the British Council suspends operations in Iraq, and she is left jobless at the end of it.

Hassan joins humanitarian relief organisation CARE International in 1991. Sanitation, health, and nutrition become major concerns in the sanctioned Iraq. She is crucially involved in bringing leukemia medicine to child cancer victims in Iraq in 1998. She becomes a vocal critic of the United Nations restrictions. She is opposed to the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, arguing that the Iraqis are already “living through a terrible emergency. They do not have the resources to withstand an additional crisis brought about by military action.”

By 2004, Hassan is head of Iraqi operations for CARE. Well known in many of Baghdad’s slums and other cities, she is especially interested in Iraq’s young people, whom she calls “the lost generation.” Her presence draws large crowds of locals.

Hassan is kidnapped in Baghdad on October 19, 2004, and is killed some weeks later on November 8. In a video released of her in captivity she pleads for help and begs British Prime Minister Tony Blair to remove British troops from Iraq. She adds that she does not “want to die like Mr. Bigley,” a reference to Kenneth Bigley, who had been executed in Iraq only weeks earlier.

Patients of an Iraqi hospital take to the streets in protest against the hostage takers’ actions. On October 25, between 100 and 200 Iraqis protest outside CARE’s offices in Baghdad, demanding her release. Prominent elements of the Iraqi insurgency and Iraqi political figures condemn the kidnapping and call for her release. On November 2, Al Jazeera reports that the kidnappers threatened to hand her over to the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and who is responsible for the execution of Bigley. On November 6, a statement purportedly from al-Zarqawi appears on an Islamist website calling for the release of Hassan unless the kidnappers have information she is aligned with the invading coalition. The statement cannot be authenticated and Hassan’s whereabouts in the video are unknown.

On 15 November, U.S. Marines in Fallujah uncover the body of an unidentified blonde- or grey-haired woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit. The body cannot be immediately identified, but is thought unlikely to be Hassan, who has brown hair. There is one other western woman known missing in Iraq at the time the body is discovered, Teresa Borcz Khalifa, a Polish-born long-time Iraqi resident. Khalifa is released by her hostage takers on November 20.

On November 16, CNN reports that CARE has issued a statement indicating that the organisation is aware of a videotape showing Hassan’s execution. Al-Jazeera reports that it has received a tape showing Hassan’s murder but is unable to confirm its authenticity. The video shows Hassan being shot with a handgun by a masked man. It is not known who is responsible for Hassan’s abduction and murder. The group holding her never identifies itself in the hostage videos.

She remains a Roman Catholic throughout her life and never converts to Islam as is widely reported after her death. A Requiem Mass is held for her, after her death is confirmed, at Westminster Cathedral by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor.

CARE International suspends operations in Iraq because of Hassan’s kidnapping. At least eight other women kidnapped by insurgents during the conflict are released unharmed by their captors. It is unclear why Hassan, who was opposed to the war, lived in Iraq for many years, held Iraqi citizenship, was married to an Arab Muslim and spoke fluent Arabic was killed.

On May 1, 2005, three men are questioned by Iraqi police in connection with the murder. On June 5, 2006, news reports emerge that an Iraqi man by the name of Mustafa Salman al-Jubouri has been sentenced to life imprisonment for “aiding and abetting the kidnappers” but two other men are acquitted. Al-Jubouri appeals this sentence and is given a shorter imprisonment.

An Iraqi man named Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi, also known as Abu Rasha, an architect from Baghdad, is arrested by Iraqi and U.S. forces in 2008 after contacting the British Embassy in Baghdad and attempting to extort 1 million dollars in return for disclosing the location of Hassan’s body. Though Jassar signs statements confessing to the charges, he pleads not guilty, stating he was forced to sign them after receiving beatings and electrical shocks during questioning.

On June 2, 2009, the Press Association reports that Jassar is given a life sentence by Baghdad’s Central Criminal Court for being involved in Hassan’s abduction and murder, and for attempting to blackmail the British Embassy. Hassan’s family welcomes the court’s decision but pleads with Jassar to tell them where her body is so they can return her to Britain for burial. On July 14, 2010, a day before Jassar is due to appear in court for retrial, it is reported that he could not be located in the prison facility where he was being held. He had been missing for a month.


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Funeral of Economist Dr. T. K. Whitaker

The funeral of Dr. T. K. Whitaker, former civil servant and economist, takes place in Dublin on January 13, 2017. Regarded as the architect of the modern Irish economy, he dies at age 100 on January 9. President Michael D. Higgins, Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, Chief Justice Susan Denham, and Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin are among those attending the requiem mass for Dr. Whitaker at Donnybrook Church.

Whitaker is born in Rostrevor, County Down, to Roman Catholic parents on December 8, 1916, and reared in Drogheda, County Louth, in modest circumstances. His mother, Jane O’Connor, comes from Ballyguirey East, Labasheeda, County Clare. His father, Edward Whitaker, hails from County Westmeath and is assistant manager of a linen mill. He receives his primary and secondary education at the local CBS in Drogheda. He studies mathematics at University College Dublin.

In 1956, Whitaker is appointed Secretary of the Department of Finance. His appointment takes place at a time when Ireland’s economy is in deep depression. Economic growth is non-existent, inflation apparently insoluble, unemployment rife, living standards low and emigration at a figure not far below the birth rate. He believes that free trade, with increased competition and the end of protectionism, will become inevitable and that jobs will have to be created by a shift from agriculture to industry and services. He forms a team of officials within the department which produces a detailed study of the economy, culminating in a plan recommending policies for improvement. The plan is accepted by the government and is transformed into a white paper which becomes known as the First Programme for Economic Expansion. Quite unusually this is published with his name attached in November 1958. The programme which becomes known as the “Grey Book” brings the stimulus of foreign investment into the Irish economy. Before devoting himself to poetry, Thomas Kinsella is Whitaker’s private secretary.

In 1977, Taoiseach Jack Lynch nominates Whitaker as a member of the 14th Seanad Éireann. He serves as a Senator from 1977–81, where he sits as an independent Senator.

In 1981, Whitaker is nominated to the 15th Seanad Éireann by Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, where he serves until 1982. FitzGerald also appoints him to chair a Committee of Inquiry into the Irish penal system, and he chairs a Parole Board or Sentence Review Group for several years.

Whitaker also serves as Chancellor of the National University of Ireland from 1976 to 1996. He is also President of the Royal Irish Academy and as such, a member of the Board of Governors and Guardians of the National Gallery of Ireland, from 1985 to 1987. He has a very strong love for the Irish language throughout his career and the collection of Irish poetry, An Duanaire: Poems of the Dispossessed 1600–1900, edited by Seán Ó Tuama and Thomas Kinsella, is dedicated to Whitaker. From 1995–96 he chairs the Constitution Review Group, an independent expert group established by the government, which publishes its report in July 1996.

Whitaker receives many national and international honours and tributes for his achievements during his lifetime, most notably the conferral of “Irishman of the 20th Century” in 2001 and Greatest Living Irish Person in 2002. In November 2014, the Institute of Banking confers an Honorary Fellowship on Whitaker and creates an annual T.K. Whitaker Scholarship in his name. In April 2015, he is presented with a lifetime achievement award by University College Dublin’s Economics Society for his outstanding contribution to Ireland’s economic policy.

In November 2016, to mark his centenary year, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council acknowledges Whitaker’s “outstanding and progressive contribution to Irish public service and to society.” The Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire Rathdown, Cormac Devlin, presents a special award to Whitaker which is accepted by Ken Whitaker on behalf of his father.


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Death of Tom Kettle, Economist, Journalist, Politician & Soldier

thomas-michael-kettleThomas Michael “Tom” Kettle, Irish economist, journalist, barrister, writer, war poet, soldier and Home Rule politician, dies on September 9, 1916 during the World War I Battle of the Somme in France.

Kettle is born on February 9, 1880 in Malahide or Artane, Dublin, the seventh of twelve children of Andrew J. Kettle (1833–1916), a leading Irish nationalist politician, progressive farmer, agrarian agitator and founding member of the Irish National Land League, and his wife, Margaret (née McCourt). One of his brothers is the industrial pioneer Laurence Kettle. He is influenced considerably through his father’s political activities.

Like his brothers, Kettle is educated at the Christian Brothers‘ O’Connell School at Richmond Street, Dublin, where he excels. In 1894 he goes to study with the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare, known as a wit and a good debater. He enjoys athletics, cricket and cycling and attains honours in English and French when leaving. He enters University College Dublin in 1897.

As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Kettle is Member of Parliament (MP) for East Tyrone from 1906 to 1910 at Westminster. He is a much admired old comrade of James Joyce, who considers him to be his best friend in Ireland, as well as the likes of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, Oliver St. John Gogarty and Robert Wilson Lynd. He joins the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914 enlists for service in the British Army.

Kettle is killed in action with ‘B’ Company of the 9th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in an attack on German lines on September 9, 1916, near the village of Ginchy during the Somme Offensive in France. During the advance he is felled when the Dublin Fusiliers are “struck with a tempest of fire,” and having risen from the initial blow, he is struck again and killed outright. His body is buried in a battlefield grave by the Welsh Guards, but the location of the grave is subsequently lost. His name is etched on the monumental arched gateway for the missing of the Somme at Thiepval.

Kettle is one of the leading figures of the generation who, at the turn of the twentieth century, give new intellectual life to Irish party politics, and to the constitutional movement towards All-Ireland Home Rule. A gifted speaker with an incisive mind and devastating wit, his death is regarded as a great loss to Ireland’s political and intellectual life.

As G. K. Chesterton surmises, “Thomas Michael Kettle was perhaps the greatest example of that greatness of spirit which was so ill rewarded on both sides of the channel […] He was a wit, a scholar, an orator, a man ambitious in all the arts of peace; and he fell fighting the barbarians because he was too good a European to use the barbarians against England, as England a hundred years before has used the barbarians against Ireland.”


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Birth of Writer & Philanthropist Samuel Madden

samuel-maddenSamuel Madden, writer, economist, and philanthropist commonly called “Premium” Madden, is born in Dublin on December 23, 1686. His father is John Madden, and his mother is Mary Molyneux.

In 1729, Madden writes a tragedy entitled Themistocles, the Lover of His Country. In 1733, he writes Memoirs of the Twentieth Century, one of the first science fiction novels. However, it is suppressed by Sir Robert Walpole, and is now very rare. A reprint of the original sheets appears with publishing company Garland Science in 1972 (ISBN 0824005708). The work is originally designed to have six volumes yet is discontinued after the first volume.

In 1738, Madden writes his most famous work, Reflections and Resolutions Proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland, in which he describes the poor living conditions in Ireland at the time.

Dr. Samuel Johnson writes of Madden, “His was a name which Ireland ought to honour.” He suggests that the Royal Dublin Society initiate a scheme to fund improvements in agriculture and arts in Ireland via the use of premiums – the source of his nickname Premium.

Samuel Madden dies at the age of 79 on December 31, 1765 at Manor Waterhouse in County Fermanagh.

(Pictured: Portrait of Samuel Madden wearing clerical robes, Oil on Canvas,
Philip Hussey (Irish, 1713–1783))


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Birth of John Kells Ingram, Economist & Poet

CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), quality = 90John Kells Ingram, economist and poet who starts his career as a mathematician, is born into an Ulster Scots family on July 7, 1823 at the Rectory of Templecarne (Aghnahoo), just south of Pettigo, County Donegal. He has been co-credited, along with John William Stubbs, with introducing the geometric concept of inversive geometry.

Ingram enters Trinity College, Dublin on October 13, 1837. He is elected a Scholar of Trinity College in 1840, graduates with a BA in mathematics in 1842, and is awarded an MA in 1850. In 1852 he becomes a professor of oratory at Trinity and writes extensively on Shakespeare. He shows considerable promise in both mathematics and classics and achieves early popularity as a poet. He has a distinguished career at Trinity, spanning over fifty-five years, as a student, fellow and professor, successively of Oratory, English Literature, Jurisprudence and Greek, subsequently becoming the College Librarian and ultimately its Vice Provost.

One evening in March 1843 Ingram writes a poem for which he is best remembered, a political ballad called “The Memory of the Dead” in honour of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the Society of United Irishmen. The poem is published anonymously on April 1, 1843 in Thomas Davis‘s The Nation newspaper although its authorship is an open secret in Dublin. It is set to music for voice and piano in 1845 by John Edward Pigot and becomes a popular Irish nationalist anthem. It is one of the best-known of Irish Republican songs and is often played by the piper at Republican funerals.

In 1847 Ingram helps to found the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland. His early economic writings deal mainly with the Poor Law, which in theory is supposed to provide relief for the poor but in reality does little to alleviate the distress in Ireland. Strongly influenced by the French sociologist Auguste Comte, he rejects the more isolated approach of classical economics which builds on the assumption that people try to do the best they can. Instead he seeks to develop a unified theory of economics along the lines of Comtean positivist philosophy, which seeks ways for economic policies to contribute to the good of society. His writings on this topic include the essay “Present Position and Prospects of Political Economy” (1878) and A History of Political Economy (1888).

John Kells Ingram dies on May 1, 1907 in his home at 38 Upper Mount Street, Dublin, where he had lived since 1884. He is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.