seamus dubhghaill

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The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920 Receives Royal Assent

The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to address the collapse of the British civilian administration in Ireland during the Irish War of Independence, receives royal assent on August 9, 1920, following a guillotine motion.

In effect a special extension of the Defence of the Realm Acts, the aim of the Act is to increase convictions of nationalist rebels while averting the need to declare martial law. Under Section 3(6) of the Act, military authorities are empowered to jail any Irish person without charge or trial. Secret courts-martial are established, and lawyers (appointed by Crown agents) can be present only if the death penalty is involved. Inquests of military or police actions are banned.

By the middle of 1920, Ireland is in the throes of a full-fledged rebellion that is barely recognized by the British Government in Ireland headquartered in Dublin Castle. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the military arm of the Dáil Éireann revolutionary government, is engaged in a guerilla campaign to destroy elements of British power, particularly burning down courthouses and attacking members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), Britain’s police force in the countryside.

The British response to the increase in violence and the assassination of police officers is twofold. To suppress the IRA “murderers,” Major General Hugh Tudor, commander of the RIC and self-styled “Chief of Police,” begins supplementing that body with the employment of World War I veterans known as the “Black and Tans” because of the colour of their surplus World War I uniforms, and an additional temporary force of Auxiliaries. With little discipline and utter indifference to the plight or moral indignation of the Irish population, these groups raid and burn villages, creameries, and farm buildings to intimidate supporters of the IRA.

The second measure is the enactment of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (ROIA). The Act is envisioned as a remedy to the problem perceived by Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood that “throughout the greater part of Ireland criminal justice can no longer be administered by the ordinary constitutional process of trial by judge and jury.”

The genesis of the Act may be seen in a Cabinet discussion on May 31, 1920, in which the members focus on the violence in Ireland. Rather than addressing violence as the product of rebellion, Greenwood insists that, “The great task is to crush out murder and arson.” He asserts that the violence is perpetrated by handsomely paid thugs. Commenting on a pending Irish bill, Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill states, “You should include in the Bill a special tribunal for trying murderers. It is monstrous that we have some 200 murders, and no one hung.” The prime minister agrees that convicted murderers should be hanged but questions whether convictions can be obtained from Catholics. The concern of all is that the civil courts are incapable of strictly administering justice to the revolutionaries because the juries largely consisted of Irish Catholics. The ensuing discussion of possibly imposing court-martial jurisdiction is inconclusive.

After the May 31 meeting, Greenwood investigates the feasibility of imposing martial law in Ireland and raises martial law as the specific subject of a July 23, 1920, conference committee meeting of the Cabinet led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to which the key members of the Dublin Castle administration are invited. William E. Wylie, the law advisor at Dublin Castle, notes that the RIC is disintegrating through resignations brought on by terrorist attacks, and that with “regard to the Civil Courts, the entire administration of the Imperial Government had ceased.” The civilian participants from Dublin Castle, especially Wylie, maintain that martial law is counter-productive, and will only antagonize the Irish people. As an alternative to martial law, General Tudor argues for the imposition of court-martial jurisdiction. Tudor argues forcefully that court-martial jurisdiction over all crimes will support the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries that he is recruiting. He declaims that “not a single criminal had been brought to justice for murder.” Lloyd George closes the discussion directing the Dublin Castle participants to provide final proposals for enforcement of the laws.

A draft bill to establish military criminal jurisdiction is considered by the Cabinet on July 26. The prime minister’s most telling contribution is his question as to whether a convicted man would be shot or hanged. It appears that he is comforted by the response that the defendant will be tried under the ordinary law which implies death by hanging. The resulting bill is completed by July 30, 1920, and is then quickly pushed through Parliament and receives royal assent on August 9, 1920. The ROIA provides that all crimes punishable under the laws in Ireland can be brought before a court-martial. The court-martial will have the power to impose any punishment authorized by statute or common law including the death penalty. The final step is taken on August 20, 1920, when the final regulations for implementation go into effect.

The combination of growing police and military pressure and recourse to the ROIA lead to increased internments of known or suspected IRA members and a steady increase in convictions to 50-60 per week. This makes it more difficult for IRA soldiers to continue openly working day jobs while carrying on part-time guerrilla activities. As a result, the IRA shifts its approach to guerrilla warfare in the rural counties. Volunteers from IRA units are organized into elite, full-time, mobile flying columns of around 25 men who live off the land and on the run. These flying columns prove to be more suited to ambushes of patrols and convoys and other targets of opportunity, rather than attacks on barracks which had become better defended.

On December 10, 1920, martial law is proclaimed in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. In January 1921 martial law is extended to counties Clare and Waterford.

In a crucial judgement, R (Egan) v Macready, the Irish courts rule that the Act does not give power to impose the death penalty. This would no doubt have proved politically contentious had not hostilities ended the same day.

Despite its name, the courts are of the view that ROIA applies in England as well. Following the creation of the Irish Free State, when the Act is repealed by implication, it is still used to deport ex-members of the Irish Self-Determination League to Ireland.


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Birth of Eamon Dunphy, Media Personality & Journalist

Eamon Martin Dunphy, Irish media personality, journalist, broadcaster, author, sports pundit and former professional footballer, is born in Dublin on August 3, 1945.

Dunphy grows up in Drumcondra, Dublin, in what he describes as “a one-room tenement flat [with] no electricity, no hot water.” He attends Saint Patrick’s National School, Drumcondra. In 1958, he gets a one-year government scholarship to Sandymount High School but has to work as a messenger at the tweed clothing shop Kevin and Howlin.

A promising footballer, Dunphy leaves Dublin while still a teenager to join Manchester United as an apprentice. He does not break into the first team at United, and subsequently leaves to play for York City, Millwall, Charlton Athletic, Reading and Shamrock Rovers. It is at Millwall that he makes the most impact. He is considered an intelligent and skillful player in the side’s midfield. He is a member of “The Class of ’71,” the Millwall side that fails by just one point to gain promotion to the Football League First Division.

Dunphy plays 23 times for the Republic of Ireland and is Millwall’s most capped international footballer with 22 caps, until surpassed by David Forde and Shane Ferguson. He makes his Ireland debut on November 10, 1965, in the playoff at the Parc des Princes in Paris for the 1966 FIFA World Cup which Spain wins 1–0, thanks to a José Ufarte goal. He goes on to become, in his own words, “a good player, not a great player.”

Dunphy accompanies Johnny Giles back to Ireland to join Shamrock Rovers in 1977. Giles wants to make the club Ireland’s first full-time professional club and hopes to make Rovers into a force in European football by developing talented young players at home who would otherwise go to clubs in England. Dunphy is originally intended to be in charge of youth development. However, despite an FAI Cup winners medal in 1978, his only medal in senior football, and two appearances in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, he becomes disillusioned with the Irish game and drops out of football altogether to concentrate on a career in journalism.

After retiring from the game, Dunphy first begins writing on football for the Sunday Tribune and then contributes regular columns on both football and current events for the Sunday Independent. He currently writes a column on football for the Irish Daily Star. He coins the term “Official Ireland” to refer to the establishment. He also works for Ireland on Sunday (now the Irish Daily Mail), The Sunday Press (now defunct), and the Irish Examiner.

Since the 1980s, Dunphy has written a number of books. His first and most widely praised book is Only a Game? The Diary of a Professional Footballer, which is an autobiographical account of his days playing for Millwall. Written in diary form, it records events from the dressing room of his 1973–74 season, which begins well for him at Millwall but subsequently ends in disillusionment: after being substituted in an October 27, 1973, home loss to eventual league winners Middlesbrough, he does not play another game all season, the club finishing mid-table.

In 1985, rock band U2 and manager Paul McGuinness commission Dunphy to write the story of their origins, formation, early years and the time leading up to their highly successful album The Joshua Tree. His book Unforgettable Fire – Past, Present, and Future – The Definitive Biography of U2 is published in 1988. It receives some favourable reviews, but critics close to the band speak of many inaccuracies. A verbal war erupts in the press during which he calls lead singer Bono a “pompous git.”

Dunphy also writes a biography of long-serving Manchester United manager Matt Busby and in 2002 ghost writes the autobiography of Republic of Ireland and Manchester United player Roy Keane.

Since the mid-1980s, Dunphy has regularly appeared as an analyst during football coverage on Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). Since RTÉ acquired the rights to show English football, he has been a regular contributor to Premier Soccer Saturday. He also contributes to analysis of UEFA Champions League games and, in international football, RTÉ’s coverage of FIFA World Cups, UEFA European Football Championships and qualifying matches involving the Republic of Ireland national football team.

In 2001, Dunphy becomes the first male host of the quiz show The Weakest Link, which airs on TV3, for just one series. In 2003, he is hired again by TV3 to host their new Friday night chat show, entitled The Dunphy Show. Pitted head-to-head with RTÉ’s long-running flagship programme, The Late Late Show, Dunphy’s show loses what is a highly publicised “ratings war,” and is cancelled before its original run concludes.

Dunphy is the first presenter of a made-for-mobile television show on the 3 mobile network in Ireland. His rants and “Spoofer of the Week” are watched by thousands of 3 Mobile customers. The shows are awarded “Best Entertainment Show” at Ireland’s Digital Media Awards. He admits he never uses a mobile himself but enjoys filming for a mobile audience from his living room in Ranelagh.

In July 2018, Dunphy announces that he is leaving RTÉ after 40 years with the broadcaster, and that he intends to focus on his podcast The Stand with Eamon Dunphy.

Dunphy has also has a prominent radio career with several stations, including Today FM, Newstalk and RTÉ Radio 1. He is the original host in 1997 of the popular current affairs show The Last Word on Today FM. In September 2004, he takes over The Breakfast Show slot on the Dublin radio station Newstalk 106 from David McWilliams. The show tries to court controversy and listeners in equal measure. He fails to attract the large listenership predicted, with only a few additional thousand tuning in. He announces in June 2006 his intention to leave Newstalk 106, citing an inability to sustain the demands of an early morning schedule. After his departure from Newstalk 106, he confirms he is suffering from a viral illness from which he later recovers.

In July 2006, RTÉ announces that Dunphy will present a new weekly programme as part of the new RTÉ Radio 1 autumn schedule.

Dunphy rejoins Newstalk but leaves again in 2011 “due to interference from management and a push to put a more positive spin on the news.” On his last show he accuses his boss, Denis O’Brien, of “hating journalism.” He quits after Sam Smyth is sacked from Today FM (also owned by O’Brien) and says management at Newstalk is trying to remove “dissenting voices” like Constantin Gurdgiev from the airwaves.

Dunphy is a daily Mass-goer until he is preparing for marriage to his first wife, Sandra from Salford, when he is 21. He is Catholic and she is Protestant. The priest instructing them for marriage disapproves strongly of the mixed couple, saying that he should not marry her because she is “not a proper person.” Dunphy’s observance is already weakening but he quits his daily Mass-going at this point. He and Sandra have two children, a boy and a girl, and he is now a grandfather. His first marriage ends, and he moves to Castletownshend in County Cork for two years in the early 1990s. He lives with another partner, Inge, before meeting his second wife, RTÉ commissioning editor Jane Gogan, in the Horseshoe Bar in Dublin in 1992. They marry at the Unitarian Church on St. Stephen’s Green on September 24, 2009.

In an interview with An Phoblacht, Dunphy, who had previously written highly critical articles on the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, states that he is now a Sinn Féin supporter and declares he had voted for them in the 2011 Irish general election. He describes their representatives as “incredibly hard-working and incredibly intelligent.”

Dunphy publishes his autobiography entitled The Rocky Road in October 2013.

Today, Dunphy generally resides at his home near Ranelagh in Dublin. He also owns a holiday home in Deauville, France.

(Pictured: Éamon Dunphy at the Sinn Féin Summer School, 2013)


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Birth of David Thornley, Irish Labour Party Politician

David Andrew Thornley, Irish Labour Party politician and university professor at Trinity College Dublin, is born in Surrey, England, on July 31, 1935.

Thornley is the youngest child of Welshman Frederick Edward Thornley and Dublin-born Maud Helen Thornley (née Browne). His parents, both civil servants, meet while working in Inland Revenue in Dublin in the 1910s.

Thornley receives a BA and PhD at Trinity College Dublin. His PhD is entitled “Isaac Butt and the creation of an Irish Parliamentary Party (1868–1879)” and is written under the supervision of Theodore William Moody. Working as a presenter on 7 Days since 1963, he is appointed Associate professor of Trinity in 1968. In 1964, he publishes the book Isaac Butt and Home Rule.

After joining Labour in 1969, Thornley is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency at the 1969 Irish general election. He confronts the party leader Brendan Corish, who at the time of the Arms Crisis reportedly rejects out of hand any suggestion of military aid or use of force after the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland.

Thornley considers himself to be “in the mould of James Connolly,” being a practising Catholic, Marxist and republican.

In December 1972, Thornley calls for the immediate release of Seán Mac Stíofáin, then leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He is re-elected at the 1973 Irish general election. In April 1976, he loses the Labour Party whip after appearing on a Sinn Féin platform during Easter Rising commemorations. In September 1976, he votes for the Criminal Justice (Jurisdiction) Bill despite misgivings. He tells The Irish Times, “When I get very depressed, I drink too much. When I voted for the Criminal Justice (Jurisdiction Bill) I went on the batter for a forthnight [sic].” In February 1977, he is re-admitted to the Labour Parliamentary Party. He loses his seat at the 1977 Irish general election.

In 1978, Thornley joins the newly formed Socialist Labour Party (SLP) stating that he has done so because “There is no man in politics that I respect more than Noël Browne, despite our occasional differences. If the SLP is good for him, it’s good enough for me.”

Overweight, afflicted with undiagnosed diabetes, his judgement increasingly erratic, from the early 1970s Thornley suffers a steady deterioration of health, compounded by his heavy drinking, on which he relies to cope with stress and emotional depression. On one occasion he collapses in the Dáil and is attended by party colleague Dr. John O’Connell. He dies at the age of 42 on June 18, 1978, one week after admission into Jervis Street private nursing home. After a sung Latin Requiem Mass in St. Andrew’s Church, Westland Row, Dublin, he is buried in Bohernabreena Cemetery, County Dublin.

The Trinity College Labour Branch is formerly named the David Thornley Branch in his honour.


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Death of “Mick” Mannock, British-Irish Flying Ace

Edward Corringham “Mick” Mannock VC, DSO & Two Bars, MC & Bar, a British-Irish flying ace who serves in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War I, is killed on July 26, 1918, when his plane crashes behind German lines. He is a pioneer of fighter aircraft tactics in aerial warfare. At the time of his death, he has amassed 61 aerial victories, making him the fifth highest scoring pilot of the war. He is among the most decorated men in the British Armed Forces. He is honoured with the Military Cross (MC) twice, is one of the rare three-time recipients of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and is posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).

Mannock was born on May 24, 1887, to an English father, Edward Mannock, and an Irish mother, Julia Sullivan. His father serves in the British Army and in 1893, deeply in debt and exasperated with civilian life, he re-enlists, and the family moves to Meerut, India when he is five years old. In his early years, he is sickly and develops several ailments. Soon after arriving in Asia, he contracts malaria, narrowly avoiding death. Upon his return to England, he becomes a fervent supporter of Irish nationalism and the Irish Home Rule movement but becomes a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP).

In 1914, Mannock is working as a telephone engineer in Turkey. After the Ottoman Empire‘s entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers he is interned. Poorly fed and cared for, his health rapidly declines in prison. Dysentery racks his intestines, and he is confined to a small cell. Turkish authorities repatriate him to Britain believing him to be unfit for war service. He recovers and joins the Royal Engineers (RE) and then the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He moves services again and in 1916 joins Royal Flying Corps (RFC). After completing his training, he is assigned to No. 40 Squadron RFC. He goes into combat on the Western Front, participating in three separate combat tours. After a slow start he begins to prove himself as an exceptional pilot, scoring his first victory on May 7, 1917.

By February 1918, Mannock has achieved sixteen victories and is appointed a Flight Commander in No. 74 Squadron. He amasses thirty-six more victories from April 12 — June 17, 1918. After returning from leave he is appointed commanding officer of No. 85 Squadron in July 1918, and scores nine more victories that month.

On July 26, Major Mannock offers to help a new arrival, Lt. Donald C. Inglis from New Zealand, obtain his first victory. After shooting down an enemy LVG two-seater behind the German front-line, Mannock is believed to have dived to the crash site to view the wreckage, seemingly breaking one of the unwritten rules of fellow pilots about the hazards of flying low into ground fire. In consequence, while crossing the trenches the fighters are met with a massive volley of ground fire. The engine of his aircraft is hit and immediately catches fire, and shortly thereafter the plane crashes behind German lines. His body is believed to have been found, though this is unproven, about 250 yards (250m) from the wreck of his plane, perhaps thrown, perhaps jumped. The body shows no gunshot wounds although he had vowed to shoot himself if shot down in flames.

The exact cause of Mannock’s death remains uncertain. A year later, after intensive lobbying by Ira Jones and many of his former comrades, he is awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).

Mannock’s body is not subsequently recovered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), so officially he has no known grave. His name is commemorated on the Arras Flying Services Memorial to the missing at the Faubourg d’Amiens CWGC Cemetery in Arras, France. There is also a memorial plaque in his honour in Canterbury Cathedral.

Mannock’s name is listed on the Wellingborough War Memorial with the other fallen men from the town and the local Air Training Corps (ATC) unit bears his name – 378 (Mannock) Squadron. Additionally, Mannock Road, a residential street in Wellingborough, is named after him.

On June 24, 1988, a plaque is unveiled at 183 Mill Road, Wellingborough, by top scoring World War II British fighter pilot Air Vice-Marshal Johnnie Johnson. Mannock had lived at that address prior to the war after being befriended by the Eyles family.


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The London Stock Exchange Bombing

The London Stock Exchange bombing occurs at 8:49 a.m. on the morning of July 20, 1990, with the explosion of a 5 to 10 lb. (2.3 to 4.5 kg) bomb of high explosives inside the London Stock Exchange building on Threadneedle Street in the City of London, England, planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The building and surrounding area are evacuated after the IRA gives a telephone warning 40 minutes prior to the explosion, and thus nobody is wounded. As many as 300 people are evacuated from the building alone. The bomb’s strength blows a 10-foot hole inside the Stock Exchange Tower and causes massive damage to the visitors’ gallery on the first floor, which is frequently used by foreign tourists and schoolchildren and had been scheduled to open ten minutes after the explosion. The bomb is placed in the men’s toilets behind the gallery. The gallery and public viewing area is forced to close in 1992.

The bombing comes on the eighth anniversary of the July 20, 1982, Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombings which killed eleven soldiers and wounded 53 people. The IRA launches a renewed campaign in London in 1990. During May, a soldier at an army recruiting centre is killed by a bomb in Wembley, while five are injured in a similar explosion in Eltham. In June 1990, bombs at the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) and the Carlton Club injure 19 and 20 people respectively.

Scotland Yard‘s anti-terrorist chief George Churchill-Coleman says eight phone calls from the same man with an Irish accent are made between 8:02 a.m. and 8:20 a.m. to the City of London Police, the London Fire Brigade, Reuters, the Financial Times, The Salvation Army and the Stock Exchange itself. The caller telephones Reuters just after 8:00 a.m. and says, “This is the IRA. The bomb is due to go off in half an hour at the stock exchange.” The caller then gives a code word that the police say is known to them and used by the IRA to show that its threats are serious, and says, “Clear the building.”

The Stock Exchange’s chairman, however, says after the attack, “If the purpose of this callous act was to bring the City to a halt, they have failed singularly.” The explosion has little impact on stock trading since that is being carried out by computers elsewhere.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher says she is “appalled when people leave explosive devices in this manner in public areas.” On October 12, 1984, a bomb planted by the IRA at the Grand Brighton Hotel in Brighton, where the Conservative Party is holding its annual conference, kills five people and comes close to killing Thatcher.

In 1992, the IRA bombs the Baltic Exchange building in the city.

(Pictured: The Stock Exchange Tower in 1983, taken from the top of the National Westminster Tower (now Tower 42), clearly showing the symbolic coffin shape of the building)


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The Provisional IRA Resumes the August 1994 Ceasefire

On July 19, 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.

The Provisional IRA, officially known as the Irish Republican Army (Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) and informally as the Provos, is an Irish republican paramilitary force that seeks to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It is the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argues that the all-island Irish Republic continues to exist, and it sees itself as that state’s army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). It is designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejects.

The Provisional IRA emerges in December 1969, due to a split within the previous incarnation of the IRA and the broader Irish republican movement. It is initially the minority faction in the split compared to the Official IRA but becomes the dominant faction by 1972. The Troubles begin shortly before when a largely Catholic, nonviolent civil rights campaign is met with violence from both Ulster loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), culminating in the August 1969 riots and deployment of British soldiers. The IRA initially focuses on defence of Catholic areas, but it begins an offensive campaign in 1970 that is aided by external sources, including Irish diaspora communities within the Anglosphere, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. It uses guerrilla tactics against the British Army and RUC in both rural and urban areas and carries out a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and England against military, political and economic targets, and British military targets in mainland Europe. They also target civilian contractors to the British security forces. The IRA’s armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, kills over 1,700 people, including roughly 1,000 members of the British security forces and 500–644 civilians.

The Provisional IRA declares a final ceasefire on July 19, 1997, after which its political wing, Sinn Féin, is admitted into multi-party peace talks on the future of Northern Ireland. These talks result in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In 2005, the IRA formally ends its armed campaign and decommissions its weapons under the supervision of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. Several splinter groups have been formed as a result of splits within the IRA, including the Continuity IRA, which is still active in the dissident Irish republican campaign, and the Real IRA.

The Provisional IRA issues the following statement to news media on the morning of July 19, 1997:

“On August 31, 1994, the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (Gaelic for Irish Republican Army) announced a complete cessation of military operations as our contribution to the search for a lasting peace.

After 17 months of cessation, in which the British government and the (pro-British Protestant) unionists blocked any possibility of real or inclusive negotiations, we reluctantly abandoned the cessation.

The Irish Republican Army is committed to ending British rule in Ireland.

It is the root cause of division and conflict in our country. We want a permanent peace and therefore we are prepared to enhance the search for a democratic peace settlement through real and inclusive negotiations.

So, having assessed the current political situation, the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann are announcing a complete cessation of military operations from 12 o’clock midday on Sunday the 20th, July 1997.

We have ordered the unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire of August 1994. All IRA units have been instructed accordingly.”


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Death of Lord John Beresford, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh

Lord John George de la Poer Beresford, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, dies on July 18, 1862, at Woburn, Bedfordshire, England.

Beresford is born at Tyrone House, Dublin, on November 22, 1773, the second surviving son of George de La Poer Beresford, 1st Marquess of Waterford, and his wife Elizabeth, only daughter of Henry Monck and maternal granddaughter of Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland. He attends Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in 1793 and a Master of Arts three years later.

Beresford is ordained a priest in 1797 and begins his ecclesiastical career with incumbencies at Clonegal and Newtownlennan. In 1799 he becomes Dean of Clogher and is raised to the episcopate as Bishop of Cork and Ross in 1805. He is translated becoming Bishop of Raphoe two years later and is appointed 90th Bishop of Clogher in 1819. He is again translated to become Archbishop of Dublin the following year and is sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland. In 1822, he goes on to be the 106th Archbishop of Armagh and therefore also Primate of All Ireland. He becomes Prelate of the Order of St. Patrick and Lord Almoner of Ireland. Having been vice-chancellor from 1829, he is appointed the 15th Chancellor of the University of Dublin in 1851, a post he holds until his death in 1862.

Beresford employs Lewis Nockalls Cottingham, one of the most skilled architects of the time, to restore St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh. Cottingham removes the old, stunted spire and shores up the belfry stages while he rebuilds the piers and arches under it. The arcade walls which had fallen away as much as 21 inches from the perpendicular on the south side and 7 inches on the north side, are straightened by means of heated irons, and the clerestory windows which had long been concealed, are opened out and filled with tracery.

Beresford is unsympathetically represented by Charles Forbes René de Montalembert with whom he has breakfast at Castle Gurteen de la Poer during his tour of Ireland.

Beresford dies on July 18, 1862, at Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, the home of his niece, in the parish of Donaghadee and is buried in the cathedral. There is a memorial to him in the south aisle at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh.


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First Official Meeting of An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland

The first official meeting of An Taisce, The National Trust for Ireland, takes place on July 15, 1948, at the Royal Irish Academy‘s headquarters, Academy House on Dawson Street, Dublin.

An Taisce is established on a provisional basis in September 1946 and incorporated as a company based on an “association not for profit” in June 1948. It is a charitable non-governmental organisation (NGO) active in the areas of the environment and built heritage in the Republic of Ireland. It considers itself the oldest environmental and non-governmental organisation in the country and is somewhat similar to the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland but based more directly on the National Trust for Scotland. Its first president is the prominent naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger.

An Taisce is a membership-based charity, rather than a state or semi-state organisation, or quango, but it does receive government and European Union funding for specific programmes, such as Blue Flag beaches, and Green Schools private-sector funding for, for example, the Irish Business Against Litter surveys, and a mix of State and private funding for the annual National Spring Clean. An Taisce has for decades also had a statutory role in certain planning and environmental processes in the country.

The work of the organisation includes policy recommendation and campaigning in the built and natural heritage areas, the holding in trust of relevant properties, and environmentally relevant education. It has a number of local associations, which may assist in caring for properties, and monitor planning in their areas.

A public meeting to consider the need for a national trust is held in the Mansion House in September 1946, convened by the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, An Óige, the Geographical Society of Ireland, the Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club and the Irish Society for the Preservation of Birds. The meeting resolves to create such a body, and elect both a provisional committee, and a council of 16 plus 4 co-opted members, who secure bankers, auditors and solicitors. After extensive debate, the two-part name is chosen and application is made to form a not-for-profit company. Special approval is sought from the Minister for Trade and Commerce for charity-appropriate memorandum and articles, adhering to the “association not for profit” section of the then Companies Act, with a prohibition on distribution of surpluses, and for permission to omit the word “Limited” from the company name.

An Taisce is an indirect successor to the all-Island National Trust Committee which had ceased to exist in 1946 after the passing of the Northern Ireland National Trust Act.

The organisation is duly incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on June 28, 1948. The initial constitution is modelled on that of the National Trust for Scotland. The first official meeting of the company was held on July 15, 1948, at the Royal Irish Academy’s headquarters, Academy House on Dawson Street, and the first annual general meeting is convened on September 23 of the same year, with formal greetings from the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland.

Notable founder directors and council members include Robert Lloyd Praeger, James Sleator, Michael Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse, Patrick G. Kennedy, Arthur Cox, George Francis Mitchell and, co-opted, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, Seán MacBride and Colm Ó Lochlainn. Praeger was elected as the first president of the organisation and Professor Felix Hackett as chairperson. Praeger makes an opening address which is subsequently broadcast nationally by Raidió Éireann.

An Taisce’s headquarters are in Dublin’s oldest surviving guildhall, the Tailors’ Hall, which it helped to restore.


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Birth of John Gray, Physician, Journalist & Politician

Sir John Gray JP, Irish physician, surgeon, newspaper proprietor, journalist and politician, is born in Claremorris, County Mayo, on July 13, 1815. He is active both in municipal and national government for much of his life and has nationalist ideals, which he expresses as owner of the Freeman’s Journal, chairman of the Dublin Corporation Water Works Committee between 1863 and 1875, and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for Kilkenny City from 1865 until his death.

Gray is the third son of John and Elizabeth Gray of Mount Street. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin and obtains the degree of M.D. and Master of Surgery at the University of Glasgow in 1839. Shortly before his marriage in the same year, he settles in Dublin and takes up a post at a hospital in North Cumberland Street. He is admitted as a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in due course.

Gray is publicly minded and contributes to periodicals and the newspaper press. In 1841, he becomes joint proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, a nationalist paper which is then published daily and weekly. He acts as political editor of the Journal for a time, before becoming sole proprietor in 1850. As owner, he increases the newspaper’s size, reduces its price and extends its circulation.

Gray enters politics at a relatively young age and attaches himself to Daniel O’Connell‘s Repeal Association. As a Protestant Nationalist, he supports the movement for the repeal of the Acts of Union with Britain. In October 1843, he is indicted with O’Connell and others in the Court of the Queen’s Bench in Dublin on a charge of sedition and “conspiracy against the queen.” The following February, he, together with O’Connell, is condemned to nine months imprisonment, but in early September 1844 the sentence is remitted on appeal. The trial has a strong element of farce, as the hot-tempered Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, challenges Gray’s counsel, Gerald Fitzgibbon, to a duel, for which he is sternly reprimanded by the judges. From then on Gray is careful to distance himself from the advocacy of violence in the national cause, though he is sympathetic to the Young Ireland movement without being involved in its 1848 rebellion. Through the growing influence of the Freeman’s Journal, he becomes a significant figure in Dublin municipal politics. He is also active in national politics during an otherwise quiet period of Irish politics up until 1860. With the resurgence of nationalism after the famine, he helps to organise the Tenant’s League founding conference in 1850, standing unsuccessfully as the League’s candidate for Monaghan in the 1852 United Kingdom general election.

Later Gray originates and organises the “courts of arbitration” which O’Connell endeavours to substitute for the existing legal tribunals of the country. Following O’Connell’s death, in 1862 he inaugurates an appeal for subscriptions to build a monument to O’Connell on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street). Independent from O’Connell, he continues to take a prominent part in Irish politics and in local affairs.

In municipal politics, Gray is elected councillor in 1852 and alderman of Dublin Corporation and takes an interest in the improvement of the city. As chairman of the committee for a new water supply to Dublin, he actively promotes what becomes the “Vartry scheme.” The Vartry Reservoir scheme involves the partial redirection and damming of the River Vartry in County Wicklow, and the building of a series of water piping and filtering systems (and related public works) to carry fresh water to the city. This work is particularly important in the improvement of conditions in the city, and to public health, as it improves sanitation and helps reduce outbreaks of cholera, typhus and other diseases associated with contaminated water. On the opening of the works on June 30, 1863, he is knighted by the Earl of Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Partially in recognition of these efforts, he is later be nominated for the position of Lord Mayor of Dublin for the years 1868–69, but he declines to serve.

In national politics, the Liberal government at the time is keen to conciliate an influential representative of the moderate nationalists to support British Liberalism and who will resume O’Connell’s constitutional agitation. In an unusual alliance with the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen, a man devoted to O’Connell’s memory, Gray’s newspaper exploits this shift in government policy. It supports the archbishop’s creation, the National Association of Ireland, established in 1864 with the intention of providing a moderate alternative to the revolutionary nationalism of the Fenians. The Freeman’s Journal adopts the aims of the Association as its own: it advocates the disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Ireland, reform of the land laws, educational aspirations of Irish Catholicism and free denominal education.

In the 1865 United Kingdom general election Gray is elected MP for Kilkenny City as a Liberal candidate. In this capacity he campaigns successfully at Westminster and in Ireland for the reforms also advocated in his paper. His newspaper’s inquiry into the anomalous wealth of the established church amidst a predominately Catholic population contributes considerably to William Ewert Gladstone‘s Irish Church Act 1869. He helps to furnish the proof that Irish demands are not to be satisfied by anything other than by radical legislation. He fights for the provision in the new Landlord & Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 for fixity of tenure, which Gladstone eventually concedes. The Act’s other weaknesses, however, result in its failure to resolve the “land question,” the accompanying coercion, the disappointment with Gladstone’s handling of the university question and national education, causing Gray to deflect from the Liberals and become mistrusted in Britain. In the 1874 United Kingdom general election he is re-elected as a Home Rule League MP for Kilkenny, joining its Home Rule majority in the House of Commons, and holds his seat until his death the following year.

Gray dies at Bath, Somerset, England, on April 9, 1875. His remains are returned to Ireland, and he is honoured with a public funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery. Almost immediately afterwards public subscriptions are sought for the erection in O’Connell Street, of a monument to Gray. The monument is completed in 1879 and is dedicated to the “appreciation of his many services to his country, and of the splendid supply of pure water which he secured for Dublin.” His legacy also includes his contributions to the passage of the Irish Church and Land Bills, his advocacy for tenant’s rights and his support of the Home Rule movement.

Gray marries Mary Anna Dwyer of Limerick in 1839, and they have five children, three sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Edmund Dwyer Gray, takes over the management of the Freeman’s Journal. Edmund also follows his father into politics, eventually becoming MP for Dublin St. Stephen’s Green, Lord Mayor of Dublin (1880–1881), and a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell. Edmund John Chisholm Dwyer-Gray, Edmund Dwyer Gray’s son and John Gray’s grandson, becomes Premier of Tasmania.

(Pictured: Statue to Sir John Gray on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, designed by Thomas Farrell and unveiled on June 24, 1879. Photo credit: Graham Hickey)


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Death of May Tennant, Civil Servant & Trade Unionist

Margaret Edith (May) Tennant (née Abraham), CH, civil servant, trade unionist, factory inspector, and campaigner, dies at Great Maytham, near Rolvenden, Kent, England, on July 11, 1946.

Abraham is born on April 5, 1869, in Rathgar, County Dublin. She works to improve conditions for industrial workers and is also involved in women’s health and education. She is one of the first people to be appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1917.

Abraham is educated at home. Following her father’s death in 1887, she decides to move to London in search of employment. In London she becomes secretary to Emilia, Lady Dilke, who is a leader of the Women’s Trade Union League, an organisation of which she becomes treasurer. She supports the London Dock Strike of 1889 and helps organise laundresses.

In 1891, Abraham is appointed to the Royal Commission on Labour, set up to investigate the poor conditions faced by industrial workers, as one of four women assistant commissioners.

H. H. Asquith decides to appoint women factory inspectors in 1893, and Abraham is one of his first choices, soon superintending a team of five women inspectors. In this position, she is known for her good humour which helps relations with factory managers. In 1895, she joins the Departmental Committee on Dangerous Trades. She writes a book on factory legislation in 1896, The Laws Relating to Factories and Workshops, Including Laundries and Docks.

In 1896, Abraham marries Harold Tennant, brother-in-law of and parliamentary secretary to Asquith, and chairman of the Departmental Committee on Dangerous Trades. She resigns in 1897 shortly before the birth of her first son, to devote herself to her family. She goes on to have five children. Her eldest son, Henry, is killed in battle in 1917 during World War I.

Despite her new family life, Tennant does not give up her work entirely, remaining on the Committee on Dangerous Trades. In 1899, she becomes chairman of the Industrial Law Indemnity Fund, which provides compensation to victimised workers. She is on the Royal Commission on Divorce in 1909 and is a founder and treasurer of the Central Committee for Women’s Employment.

During World War I, Tennant takes on more work. She works initially for the War Office as welfare advisor, then briefly in the Women’s Department of the National Service Department, before moving to the Ministry of Munitions. After the war, she reduces her workload, but still serves on committees on maternal mortality and maternal health. She is also a governor of Bedford College in London, an institution founded for the education of women that is part of the University of London. From 1941 she is closely involved in campaigning for the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund.

Tennant and her husband purchase and rebuild a country house, Great Maytham, at Rolvenden, Kent, a property whose old walled garden had earlier been the inspiration for The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. She develops expertise as a gardener, becoming prominent in the Royal Horticultural Society. After her husband’s death in 1935, she moves to a smaller house named Cornhill at Great Maytham, where she dies July 11, 1946. Some of her correspondence is in the British Library, London.