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Death of Evelyn Gleeson, Designer & Co-founder of Dun Emer Press

Evelyn Gleeson, English embroidery, carpet, and tapestry designer, dies at the age of 89 at Dun Emer, Dundrum, Dublin, on February 20, 1944. Along with Elizabeth and Lily Yeats, she establishes the Dun Emer Press.

Gleeson is born on May 15, 1855, in Knutsford, Cheshire, England, the daughter of Irish-born Edward Moloney Gleeson, a medical doctor, and Harriet (née Simpson), from Bolton, Lancashire. Her father has a practice in Knutsford but on a trip to Ireland he is struck by the poverty and unemployment and, with the advice of his brother-in-law, a textile manufacturer in Lancashire, he founds the Athlone Woollen Mills in 1859, investing all his money in the project. The family moves to Athlone in 1863, but Gleeson is educated in England, where she trains as a teacher. She later studies portraiture in London at the Atelier Ludovici from 1890–92. She goes on to study design with Alexander Millar, a follower of William Morris, who believes she has an exceptional aptitude for colour-blending. Many of her designs are bought by the exclusive Templeton Carpets of Glasgow.

Gleeson takes a keen interest in Irish affairs and, as a member of the Gaelic League and the Irish Literary Society, mixes with the Yeats family and the Irish artistic circle in London and is inspired by the Gaelic revival in art and literature. She is also involved in the suffrage movement and is chairwoman of the Pioneer Club, a women’s club in London. In 1900, an opportunity arises to make a practical contribution to the Irish renaissance and the emancipation of Irish women. She is suffering from ill-health, but her friend Augustine Henry, botanist and linguist, suggests she move away from the London smog to Ireland and open a craft centre with his financial assistance. She seizes the opportunity and discusses her plans with her friends the Yeats sisters, Elizabeth and Lily, who are talented craftswomen and have direct contact with William Morris and his followers. They have no money to contribute to the venture but are enthusiastic and can offer their skills and provide contacts. She seeks advice from W. B. and Jack Yeats, from Henry, who loans her £500, and from her cousin, T. P. Gill, secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.

During the summer of 1902 Gleeson finds a suitable house in Dundrum, County Dublin, ten minutes from the railway station. The house, originally called Runnymede, is renamed Dun Emer, after the wife of Cú-Chulainn, renowned for her craft skills. The printing press arrives in November 1902, and soon three craft industries are in operation. Lily Yeats runs the embroidery section, since she had trained with Morris’s daughter May. Elizabeth Yeats operates the press, having learned printing at the Women’s Printing Society in London. Gleeson manages the weaving and tapestry and looks after the financial affairs of the industries. W. B. Yeats acts as literary adviser, an arrangement that often causes friction, and Gleeson’s sister, Constance McCormack, is also involved.

Local girls are employed and trained, and the industries seek to use the best of Irish materials to make beautiful, high-quality, lasting products of original design. Church patronage accounts for most of their orders and, in 1902–03, Loughrea cathedral commissions twenty-four embroidered banners portraying Irish saints. They also make vestments, traditional dresses, drapes, cushions and other items, all beautifully crafted and mostly employing Celtic design. The first book published is In the Seven Woods (1903), by W. B. Yeats, cased in full Irish linen.

Gleeson is in demand as an adjudicator in craft competitions around the country and at Feis na nGleann in 1904 she praises the workmanship of the entries but is critical of the lack of teaching in design. She gives lectures and tries to raise the status of craftwork from household occupation to competitive industry. There are tensions with the Yeats sisters, who complain that she is bad-tempered and arrogant. In truth she had taken on too much of a financial burden, even with the support of grants, and she is anxious to repay her debt to Augustine Henry, which he is prepared to forego. The sisters snub her and omit her name in an interview about Dun Emer in the magazine House Beautiful. Millar, her design teacher in London, likens the omission to Hamlet without the prince. In 1904, it is decided to split the industries on a cooperative basis: Dun Emer Guild Ltd. under Gleeson and Dun Emer Industries Ltd. under the Yeats sisters.

Work continues, and the guild and industries exhibit separately at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and other craft competitions. In 1907, the National Museum of Ireland commissions a copy of a Flemish tapestry. It takes far longer than anticipated to complete, but the result is beautiful and is exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland in 1910. The guild wins a silver medal at the Milan International exhibition in 1906. The guild and industries both show work at the New York exhibition of 1908. The guild alone shows work in Boston. By now cooperation has turned to rivalry, and there is a final split as the Yeats sisters leave, taking the printing press with them to their house in Churchtown, Dublin. Gleeson writes off a debt of £185 owed to her, on condition that they do not use the name Dun Emer.

The business thrives at Dundrum, with her niece Katherine (Kitty) MacCormack and Augustine Henry’s niece, May Kerley, assisting with design. Later they move the workshops to Hardwicke Street, Dublin. In 1909, Gleeson becomes one of the first members of the Guild of Irish Art Workers and is made master in 1917. The Irish Women Workers’ Union commissions a banner from her about 1919, and, among numerous other notable successes, a Dun Emer carpet is presented to Pope Pius XI in 1932, the year of the Eucharistic Congress of Dublin.

Gleeson dies at the age of 89 at Dun Emer, Dundrum, Dublin, on February 20, 1944, with Kitty carrying on the Guild after her death. The final home of Dun Emer is a shop on Harcourt Street, Dublin, which finally closes in 1964.

(From: “Gleeson, Evelyn” by Ruth Devine, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Irish Brigade of France Participates in the Capture of Saint Kitts

On February 13, 1782, the Irish Brigade of France plays a significant role in the capture of Saint Kitts during the American Revolutionary War. The brigade, commanded by Arthur Dillon, is part of the French forces that besiege the British stronghold of Brimstone Hill. The siege lasts for 31 days, and after a fierce battle, the British forces surrender.

The Battle of Saint Kitts, also known as the Battle of Frigate Bay, is a naval battle fought on January 25 and 26, 1782, during the American Revolutionary War between a British fleet under Rear Admiral Sir Samuel Hood and a larger French fleet under François Joseph Paul de Grasse.

When Hood returns to the West Indies in late 1781 after the Battle of the Chesapeake, he is for a time in independent command owing to Admiral George Rodney‘s absence in England. The French admiral, François Joseph Paul de Grasse, attacks the British islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis with 7,000 troops and 50 warships, including the 110-gun Ville de Paris. He starts by besieging the British fortress on Brimstone Hill on January 11, 1782. Hoping to salvage the situation, Hood makes for Saint Kitts by departing Antigua on January 22 with twenty-two ships of the line, compared to de Grasse’s thirty-six.

The British fleet on January 24 consists of twenty-two sail of the line, and is close off the southeast end of Nevis. They run into and capture the French 16-gun cutter Espion, which carries a large amount of ammunition for the besieging French forces at Brimstone Hill.

At daybreak on January 25, the French fleet is discovered having stood to the southward of Basseterre, consisting of a 110-gun ship, 28 two-decked ships, and two frigates. Hood stands toward the French fleet with the apparent intention of bringing on action, and effectively draws the French fleet off the land. As soon as Hood effects this maneuver, he is aided by a favorable change in wind and is able to guide his fleet within the anchorage of Basseterre, which the French admiral has just quit. Hood orders his fleet in an L-formation and then orders his fleet to lay anchor. De Grasse makes three distinct attacks upon the British fleet on January 26 but is repulsed.

The Pluton, commanded by François Hector d’Albert de Rions, leads the French line, “receiving the crashing broadside of ship after ship until the splintered planking flew from her off side and her rigging hung in a tangled mass.” Chauvent goes on to describe the battle as “…a sulphurous hell, with cannon vomiting forth flame and death.” The entire battle lasts from 7:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., with the major action in the afternoon.

Damage on both sides is heavy, though the French suffer higher casualties. However, Hood is unable to stop the French and can only observe the land action. After the successful French siege of Brimstone Hill fortress, Saint Kitts and Nevis surrender on February 12. Hood leaves on February 14 and joins forces with the recently arrived Admiral George Rodney.

The capture of Saint Kitts marks a pivotal moment in the war, as it is the last major military action of the Irish Brigade of France. The regiment’s efforts are crucial in the French victory, and their legacy is remembered for their contributions to the fight for liberty.

In 1791, after the French Revolution, the Brigade’s close ties to the monarchy of France causes the leaders of the new Republic to disband the famous unit. Dillon, whose family and regiment sacrifice so much for France during its 100-years service, later dies on the Revolutionary government’s guillotine.

(Pictured: “The Battle of Frigate Bay, 26 January 1782,” oil on canvas painting by Nicholas Pocock, 1784, current location Royal Museums Greenwich)


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Birth of James Chichester-Clark, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

James Dawson Chichester-Clark, Baron Moyola, the penultimate Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and eighth leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), is born as James Dawson Clark on February 12, 1923, at Moyola Park, near Castledawson, County Londonderry, his family’s ancestral home.

Chichester-Clark is the eldest of three children of James Lenox-Conyngham Clark and Marion Caroline Dehra (née Chichester). His brother is Robin Chichester-Clark and his sister is Penelope Hobhouse, the garden writer and historian.

In 1924, James Clark Snr. changes the family name to Chichester-Clark by deed poll, thus preventing the old Protestant Ascendancy name Chichester, his wife’s maiden name, from dying out. On his mother’s side the family are descended from the Donegall Chichesters and are the heirs of the Dawsons of Castledawson, who had originally held Moyola Park.

Educated, against his own wishes, at Selwyn House, Broadstairs, and then Eton College, Chichester-Clark leaves school and enters adulthood in the midst of World War II. On joining the Irish Guards, the regiment of his grandfather, in Omagh, he begins his year-long training at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, before receiving his commission as a second lieutenant.

Chichester-Clark marries widow Moyra Haughton (née Morris) in 1959. Lady Moyola’s first husband, Capt. Thomas Haughton from Cullybackey, had been killed in the RAF Nutts Corner air crash in January 1953. She, while pregnant, is seriously injured in the crash and suffers a broken neck.  He and his wife have two daughters (Tara and Fiona), in addition to Moyra’s son Michael from her previous marriage. Lady Moyola is a cousin of Colonel Sir Michael McCorkell, Lord Lieutenant of County Londonderry (1975–2000). Chichester-Clark serves as his Vice Lord-Lieutenant.

Chichester-Clark is an officer in the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, part of 24th Infantry Brigade attached to British 1st Infantry Division, and participates briefly in the Anzio landings. He is injured on February 23, 1944, by an 88m shell as he and his Platoon Sergeant take their first look at the ground in the “gullies” to the west of the Anzio–Albano Laziale road. His company is all but wiped out, and he spends most of the war in hospital recovering from injuries, the effects of which stay with him throughout his life.

Following the war, Chichester-Clark’s military career takes him from the dull duties of the post-war occupation of Germany, to Canada as aide-de-camp to Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, then Governor General of Canada. The popularity and competence of his senior officer makes this uneventful two-year period of his life the most remarkable element of his pre-parliamentary career. On returning from Canada, he continues in the Army for several years, refusing promotion to seniority before retiring a major in 1960.

In an uncontested by-election in 1960, Chichester-Clark takes over the South Londonderry seat in the Northern Ireland Parliament that had been held by his grandmother, Dame Dehra Parker, since 1933. As Dehra Chichester, she is an MP for the county of Londonderry until 1929 when she stands down for a first time. Chichester-Clark’s father replaces her in 1929 when the county is split, but he suddenly dies in 1933. Dehra, by then remarried, willingly returns to Northern Ireland from England, and wins the ensuing by-election.

Chichester-Clark retains the seat for the remainder of the Parliament’s existence, and so the South Londonderry area is represented by three generations of the same family for the entire period of the Northern Ireland House of Commons. Between 1929 and the last election in 1969, the family is challenged for the seat on only two occasions, the second being in 1969, when future Westminster MP Bernadette Devlin stands, attracting 39% of the vote.

Chichester-Clark makes his maiden speech on February 8, 1961, during the Queen’s speech debate.

For the remainder of Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough‘s premiership, Chichester-Clark remains on the back benches. It is not until 1963, when Terence O’Neill becomes Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, that he is appointed assistant whip, and a month later when William Craig is promoted to the Ministry of Home Affairs, he takes over as Government Chief Whip. Accounts of the period are that he enjoys the Whip’s office more than any other he is to subsequently hold in politics. This despite including references to anti O’Neill MP and future Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Westminster MP, John McQuade, and the occasional “good row.” From the outset, O’Neill takes the unusual decision to allow Chichester-Clark to attend and speak at all cabinet meetings while Chief Whip. Proving a competent parliamentary party administrator, O’Neill adds Leader of the House of Commons to Chichester-Clark’s duties in October 1966, a promotion that makes him a full member of the Cabinet. He is also sworn into the Privy Council of Northern Ireland in 1966.

In 1967, O’Neill sacks his Minister of Agriculture, Harry West, for ministerial impropriety, and Chichester-Clark is appointed in his place, a position he retains for two quiet years. On April 23, 1969, he resigns from the Cabinet one day prior to a crucial Parliamentary Party meeting, claiming that he disagrees with the Prime Minister’s decision to grant universal suffrage in local government elections at that time. He states that he disagrees not with the principle of one man one vote but with the timing of the decision, having the previous day expressed doubts over the expediency of the measure in Cabinet. It has since been suggested that his resignation was in order to accelerate O’Neill’s own resignation, and to improve his own position in the jostling to succeed him.

O’Neill “finally walked away” five days later on April 28, 1969. In order to beat his only serious rival, Brian Faulkner, Chichester-Clark needs the backing of O’Neill-ite MPs elected at the 1969 Northern Ireland general election, to which end he attends a tea party in O’Neill’s honour only days after causing his resignation.

Chichester-Clark beats Faulkner in the 1969 Ulster Unionist Party leadership election by one vote on May 1, 1969, with his predecessor using his casting vote in the tied election for his distant cousin because “Faulkner had been stabbing him in the back for a lot longer.” Although Faulkner believes, until his death, that he is the victim of an upper-class conspiracy to deny him the premiership, he becomes a high profile and loyal member of Chichester-Clark’s cabinet.

Chichester-Clark’s premiership is punctuated by civil unrest that erupts after August 1969. He suffers from the effects of the Hunt Report, which recommends the disbandment of the Ulster Special Constabulary, which his Government accepts to the consternation of many Unionists.

In April 1970, Chichester-Clark’s predecessor and another Unionist MP resign their seats in the Northern Ireland House of Commons. The by-election campaigns are punctuated by major liberal speeches by senior government figures like Brian Faulkner, Jack Andrews and the Prime Minister himself. Ian Paisley‘s Protestant Unionist Party (PUP), however, takes both seats in the House of Commons. Later that same month the O’Neill-ite group, the New Ulster Movement, becomes the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, and his party begins passing votes of no confidence in him.

As the civil unrest grows, the British Government, particularly the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, becomes increasingly involved in Northern Ireland’s affairs, forcing Chichester-Clark’s hand on many issues. These include the disbanding of the “B” Specials of the Ulster Special Constabulary and, importantly, the handing over of operational control of the security forces to the British Army General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland.

On March 9, 1971, the Provisional Irish Republican Army lures three off-duty soldiers from a pub in Belfast to a lane way outside the city, where they kill them. Chichester-Clark flies to London on March 18, 1971, to request a new security initiative from the new British prime minister Edward Heath, who offers an extra 1,300 troops, and resists what he sees as an attempt by Chichester-Clark to gain political control over them. Chichester-Clark resigns on March 20.

On March 23, 1971, Brian Faulkner is elected UUP leader in a vote by Unionist MP’s, defeating William Craig by twenty-six votes to four. He is appointed prime minister the same day.

On July 20, 1971, Chichester-Clark is created a life peer as Baron Moyola, of Castledawson in the County of Londonderry, his title taken from the name of his family’s estate. He endorses the Good Friday Agreement in the 1998 Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement referendum. He remains quiet about his political career in his retirement. Lady Moyola, however, says that her husband does enjoy the time – contrary to popular opinion – and that he thinks of life as an MP as akin to that of an army welfare officer.

Chichester Clark dies on May 17, 2002, at the age of 79, following a short illness. His funeral takes place at Christ Church in Castledawson on May 21. He is the last surviving Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.


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Death of Charles Frederick Williams, Writer & Journalist

Charles Frederick Williams, a Scottish-Irish writer, journalist, and war correspondent, dies in Brixton, London, England, on February 9, 1904.

Williams is born on May 4, 1838, in Coleraine, County Londonderry. He claims to be descended on his father’s side from Worcestershire yeomen living in the parishes of Tenbury and Mamble. On his mother’s side he descends from Scottish settlers who planted Ulster in 1610. He is educated at Belfast Academy in Belfast under Dr. Reuben John Bryce and at a Greenwich private school under Dr. Goodwin. Later on, he goes to the southern United States for his health and takes part in a filibustering expedition to Nicaragua, where he sees some hard fighting and reportedly wins the reputation of a blockade runner. He is separated from his party and is lost in the forest for six days. Fevered, he discovers a small boat and manages to return to the nearest British settlement. He serves in the London Irish Rifles and has the rank of sergeant.

Williams returns to England in 1859, where he becomes a volunteer, and a leader writer for the London Evening Herald. In October 1859, he begins a connection with The Standard which lasts until 1884. From 1860 until 1863, he works as a first editor for the London Evening Standard and from 1882 until 1884, as editor of The Evening News.

Williams is best known for being a war correspondent. He is described as an admirable war correspondent, a daring rider as well as writer. For The Standard, he is at the headquarters of the Armée de la Loire, a French army, during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He is also one of the first correspondents in Strasbourg, where the French forces are defeated. In the summer and autumn of 1877, he is a correspondent to Ahmed Muhtar Pasha who commands the Turkish forces in Armenia during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and 1878. He remains constantly at the Turkish front, and his letters are the only continuous series that reaches England. In 1878, he publishes this series in a revised and extended form as The Armenian Campaign: A Diary of the Campaign on 1877, in Armenia and Koordistan, which is a large accurate record of the war, even though it is pro-Turkish. From Armenia, he follows Muhtar Pasha to European Turkey and describes his defence of the lines of Constantinople against the Imperial Russian Army. He is with General Mikhail Skobelev at the headquarters of the Imperial Russian Army when the Treaty of San Stefano is signed in March 1878. He reports this at the Berlin Congress.

At the end of 1878, Williams is in Afghanistan reporting the war, and in 1879 publishes the Notes on the Operations in Lower Afghanistan, 1878–9, with Special Reference to Transport.

In the autumn of 1884, representing the Central News Agency of London, Williams also joins the Gordon Relief Expedition, a British mission to relieve in Major-General Charles George Gordon in Khartoum, Sudan. His is the first dispatch to tell of the loss of Gordon. While in Sudan, he quarrels with Henry H. S. Pearse of The Daily News, who later unsuccessfully sues him. After leaving The Standard in 1884, he works with the Morning Advertiser, but later works with the Daily Chronicle as a war correspondent. He is the only British correspondent to be with the Bulgarian Army under Prince Alexander Joseph of Battenberg during the Serbo-Bulgarian War in November 1885. In the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, he is attached to the Greek forces in Thessaly. His last war reporting is on Herbert Kitchener‘s Sudanese campaign of 1898. His health does not permit his advance to South Africa, but he is still able to compile a diary of the South African War for The Morning Leader.

In 1887, Williams meets with then General of the United States Army, Philip Sheridan, in Washington, D.C. to update the general on European affairs and the prospects of upcoming conflicts.

Williams once tries to bid as a Conservative Party candidate for the House of Commons representative of Leeds West, a borough in Leeds, West Yorkshire, during the 1885 United Kingdom general election. He fails to win the seat against Liberal Party candidate Herbert Gladstone. He once serves as the Chairman of the London district of the Chartered Institute of Journalists from 1893 to 1894. He founds the London Press Club where he also serves as its President from 1896 to 1897.

Williams is wounded three times in action. He is shot in the leg in Egypt in 1885 during General Buller’s retreat from Gubat to Korti.

Williams is a member of the 1st Surrey Rifles, a volunteer unit of the British Army, a member of the London Irish Volunteers, and is a known marksman.

Williams is said to possess a voice of thunder and expresses with terrific energy. He conducts a lecture tour of the United States where he describes the six campaigns, illustrated by limelight photographs. His audience in Brooklyn, New York, is described by The New York Times as highly delighted by his lecture about the hardships and adventures. His presentation is “a feast for the eyes and ears and was highly appreciated by the large audience assembled.” He later tours England, Scotland, and Ireland speaking about his then seven campaigns.

A friend of explorer Henry Morton Stanley, Williams gives him a compass that has been on a number of his expeditions. Stanley takes it with him to Africa and it is now on display at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium.

Williams also writes fiction, including his book John Thaddeus Mackay, a tale about religious tolerance and understanding. With the sanction of Commander in Chief, Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley, he edits a book Songs for Soldiers for the March The Camp and the Barracks to improve morale and relieve boredom. Included in the book are a number of songs that he composed. He also writes about ecclesiastical questions, and contributes articles and stories to different periodicals.

Williams is a strong adherent to Wolseley’s military views and policy, and has considerable military knowledge. He also publishes military subjects in several publications such as the United Service Magazine, the National Review, and other periodicals. In 1892, he publishes Life of Sir H. Evelyn Wood, which is controversial as he defends the actions of Wood after the Battle of Majuba Hill in 1881. In 1902, he publishes a pamphlet, entitled Hush Up, in which he protests against the proposed limited official inquiry into the South African War and calls for an investigation.

Early in his career, Williams shares an office with friend and colleague Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, who later becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. They have a standing tradition of always sending out for two beers with payment alternating between each man. Many years later, Williams is in the lobby of the House of Lords and Gascoyne-Cecil approaches him with an outstretched hand and asks, “By the way, Mr. Williams, whose turn is it to stand the beer?”

In 1884, the steamer carrying Williams and colleague Frederic Villiers of The Graphic overturns in the Nile River. Their rescue leads Williams to later commission a unique ivory and gold mitre for the Bishop of London as a thank-offering to God for his safe return from Khartoum.

In Rudyard Kipling‘s play, The Light That Failed, the character of Mr. Nilghai, the war correspondent, is based on Williams.

Williams receives a personal invitation from King Edward VII to attend the funeral of his mother, Queen Victoria.

Both of Williams‘a sons became journalists. Frederick is a noted parliamentary reporter, writer, and historian in Canada. Francis Austin Ward Williams practices journalism in Sydney, Australia.

In the Nile Campaign of 1884-85, application is made to the War Office with the support of the Commander in Chief Lord Wolseley for medals for Willams and correspondent Bennet Burleigh. Williams has been twice requested to take command of some of the men by senior officers on the spot. The Secretary of War is unable to grant the recognition under the rules of the day but writes a letter saying that he regrets that this must be his decision.

Williams is a recipient of the Queen’s Sudan Medal, an award given to British and Egyptian forces which took part in the Sudan campaign between 1896 and 1898.

Field Marshall Garnet Wolseley recognizes the contributions of Williams on the battlefield. He says in a speech that from “Charles Williams, he had at various times received the greatest possible help in the field.”

Williams dies in Brixton, London, on February 9, 1904. He is buried in Nunhead Cemetery in London. His son, journalist Fred Williams, first learns of his father’s death on the wire service he is monitoring at his newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Williams’s funeral is well attended by the press as well as members of the military including Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood. Colleague Henry Nevison writes a long reflection on Williams. It includes, “On the field he possessed a kind of instinctive sense of what was going to happen. When I went to big field-days with him he was already an elderly man, and much broken down with the hardships of a war correspondent’s life; but he invariably appeared at the critical place exactly at the right moment, and I once heard the Duke of Connaught, who was commanding, say, ‘When I see Charlie Williams shut up his telescope, I know it’s all over.’ And now he is gone, with his rage, his generosity, his innocent pride, his faithful championship of every friend, and his memories of so many a strange event. His greatest joy was to encourage youth to follow in his steps, and the world is sadder and duller for his going.”


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Death of Terry Wogan, Irish-British Radio & Television Broadcaster

Sir Michael Terence Wogan KBE DL, Irish-British radio and television broadcaster who works for the BBC in the United Kingdom (UK) for most of his career, dies on January 31, 2016, at his home in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. Between 1993 and his semi-retirement in December 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekday breakfast programme Wake Up to Wogan regularly draws an estimated eight million listeners. He is believed at the time to be the most listened-to radio broadcaster in Europe.

Wogan, the elder of two children, is born at Cleary’s Nursing Home, Elm Park, Limerick, County Limerick, on August 3, 1938. He is the son of the manager of Leverett & Frye, a high-class grocery store in Limerick, and is educated at Crescent College, a Jesuit school, from the age of eight. He experiences a strongly religious upbringing, later commenting that he had been brainwashed into believing by the threat of going to hell. Despite this, he often expresses his fondness for the city of his birth, commenting on one occasion that “Limerick never left me, whatever it is, my identity is Limerick.”

At the age of 15, after his father is promoted to general manager, Wogan moves to Dublin with his family. While living there he attends Crescent College’s sister school, Belvedere College. He participates in amateur dramatics and discovers a love of rock and roll. After leaving Belvedere in 1956, he has a brief career in the banking profession, joining the Royal Bank of Ireland. Still in his twenties, he joins the national broadcaster of Ireland, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), as a newsreader and announcer, after seeing a newspaper advertisement inviting applicants.

Wogan conducts interviews and presents documentary features during his first two years at RTÉ, before moving to the light entertainment department as a disc jockey and host of TV quiz and variety shows such as Jackpot, a top-rated quiz show on RTÉ in the 1960s.

Wogan is a leading media personality in Ireland and Britain from the late 1960s, and is often referred to as a “national treasure.” In addition to his weekday radio show, he is known for his work on television, including the BBC One chat show Wogan, presenting Children in Need, the game show Blankety Blank and Come Dancing. He is the BBC’s commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest from 1971 to 2008 (radio in 1971, 1974–1977; television in 1973, 1978, 1980–2008) and the Contest’s host in 1998. From 2010 to 2015 he presents Weekend Wogan, a two-hour Sunday morning show on BBC Radio 2.

In 2005, Wogan acquires British citizenship in addition to his Irish nationality and is awarded a knighthood in the same year and is therefore entitled to use the title “Sir” in front of his name.

Wogan’s health declines after Christmas 2015. He does not present Children in Need in November 2015, citing back pain as the reason for his absence from the long-running annual show. One of his friends, Father Brian D’Arcy, visits him during January and notices he is seriously ill. He dies of cancer at the age of 77 on January 31, 2016, at his home in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England.

British Prime Minister David Cameron says, “Britain has lost a huge talent.” President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins praises Wogan’s career and his frequent visits to his homeland. Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Joan Burton remember Wogan for his role in helping Anglo-Irish relations during the Troubles. D’Arcy speculates that a public funeral would be logistically difficult, as there would be too many people wanting to pay their respects.

After Wogan’s death and his private funeral a few weeks later, a public memorial service is held on September 27 of the same year. This is held at Westminster Abbey and is opened by a recording of Wogan himself, and features a number of his celebrity friends making speeches, such as Chris Evans and Joanna Lumley. The service is broadcast live on BBC Radio 2.

On November 16, 2016, the BBC renames BBC Western House, home of BBC Radio 2, in his memory, to BBC Wogan House.


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The Murder of Robert McCartney

The murder of Robert McCartney occurs in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on the night of January 30, 2005, and is carried out by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

McCartney, born in 1971, is a Roman Catholic and lives in the predominantly nationalist Short Strand area of east Belfast, and is said by his family to be a supporter of Sinn Féin. He is the father of two children and is engaged to be married in June 2005 to his longtime girlfriend, Bridgeen Hagans.

McCartney is involved in an altercation in Magennis’ Bar on May Street in Belfast’s city centre on the night of January 30, 2005. He is found unconscious with stab wounds on Cromac Street by a police patrol car and dies at the hospital the following morning. He is 33 years old.

The fight arises when McCartney is accused of making an insulting gesture or comment to the wife of an IRA member in the social club. When his friend, Brendan Devine, refuses to accept this or apologise, a brawl begins. McCartney, who is attempting to defend Devine, is attacked with a broken bottle and then dragged into Verner Street, beaten with metal bars and stabbed. Devine also suffers a knife attack, but survives. The throats of both men are cut and McCartney’s wounds include the loss of an eye and a large blade wound running from his chest to his stomach. Devine is hospitalised under armed protection.

When Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers arrive at the scene, their efforts to investigate the pub and surrounding area are met with an impromptu riot. Rioting by youths, specifically attacking the police, force them to pull back from the area, which delays initial investigation. Police with riot gear arrive later in the evening and are also attacked. Alex Maskey of Sinn Féin claims, “It appears the PSNI is using last night’s tragic stabbing incident as an excuse to disrupt life within this community, and the scale and approach of their operation is completely unacceptable and unjustifiable.” There are suggestions that the rioting is organised by those involved in the murder, so that a cleanup operation can take place in and around where the murder took place. Clothes worn by McCartney’s attackers are burned, CCTV tapes are removed from the bar and destroyed and bar staff are threatened. No ambulance is called. McCartney and Devine are noticed by a police car on routine patrol, who call an ambulance to the scene.

When the police launch the murder investigation they are met with a “wall of silence” None of the estimated seventy or so witnesses to the altercation come forward with information. In conversations with family members, seventy-one potential witnesses claim to have been in the pub’s toilets at the time of the attacks. As the toilet measures just four feet by three feet, this leads to the toilets being dubbed the TARDIS, after the time machine in the television series Doctor Who, which is much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Sinn Féin suspends twelve members of the party and the IRA expels three members some weeks later.

Gerry Adams, then president of Sinn Féin, urges witnesses to come forward to “the family, a solicitor, or any other authoritative or reputable person or body”. He continues, “I want to make it absolutely clear that no one involved acted as a republican or on behalf of republicans.” He suspends twelve members of Sinn Féin. He stops short of asking witnesses to contact the police directly. The usefulness of making witness statements to the victim’s family or to a solicitor is derided by the McCartneys and by a prominent lawyer and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) politician, Alban Maginness, soon afterward.

On February 16, 2005, the IRA issues a statement denying involvement in the murder and calls on the perpetrators to “take responsibility.”

On March 8, 2005, the IRA issues an unprecedented statement saying that four people are directly involved in the murder, that the IRA knows their identity, that two are IRA volunteers, and that the IRA has made an offer to McCartney’s family to shoot the people directly involved in the murder.

In May 2005, Sinn Féin loses its council seat in the Pottinger area, which covers the Short Strand, with the McCartney family attributing the loss to events surrounding the murder.

Since this time, the sisters of McCartney have maintained an increasingly public campaign for justice, which sees Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness make a public statement that the sisters should be careful that they are not being manipulated for political ends.

The McCartney family travels to the United States during the 2005 Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations where they are met by U.S. Senators (including Hillary Clinton and John McCain) and U.S. President George W. Bush who express support in their campaign for justice.

Support for Sinn Féin by some American politicians is diminished. Adams is not invited to the White House in 2005 and Senator Edward Kennedy backs out of a meeting that had been previously scheduled. The McCartney family, previously Sinn Féin supporters, pledge to never support the party again, and a cousin of the sisters who raised funds for Sinn Féin in the United States insist that she will not be doing so in the future.

On May 5, 2005, Terence Davison and James McCormick are remanded in custody, charged with murdering McCartney and attempting to murder Devine respectively. McCormick is originally from England. They are held in the republican wing of HM Prison Maghaberry. Roughly four months later the accused are released on bail, and in June 2006, the attempted murder charge against McCormick is dropped, leaving a charge of causing an affray. On June 27, 2008, Terence Davison is found not guilty of committing the murder. Two other men charged with affray are also cleared.

In November 2005, the McCartney sisters and Bridgeen Hagans, the former partner of McCartney, refuse to accept the Outstanding Achievement award at the Women of the Year Lunch, because it would mean their sharing a platform with Margaret Thatcher, whom they dislike.

In December 2005, the McCartney sisters meet with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and tell him they believe the murder had been ordered by a senior IRA member, and that Sinn Féin was still not doing all it could to help them.

On January 31, 2007, two years after the murder, and in line with the party’s new policy of supporting civil policing, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams says that anyone with information about the murder should go to the police.

On May 5, 2015, an IRA man believed to have been involved in the death of McCartney, Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison, is shot dead. Early in the investigation the police rule out either a sectarian attack or the involvement of dissident republicans.

The McCartney family has lived in the Short Strand area of Belfast for five generations. However, some local people in the Short Strand area, which is a largely nationalist area, does not welcome their dispute with the IRA. A campaign of intimidation by republicans drives members of the family and McCartney’s former fiancée to relocate and also causes one member to close her business in the city centre. The last McCartney sister to leave the area, Paula, departs Short Strand on October 26, 2005.

The family remain in contact with the family of Joseph Rafferty of Dublin, who dies under similar circumstances on April 12, 2005.


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Birth of Charles Harding Smith, Loyalist & UDA Leader

Charles Harding Smith, a Northern Irish loyalist and the first effective leader of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 24, 1931. An important figure in the Belfast-based “defence associations” that form the basis of the UDA on its formation in 1971, he later becomes embroiled in feuds with other UDA leaders and is eventually driven out of Northern Ireland by his opponents.

A former soldier in the British Army, Smith, at the time residing in Rosebank Street on the Shankill Road, calls a meeting of other locals at the Leopold Street Pigeon Fanciers Club to develop a response to attacks by republicans from the neighboring Ardoyne area. The location is chosen because Smith is himself a pigeon fancier and a member of the club. At the meeting, it is agreed to establish a vigilante group, the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA), with Smith in command and assisted by Davy Fogel, who organises military drilling for the forty or so recruits, and Ernie Elliott.

The WDA gains widespread notoriety and is blamed for a series of bomb attacks and shootings, most of which have been carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Nevertheless, Smith’s reputation as a hardline loyalist is boosted as a result and when his group merges with other similar vigilante movements to form the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in late 1971, he is chosen as chairman of the new group’s thirteen-member Security Council ahead of the other leading candidates, Tommy Herron and Jim Anderson. According to journalist Martin Dillon, Smith is heavily influenced by William Craig and William McGrath, both of whom see a need for a group to replace the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) and feel that they can easily influence Smith to their way of thinking.

Smith soon takes charge of procuring arms for the UDA. In early 1972, working in tandem with Belfast businessman John Campbell who agrees to bankroll the purchases, he is put in contact with a Scottish arms dealer from whom he is to purchase £50,000 worth of weapons. He sends three WDA associates, John White, Bobby Dalzell, and Robert Lusty (who is also a serving officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)), to meet the arms dealer in a London hotel, following them without attending the actual meeting. The “arms dealer” is actually an RUC Special Branch agent and, after recording the conversation with the WDA men, arrests all three. Smith goes to Scotland Yard the same day to inquire about his friends only to be arrested himself.

Smith remains in custody in England until December 1972 when his case comes to trial. Campbell claims that the deal had been organised for the RUC to entrap the arms dealer, whom they believe to be a Provisional Irish Republican Army member and a series of mistakes by the prosecution helps to ensure that the case collapses with Smith acquitted. The trial is used as part of early arguments regarding collusion between the RUC and loyalists as a list of RUC Special Branch suspects is uncovered in Smith’s house while he attempts to call Chief Constable Graham Shillington as a character witness.

By the time Smith returns to Belfast in December 1972 there has been changes in the UDA with Tommy Herron in effective control of the organisation and Davy Fogel the dominant figure amongst the WDA. He immediately takes back control of his west Belfast stronghold, threatening Fogel with death if he does not fall into line. Fogel, a close ally of Ernie Elliott, who was killed in circumstances that Smith had been rumoured to be involved in, although it is later determined that Elliott was shot dead after a drunken brawl on Sandy Row had descended into a gunfight, decides it is best not to go up against Smith and stands down.

However, Smith is not satisfied and, after putting out intelligence that Fogel has been taking UDA funds for himself, arrests Fogel and holds him captive for three hours in a Shankill social club where he is told to leave the area. Fogel briefly leaves for east Belfast but when the UDA there makes it clear he is not welcome either he leaves to live in England, from where he controversially gives an interview about his time in the UDA to The Sunday Times. Among claims made by Fogel in this interview is one that Smith was attempting to take control of the UDA with the help of the UVF. Smith is a strong admirer of the UVF’s military structure and hopes to replicate it in the UDA but he has a deep dislike of UVF leader Gusty Spence. As part of his remit to instill military discipline, Smith moves against a culture of racketeering that has become endemic in the west Belfast UDA during his absence. It is this initiative that leads to the rumours concerning his involvement in the death of Elliott, who had been named by some of his rivals in the UDA as a gangster.

Despite Smith’s show of strength following his return to Belfast his public persona remains low-key, with Herron fast emerging as the public face of the UDA. Much of this is down to the fact that Smith is inarticulate and unable to project a good image, unlike Herron who is a good talker and fairly charismatic. The emergence of these two leaders at the same time however is to bring the fledgling movement into near civil war.

Following a period of marginalisation Jim Anderson, who is serving as caretaker leader of the UDA, resigns as chairman of the UDA and as a result a meeting is called of the group’s leaders in March 1973 to determine who will succeed him. By this time Smith and Herron are recognised as the undisputed leaders of the Belfast UDA. There is a fear that whichever of the two is chosen as chairman, the other one will automatically feel obliged to challenge his leadership. As a result, it is determined that someone else should be appointed chairman as a compromise candidate and as Highfield-based activist Andy Tyrie, a man noted for his skill as an organiser, is chairing the conference it is decided that he will be acceptable to both men as chairman of the UDA. Tyrie soon proves to be a powerful rival to the two leaders. In September 1973, Herron is kidnapped and shot dead. His murder remains unsolved.

Tyrie had not proven to be the puppet Smith had hoped and had consolidated his power through his close involvement with Glenn Barr and the Ulster Workers’ Council during the strike of May 1974, an event that had helped to give real credence to Tyrie’s leadership abilities. Fearing the growing power of Tyrie, Smith criticises the UDA leader for sending a delegation to Libya to meet Muammar Gaddafi, who is a hated figure for many loyalists due to his providing arms to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Smith, who had known about the trip in advance but had raised no objections, verbally attacks Tyrie over the Libya debacle in a meeting of the Inner Council in December 1974 before declaring the following January that he intends to split his West Belfast Brigade from the rest of the UDA.

Two weeks after announcing the schism, Smith is attending a meeting at the West Belfast UDA’s headquarters with Tommy Lyttle when he notices a sniper on a nearby roof. Smith, who is wearing a bulletproof vest, opens his coat as if to challenge the sniper to fire but is seriously wounded when the sniper shoots twice, hitting him both times with armour-piercing bullets. With Smith in hospital, Tyrie calls a meeting of the leading figures in the Shankill UDA and manages to convince Lyttle and other leading figures that Smith is too divisive a figure to remain in charge.

Smith is out of the hospital after only two weeks and declares himself back in charge, but before long he has fallen foul of a number of important people. Two Shankill UDA members are interned on the basis of evidence that rumours suggest had come from Smith, while he also clashed with the local UVF after suggesting that they merge but only on the basis that he will be in control. He begins to make threats against Barr and Chicken, two popular members who are leading figures on the UDA’s political side. Smith calls a meeting of his commanders, but, on February 6, 1975, in an attack arranged in advance by his opponents within the UDA, a gunman bursts in and shoots him twice in the chest. The gunman walks up to the injured Smith and prepares to shoot him in the head but the gun jams and he again survives an attempt on his life.

Smith spends another week in hospital after which he again returns to his Belfast home. Loyalist Davy Payne is sent to his house with another hitman and the two order Smith to leave Northern Ireland. He is taken to the airport the following day and leaves for England, leaving Tyrie as sole leader of the UDA. He settles in Southowram, West Yorkshire, where he works as a lorry driver before his death in 1997. During Dáil Éireann debates in 2005 he is named as a “self-confessed British intelligence agent.”


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Death of William Congreve, Playwright & Poet

William Congreve, English playwright, satirist and poet, dies at his home in Surrey Street, London, on January 19, 1729.

Congreve is born on January 24, 1670, at Bardsley, West Yorkshire, England, the son of William Congreve, an army officer, and Mary Browning of Doncaster. In 1674, his father gains a commission as lieutenant in the army in Ireland, and moves with his family to the garrison port of Youghal, County Cork, where they remain until 1678. After a brief period at Carrickfergus, they move in 1681 to Kilkenny, where his father is assigned to the Duke of Ormond‘s regiment. This service entitles Congreve to a free education at the renowned Kilkenny College, where Jonathan Swift is also a student, and where he receives an excellent schooling in classics. He forms a lasting friendship with another pupil, Joseph Kelly, a lawyer and MP for Doneraile (1705–13), with whom he later maintains a lengthy correspondence. In April 1686, he enters Trinity College Dublin (TCD) as a classical scholar and, again like Swift, is taught by St. George Ashe. It seems likely that his degree is disrupted by the political upheaval of 1688 as the college is forced to close in 1689 and his BA is not recorded.

At this point, Congreve leaves Ireland and spends the spring and summer of 1689 with relatives in Staffordshire. He subsequently moves to London, and in March 1691 enters the Middle Temple. He is not assiduous in his legal studies, preferring to socialise with intellectuals and writers, notably John Dryden, to pursue literary projects. In 1692, under the pseudonym “Cleophil,” he published Incognita, or, Love and Duty Reconciled, a romantic novella reputedly written while he is a student in Dublin. He also contributes some verse to Charles Gildon‘s Miscellany (1692), as well as two translations from Homer and three odes to Dryden’s Examen poeticum (1693). Dryden evidently thinks highly of the young writer, and with his advice and approbation Congreve’s first play, The Old Batchelor, is recommended by the Irish playwright Thomas Southerne to Thomas Davenant, manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. A fast-paced and witty comedy, concerning amorous appetites, The Old Batchelor is accepted and opens on March 9, 1693, to popular acclaim, enjoying an unusually long run of fourteen nights. Among the cast are Thomas Doggett, still relatively unknown, as Fondlewife, and a young English actress and singer, Anne Bracegirdle as Amarinta, with whom Congreve falls in love and begins a prolonged relationship. The play is dedicated to his friend Charles Boyle, eldest son of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington, whose estates Congreve’s father had begun to manage in 1690.

After this early success, Congreve is dismayed by the poor reception of his next play, a domestic comedy with dark undertones entitled The Double Dealer, which is staged in December 1693 and criticised as immoral and unflattering in its representation of women. Its popularity improves somewhat when Mary II, Queen of England, soon after its undistinguished debut, commands a performance. When the queen dies the following year, Congreve eulogises her in The Mourning Muse of Alexis, a Pastoral. Regarded by contemporaries as his finest literary work, it is rewarded by a gift of £100 from King William III. Production of his next play is delayed by the revolt of the Drury Lane actors against the management of Christopher Rich. Congreve supports the actors and their petition to the Lord Chamberlain to reopen the theatre at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. When their request is granted, the renovated theatre opens on April 30, 1695, with Congreve’s enduring romantic comedy Love for Love, and the playwright being made a shareholder in the new company. A characteristically witty and well-plotted comedy, the production of Love for Love is particularly notable for Doggett’s sparkling performance as Sailor Ben. Congreve’s dramatic success also brings political advancement, as he receives his first government appointment as commissioner for hackney coaches.

Congreve returns to Ireland for most of 1696, where, with Southerne, he receives an MA from TCD, and probably visits his parents, then living at Lismore Castle, County Waterford. He also begins work on a tragedy entitled The Mourning Bride, which becomes an instant hit at Lincoln’s Inn Fields when it is first performed in February 1697 and running for thirteen nights. Despite his considerable success and popularity, he is deeply disconcerted by Jeremy Collier‘s aggressively anti-theatrical pamphlet, Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698), which targets John Vanbrugh, Dryden, and Congreve. He is stung into a response, publishing Amendments of Mr. Collier’s False and Imperfect Citations (1698), which eloquently defends his dramatic methodology, but is rendered less effective by an emotional and ill-judged tone. His theatrical acumen seems to be at odds with the times, for in the dedication to his next play, The Way of the World, he observes that “little of it was prepar’d for that general taste which seems now to be predominant in the pallats of our audience.” Nevertheless, he is still bitterly disappointed by the disparaging response to its first performance on March 12, 1700. Dryden, however, realises the merit of the play, which is now recognised as Congreve’s masterpiece and a landmark in the dramatic tradition of the comedy of manners.

Disheartened, Congreve abandons play-writing, but he maintains his theatrical connections and embarks upon several collateral projects, producing a libretto for The Judgement of Paris (1701), and collaborating with Vanbrugh and the poet William Walsh on a translation of Molière‘s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, staged as Squire Trelooby at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre in 1704. Less successfully, he makes an ill-advised investment with Vanbrugh in a new theatre and opera house in the Haymarket, from which he withdraws with financial losses in 1705. His opera libretto Semele, written for the opening of the new theatre, is not performed until 1744, when it is scored by George Frideric Handel, though John Eccles writes a score in 1707 which remains unperformed until 1972. In the early 1700s his relationship with Anne Bracegirdle falters, though they remain lifelong friends.

In 1710, Congreve publishes The Works of Mr. William Congreve in three volumes. He continues throughout his life to write poetry, ballads, essays, and other miscellaneous pieces. He remains active and influential in literary and theatrical circles, often assisting young writers such as Charles Hopkins, son of Ezekiel Hopkins, Bishop of Derry, and Alexander Pope, who dedicates to him The Iliad (1715). Financially, however, he becomes increasingly dependent upon various minor government posts. He belongs for many years to the celebrated Kit-Cat Club, alongside such prominent writers, wits, and whigs as Richard Boyle, 2nd Earl of Cork, Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Walsh, and Vanbrugh. Through the good offices of his friend Jonathan Swift, he retains his government position as Commissioner of Wines during the Tory administration of 1710–14. His party loyalty is rewarded in 1714 when he receives a lucrative government appointment as Secretary of the island of Jamaica. His personal life also improves around this time, as a friendship with Lady Henrietta Godolphin develops into a love affair that lasts for the rest of his life. They have one daughter, Mary (1723–64).

Congreve suffers for much of his life from gout and failing eyesight. These afflictions worsen with age, though friends remark that his cheerful temper survived unaffected. He is involved in a coach accident in September 1728, and dies January 19, 1729, at his home in Surrey Street, likely from a related injury. He names Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin, his lover’s husband, as his executor, and bequeaths almost his entire estate to Henrietta, thereby discreetly leaving his property to his daughter. He is buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, on January 26.

Letters and manuscripts of Congreve are held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, the British Library, London, and the National Archives of Scotland. Several likenesses are in the National Portrait Gallery, London, including the portrait in oils shown above by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1709).

(From: “Congreve, William” by Sinéad Sturgeon, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009; Pictured: Portrait of William Congreve (1709) by Sir Godfrey Kneller)


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Death of Thomas Johnson, Irish Labour Party Politician

Thomas Ryder Johnson, Irish Labour Party politician and trade unionist who serves as Leader of the Opposition from 1922 to 1927 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1917 to 1927, dies on January 17, 1963, at Clontarf, Dublin. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin County from 1922 to 1927. He is a Senator for the Labour Panel from 1928 to 1934.

Johnson is born on May 17, 1872, in Liverpool, England. He works on the docks for an Irish fish merchant, spending much of his time in Dunmore East and Kinsale. It is this way that he picks up ideas about socialism and Irish nationalism, joining a Liverpool branch of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. In 1900 he starts work as a commercial traveller, then moves in 1903 with his family to Belfast where he becomes involved in trade union and labour politics.

In 1907, Johnson helps James Larkin organise a strike in the port, but has to watch in dismay as the strike, which begins with remarkable solidarity between labour, Orange, and nationalist supporters, collapses in sectarian rioting. At various times he is the president, treasurer and secretary of the Irish Trades Union Congress (ITUC) which is, at the time, also the Labour Party in Ireland, until officially founded in 1912 by James Connolly and James Larkin. Johnson becomes Vice-President of the ITUC in 1913, and President in 1915.

Johnson sympathizes with the Irish Volunteers, many of whom are sacked from their jobs, for illegal activities. During the Easter Rising, he notes in his diary that people in Ireland paid little heed to the fate of the defeated revolutionaries. He succeeds as leader of the Labour Party from 1917, when the party does not contest the 1918 Irish general election. When the British government tries to enforce conscription in Ireland in 1918, he leads a successful strike in conjunction with other members of the Irish anti-conscription movement.

Johnson is later elected a TD for Dublin County to the Third Dáil at the 1922 Irish general election and remains leader of the Labour Party until 1927. As such, he is Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil of the Irish Free State, as the anti-treaty faction of Sinn Féin refuses to recognise the Dáil as constituted. He issues a statement of support for the Government of the 4th Dáil when the Irish Army Mutiny threatens civilian control in March 1924.

Johnson is the only Leader of the Labour Party who serves as Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil. He loses his Dáil seat at the September 1927 Irish general election, and the following year he is elected to Seanad Éireann, where he serves until the Seanad’s abolition in 1936.

In 1896 he meets Marie Tregay, then a teacher in St. Multose’s National school, outside Kinsale. A native of Cornwall, she has advanced political views. They marry in 1898 in Liverpool. Their only son, Frederick Johnson, is born in 1899, and becomes a well-known actor. Johnson dies on January 17, 1963, at 49 Mount Prospect Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin.

Each summer, Labour Youth holds the “Tom Johnson Summer School” to host panel discussions, debates and workshops.


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Founding of the Irish Confederation

The Irish Confederation, an Irish nationalist independence movement, is established on January 13, 1847, by members of the Young Ireland movement who seceded from Daniel O’Connell‘s Repeal Association. Historian Theodore William Moody describes it as “the official organisation of Young Ireland.”

In June 1846, Sir Robert Peel‘s Tory Ministry falls, and the Whigs under Lord John Russell comes to power. Daniel O’Connell, founder of the Repeal Association which campaigns for a repeal of the Acts of Union 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland, simultaneously attempts to move the Association into supporting the Russell administration and English Liberalism.

The intention is that Repeal agitation is to be damped down in return for a profuse distribution of patronage through Conciliation Hall, home of the Repeal Association. On June 15, 1846, Thomas Francis Meagher denounces English Liberalism in Ireland saying that there is a suspicion that the national cause of Repeal will be sacrificed to the Whig government and that the people who are striving for freedom will be “purchased back into factious vassalage.” Meagher and the other “Young Irelanders” (an epithet of opprobrium used by O’Connell to describe the young men of The Nation newspaper), as active Repealers, vehemently denounce in Conciliation Hall any movement toward English political parties, be they Whig or Tory, so long as Repeal is denied.

The “Tail” as the “corrupt gang of politicians who fawned on O’Connell” are named, and who hope to gain from the government places decide that the Young Irelanders must be driven from the Repeal Association. The Young Irelanders are to be presented as revolutionaries, factionists, infidels and secret enemies of the Church. For this purpose, resolutions are introduced to the Repeal Association on July 13 which declare that under no circumstances is a nation justified in asserting its liberties by force of arms. The Young Irelanders, as members of the association, have never advocated the use of physical force to advance the cause of repeal and oppose any such policy. Known as the “Peace Resolutions,” they declare that physical force is immoral under any circumstances to obtain national rights. Meagher agrees that only moral and peaceful means should be adopted by the Association, but if it is determined that Repeal cannot be carried by those means, a no less honourable one he would adopt though it be more perilous. The resolutions are again raised on July 28 in the Association and Meagher then delivers his famous “Sword Speech.”

Addressing the Peace Resolutions, Meagher holds that there is no necessity for them. Under the existing circumstances of the country, any provocation to arms will be senseless and wicked. He dissents from the Resolutions because by assenting to them he would pledge himself to the unqualified repudiation of physical force “in all countries, at all times, and in every circumstance.” There are times when arms will suffice, and when political amelioration calls for “a drop of blood, and many thousand drops of blood.” He then “eloquently defended physical force as an agency in securing national freedom.” Having been at first semi-hostile, Meagher carries the audience to his side and the plot against the Young Irelanders is placed in peril of defeat. Observing this he is interrupted by O’Connell’s son, John, who declares that either he or Meagher must leave the hall. William Smith O’Brien then protests against John O’Connell’s attempt to suppress a legitimate expression of opinion, and leaves with other prominent Young Irelanders, and never returns.

After negotiations for a reunion have failed, the seceders decide to establish a new organisation which is to be called the Irish Confederation. Its founders determine to revive the uncompromising demand for a national Parliament with full legislative and executive powers. They are resolute on a complete prohibition of place-hunting or acceptance of office under the existing Government. They wish to return to the honest policy of the earlier years of the Repeal Association, and are supported by the young men, who have shown their repugnance for the corruption and insincerity of Conciliation Hall by their active sympathy with the seceders. There are extensive indications that many of the previously Unionist class, in both the cities and among land owners, are resentful of the neglect of Irish needs by the British Parliament since the famine began. What they demand is vital legislative action to provide both employment and food, and to prevent all further export of the corn, cattle, pigs and butter which are still leaving the country. On this there is a general consensus of Irish opinion according to Dennis Gwynn, “such as had not been known since before the Act of Union.”

The first meeting of the Irish Confederation takes place in the Rotunda, Dublin, on January 13, 1847. The chairperson for the first meeting is John Shine Lawlor, the honorary secretaries being John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy. Duffy is later replaced by Meagher. Ten thousand members are enrolled, but of the gentry there are very few, the middle class stand apart and the Catholic clergy are unfriendly. In view of the poverty of the people, subscriptions are purely voluntary, the founders of the new movement bearing the cost themselves if necessary.

In the 1847 United Kingdom general election, three Irish Confederation candidates stand – Richard O’Gorman in Limerick City, William Smith O’Brien in County Limerick and Thomas Chisholm Anstey in Youghal. O’Brien and Anstey are elected.

Following mass emigration by Irish people to England, the Irish Confederation then organises there also. There are more than a dozen Confederate Clubs in Liverpool and over 700 members of 16 clubs located in Manchester and Salford.