seamus dubhghaill

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Tag Archives: Fianna Fáil


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Death of Seán T. O’Kelly, Second President of Ireland

Seán Thomas O’Kelly (Irish: Seán Tomás Ó Ceallaigh), the second President of Ireland, dies on November 23, 1966, at the Mater Private Nursing Home in Dublin, after an illness of sixteen months. He serves two terms as President from 1945 to 1959. He is a member of Dáil Éireann from 1918 until his election as President. During this time, he serves as Minister for Local Government and Public Health (1932–1939) and Minister for Finance (1939–1945). He serves as Vice-President of the Executive Council from 1932 until 1937 and is the first Tánaiste from 1937 until 1945.

O’Kelly is born on August 25, 1882, on Capel Street in the north inner-city of Dublin. He joins the National Library of Ireland in 1898 as a junior assistant. That same year, he joins the Gaelic League, becoming a member of the governing body in 1910 and General Secretary in 1915.

In 1905 O’Kelly joins Sinn Féin who, at the time, supports a dual monarchy. He is an honorary secretary of the party from 1908 until 1925. In 1906 he is elected to Dublin Corporation, which is Dublin’s city council. He retains the seat for the Inns Quay Ward until 1924.

O’Kelly assists Patrick Pearse in preparing for the Easter Rising in 1916. After the rising, he is jailed, released, and jailed again. He escapes from detention at HM Prison Eastwood Park in Falfield, South Gloucestershire, England and returns to Ireland.

O’Kelly is elected Sinn Féin MP for Dublin College Green in the 1918 Irish general election. Along with other Sinn Féin MPs he refuses to take his seat in the British House of Commons. Instead, they set up an Irish parliament, called Dáil Éireann, in Dublin. O’Kelly is Ceann Comhairle (Chairman) of the First Dáil. He is the Irish Republic’s envoy to the post-World War I peace treaty negotiations at the Palace of Versailles, but the other countries refuse to allow him to speak as they do not recognise the Irish Republic.

O’Kelly is a close friend of Éamon de Valera, and both he and de Valera oppose the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. When de Valera resigns as President of the Irish Republic on January 6, 1922, O’Kelly returns from Paris to try to persuade de Valera to return to the presidency but de Valera orders him to return to Paris.

During the Irish Civil War, O’Kelly is jailed until December 1923. Afterwards he spends the next two years as a Sinn Féin envoy to the United States.

In 1926 when de Valera leaves Sinn Féin to found his own republican party, Fianna Fáil, O’Kelly follows him, becoming one of the party’s founding members. In 1932, when de Valera is appointed President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, he makes O’Kelly the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. He often tries to publicly humiliate the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, James McNeill, which damages O’Kelly’s reputation and image, particularly when the campaign backfires.

In 1938, many believe that de Valera wants to make O’Kelly the Fianna Fáil choice to become President of Ireland, under the new Irish constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann. When Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alfie Byrne, says he wants to be president there is an all-party agreement to nominate Douglas Hyde, a Protestant Irish Senator, Irish language enthusiast and founder of the Gaelic League. They believe Hyde to be the only person who might win an election against Alfie Byrne. O’Kelly is instead appointed Minister of Finance and helps create Central Bank in 1942.

O’Kelly leaves the cabinet when he is elected President of Ireland on June 18, 1945, in a popular vote of the people, defeating two other candidates. He is re-elected unopposed in 1952. During his second term he visits many nations in Europe and speaks before the United States Congress in 1959. He retires at the end of his second term in 1959, to be replaced by his old friend, Éamon de Valera. Following his retirement, he is described as a model president by the normally hostile newspaper, The Irish Times. Though controversial, he is widely seen as genuine and honest, but tactless.

O’Kelly’s strong Roman Catholic beliefs sometimes cause problems. Éamon de Valera often thinks that O’Kelly either deliberately or accidentally leaks information to the Knights of Saint Columbanus and the Church leaders. He ensures that his first state visit, following the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949, is to the Vatican City to meet Pope Pius XII. He accidentally reveals the Pope’s private views on communism. This angers the Pope and Joseph Stalin and is why he is not given the papal Supreme Order of Christ which is given to many Catholic heads of state.

On his retirement O’Kelly gives a series of radio talks about his early life and the independence movement. These form the basis of an account serialised in The Irish Press (July 3 to August 9, 1961) and subsequently translated into Irish and published as Seán T. (1963), echoing the nickname by which he is commonly known. The book relies heavily on memory and its accuracy on points of detail has been questioned by scholars such as F. X. Martin. In retirement he lived at his home, Roundwood Park in County Wicklow.

O’Kelly dies at the Mater Private Nursing Home in Dublin on November 23, 1966, at the age of 84, fifty years after the Easter Rising that first brought him to prominence. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Glasnevin, Dublin. His perceived unctuousness and his opportunistic tendencies in his later career should not efface his significance as a separatist organiser and an effective populist politician, who played a major role in the establishment of Fianna Fáil political hegemony.


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Death of W. T. Cosgrave, First President of the Free State Executive Council

William Thomas Cosgrave, Irish Fine Gael politician who serves as the first president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State (1922-32), dies in The Liberties, Dublin, on November 16, 1965. He also serves as Leader of the Opposition in both the Free State and Ireland (1932-44), Leader of Fine Gael (1934-44), founder and leader of Fine Gael’s predecessor, Cumann na nGaedheal (1923-33), Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State (August 1922-December 1922), the President of Dáil Éireann (September 1922-December 1922), the Minister for Finance (1922-23) and Minister for Local Government (1919-22). He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) (1921-44) and is a member of parliament (MP) for the North Kilkenny constituency (1918-22).

Cosgrave is born at 174 James’s Street, Dublin, on June 5, 1880, to Thomas Cosgrave, grocer, and Bridget Cosgrave (née Nixon). He is educated at the Christian Brothers School at Malahide Road, Marino, Dublin, before entering his father’s publican business. He first becomes politically active when he attends the first Sinn Féin convention in 1905.

At an early age, Cosgrave is attracted to the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin. He becomes a member of the Dublin Corporation in 1909 and is subsequently reelected to represent Sinn Féin interests. He joins the Irish Volunteers in 1913, although he never joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) because he does not believe in secret societies. When the group splits in 1914 upon the outbreak of World War I, he sides with a radical Sinn Féin minority against the constitutional nationalists led by John Redmond, who supports the British war effort.

Cosgrave takes part in the 1916 Easter Rising and is afterward interned by the British for a short time. In 1917, he is elected to Parliament for the city of Kilkenny. In the sweeping election victory of Sinn Féin in the 1918 United Kingdom general election, he becomes a member of the First Dáil. He is made Minister for Local Government in the first republican ministry, and during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) his task is to organize the refusal of local bodies to cooperate with the British in Dublin.

Cosgrave is a supporter of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty settlement with Great Britain, and he becomes Minister of Local Government in Ireland’s provisional government of 1922. He replaces Michael Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government when the latter becomes commander-in-chief of the National Army in July 1922. He also replaces Arthur Griffith as president of the Dáil after Griffith’s sudden death on August 12, 1922. As the first president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, he, who had helped found the political party Cumann na nGaedheal in April 1923 and became its leader, represents Ireland at the Imperial Conference in October 1923. A month earlier he is welcomed as Ireland’s first spokesman at the assembly of the League of Nations.

Cosgrave’s greatest achievement is to establish stable democratic government in Ireland after the Irish Civil War (1922–23). In the Dáil there is no serious opposition, since the party headed by Éamon de Valera, which refuses to take the oath prescribed in the treaty, abstains from attendance. But neither Cosgrave nor his ministry enjoy much popularity. Order requires drastic measures, and taxation is heavy and sharply collected. He seems sure of a long tenure only because there is no alternative in sight.

In July 1927, shortly after a general election, the assassination of Kevin O’Higgins, the vice president, produces a crisis. The Executive Council introduces a Public Safety Act, which legislates severely against political associations of an unconstitutional character and introduces a bill declaring that no candidature for the Dáil should be accepted unless the candidate declares willingness to take a seat in the Dáil and to take the oath of allegiance. The result of this measure is that de Valera and his party decide to attend sessions in the Dáil, and, since this greatly alters the parliamentary situation, Cosgrave obtains leave to dissolve the assembly and hold a general election. The September 1927 Irish general election leaves his party numerically the largest in the Dáil but without an overall majority. He continues in office until de Valera’s victory at the 1932 Irish general election. Cumann na nGaedheal joins with two smaller opposition parties in September 1933 to form a new party headed by Cosgrave, Fine Gael (“Irish Race”), which becomes Ireland’s main opposition party. In 1944 he resigns from the leadership of Fine Gael.

Cosgrave dies on November 16, 1965, at the age of 85. The Fianna Fáil government under Seán Lemass awards him the honour of a state funeral, which is attended by the Cabinet, the leaders of all the main Irish political parties, and Éamon de Valera, then President of Ireland. He is buried in Goldenbridge Cemetery in Inchicore, Dublin. Richard Mulcahy says, “It is in terms of the Nation and its needs and its potential that I praise God who gave us in our dangerous days the gentle but steel-like spirit of rectitude, courage and humble self-sacrifice, that was William T. Cosgrave.”

While Cosgrave never officially holds the office of Taoiseach (prime minister), Ireland considers him to be its first Taoiseach due to having been the Free State’s first head of government.

Cosgrave’s son, Liam, serves as a TD (1943-81), as leader of Fine Gael (1965-77) and Taoiseach (1973-77). His grandson, also named Liam, also serves as a TD and as Senator. His granddaughter, Louise Cosgrave, serves on the Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council (1999-2009).

In October 2014, Cosgrave’s grave is vandalised, the top of a Celtic cross on the headstone being broken off. It is again vandalised in March 2016.


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Death of Neil Blaney, Fianna Fáil Politician

Neil Terence Columba Blaney, Irish politician first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1948 as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) representing Donegal East, dies in Dublin of cancer at the age of 73 on November 8, 1995. He serves as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (1957), Minister for Local Government (1957–1966) and Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (1966–1970). He is Father of the Dáil from 1987 until his death.

Blaney is born on October 1, 1922, in Fanad, County Donegal, the second eldest of a family of eleven. His father, from whom he got his strong republican views and his first introduction to politics, had been a commander in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Donegal during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. He is educated locally at Tamney on the rugged Fanad Peninsula and later attends St. Eunan’s College in Letterkenny. He later works as an organiser with the Irish National Vintners and Grocers Association.

Blaney is first elected to Dáil Éireann for the Donegal East constituency in a by-election in December 1948, following the death of his father from cancer. He also becomes a member of the Donegal County Council. He remains on the backbenches for a number of years before he is one of a group of young party members handpicked by Seán Lemass to begin a re-organisation drive for the party following the defeat at the 1954 Irish general election. Within the party he gains fame by running the party’s by-election campaigns throughout the 1950s and 1960s. His dedicated bands of supporters earn the sobriquet “the Donegal Mafia,” and succeed in getting Desmond O’Malley and Gerry Collins elected to the Dáil.

Following Fianna Fáil’s victory at the 1957 Irish general election, Éamon de Valera, as Taoiseach, brings new blood into the Cabinet in the shape of Blaney, Jack Lynch, Kevin Boland and Mícheál Ó Móráin. Blaney is appointed Minister for Posts and Telegraphs however he moves to the position of Minister for Local Government at the end of 1957 following the death of Seán Moylan. He retains the post when Lemass succeeds de Valera as Taoiseach in 1959. During his tenure it becomes possible to pay rates by installment and he also introduces legislation which entitles non-nationals to vote in local elections.

In 1966 Lemass resigns as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader. The subsequent leadership election sees Cork politician Jack Lynch become party leader and Taoiseach. In the subsequent cabinet reshuffle Blaney is appointed Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

In 1969, when conflict breaks out in Northern Ireland, Blaney is one of the first to express strong Irish republican views, views which contradict the policy of the Irish Government, in support of Northern nationalists. From around late 1968 onwards, he forms and presides over an unofficial Nationalist group in Leinster House popularly known as “the Letterkenny Table.” The group is dominated by Blaney up until his death.

There is general surprise when, in an incident known as the Arms Crisis, Blaney, along with Charles Haughey, is sacked from Lynch’s cabinet amid allegations of the use of the funds to import arms for use by the IRA. Lynch asks for their resignations but both men refuse, saying they did nothing illegal. Lynch then advises President de Valera to sack Haughey and Blaney from the government. Haughey and Blaney are subsequently tried in court but are acquitted. However, many of their critics refuse to recognise the verdict of the courts. Although Blaney is cleared of wrongdoing, his ministerial career is brought to an end.

Lynch subsequently moves against Blaney so as to isolate him in the party. When Blaney and his supporters try to organise the party’s national collection independently, Lynch acts and in 1972 Blaney is expelled from Fianna Fáil for “conduct unbecoming.”

Following his expulsion from Fianna Fáil, Kevin Boland tries to persuade Blaney to join the Aontacht Éireann party he is creating but Blaney declines. Instead, he contests all subsequent elections for Independent Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party, an organisation that he built up. Throughout the 1970s there are frequent calls for his re-admittance to Fianna Fáil but the most vocal opponents of this move are Fianna Fáil delegates from County Donegal.

At the 1979 European Parliament elections Blaney tops the poll in the Connacht–Ulster constituency to the annoyance of Fianna Fáil. He narrowly loses the seat at the 1984 election but is returned to serve as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the 1989 election where he sits with the regionalist Rainbow Group. He also canvasses for IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, in which Sands is elected to Westminster.

Blaney holds his Dáil seat until his death from cancer at the age of 73 on November 8, 1995, in Dublin.


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Birth of Patrick Sarsfield Donegan, Fine Gael Politician

Patrick “Paddy” Sarsfield Donegan, Irish Fine Gael politician, is born on October 29, 1923, in Monasterboice, County Louth. He serves as a Senator for the Agricultural Panel from 1957 to 1961, a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1954 to 1957 and 1961 to 1981 and a government minister from 1973 to 1977

Donegan is the son of Thomas Francis Donegan, a publican and farmer, and Rose Ann Donegan (née Butterly). He is educated at Fieldstown and Tenure national schools, a Christian Brothers school in Drogheda, County Louth, and Castleknock College, a voluntary Vincentian secondary school for boys in Castleknock, County Dublin. After working as a buyer of malting barley for Guinness, he purchases and successfully develops a seed merchant’s and milling company. His extensive farming interests include the breeding of Belgian Blue and Limousin cattle, at a time when continental breeds are new to Ireland.

Bypassing the customary apprenticeship on local government bodies prior to a career in national politics, Donegan is elected as a Fine Gael TD for the Louth constituency at the 1954 Irish general election. He loses his seat at the 1957 Irish general election but is elected to Seanad Éireann as a Senator for the Agricultural Panel. He regains his Dáil seat at the 1961 Irish general election.

In the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition government which takes office after the 1973 Irish general election, Donegan is appointed as Minister for Defence. In October 1976, he makes a speech on an official visit to the opening of new kitchen facilities in an army barracks at Mullingar, County Westmeath in which he describes as a “thundering disgrace” President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh‘s refusal to sign the Emergency Powers Bill 1976. Ó Dálaigh had instead exercised his powers under Article 26 of the Constitution of Ireland to refer it to the Supreme Court. The Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, refuses Donegan’s resignation. On October 21, Fianna Fáil proposes a motion in the Dáil calling on the minister to resign, which is defeated. Ó Dálaigh views the refusal to remove the minister as an affront to his office by the government and resigns on October 22, 1976.

In December 1976, Donegan is appointed as Minister for Lands. In February 1977, this office is restructured as the Minister for Fisheries. He serves in cabinet until the government loses office after the 1977 Irish general election.

Donegan retires from politics at the 1981 Irish general election. He dies at his home in County Louth on November 26,2000, following a long illness. Tributes in the Dáil are led by John Bruton as Fine Gael leader. He is buried in his hometown of Monasterboice, County Louth.


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Birth of Con Colbert, Irish Rebel & Fianna Éireann Pioneer

Cornelius Bernard “Con” Colbert, Irish rebel and pioneer of Fianna Éireann, is born on October 19, 1888, in the townland of Moanleana, Mahoonagh, County Limerick. For his part in the Easter Rising of 1916, he is shot by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, on May 8, 1916.

Colbert is the fourth youngest of thirteen children of Michael Colbert, a farmer, and Honora McDermott. His family moves to the village of Athea when he is three years old. He is educated at the local national school. In 1901, his family is living in the townland of Templeathea West. A younger brother, James, and a cousin, Michael Colbert, later serve as Teachtaí Dála (TDs).

Colbert leaves Athea at the age of 16 and goes to live with his sister Catherine in Ranelagh, County Dublin. He continues his education at a Christian Brothers school in North Richmond Street. He is employed as a clerk in the offices of Kennedy’s Bakery in Dublin. In 1911, he is living with Catherine, two other siblings and two boarders at a house on Clifton Terrace, Rathmines. He is a deeply religious Catholic and refrains from smoking or drinking.

Colbert is sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) by his cousin Art O’Donnell in Art’s home in 1908. He joins Fianna Éireann at its inaugural meeting in 1909 and rises to Chief Scout. The following year he becomes a drill instructor at St. Enda’s School, founded by Patrick Pearse. In 1912, he becomes head of an IRB circle within the Fianna started by Bulmer Hobson. During 1913 he is one of a number of Fianna who conduct military training at the Forester’s Hall in Rutland Square (now Parnell Square), and in November of that year he joins the Provisional Committee of the newly formed Irish Volunteers.

In the weeks leading up to the Rising, Colbert acts as bodyguard for Thomas Clarke. Before the Rising, because he lives out of the city, he stays with the Cooney family in the city centre. During Easter Week, he fights at Watkin’s Brewery, Jameson’s Distillery and Marrowbone Lane. Thomas MacDonagh surrenders to Brigadier General William Lowe at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, April 30. MacDonagh then goes around the garrisons under his command to arrange for their surrender.

Colbert surrenders with the Marrowbone Lane Garrison along with the South Dublin Union Garrison, which had been led by Éamonn Ceannt. When the order to surrender is issued, he assumes the command of his unit to save the life of his superior officer, who is a married man.

They are marched to Richmond Barracks, where Colbert is later court-martialed. Transferred to Kilmainham Gaol, he is told on Sunday, May 7, that he is to be shot the following morning. He writes no fewer than ten letters during his time in prison. During this time in detention, he does not allow any visits from his family. Writing to his sister, he says a visit “would grieve us both too much.”

The night before his execution Colbert sends for Mrs. Ó Murchadha, who is also being held prisoner. He tells her he is “proud to die for such a cause. I will be passing away at the dawning of the day.” Holding his Bible, he tells her he is leaving it to his sister. He hands her three buttons from his volunteer uniform, telling her, “They left me nothing else.” He then asks her to say a Hail Mary for the souls of the departed when she hears the volleys of shots in the morning for Éamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin and himself. The soldier who is guarding the prisoner begins crying according to Mrs. Ó Murchadha, and records him as saying, “If only we could die such deaths.”

The next morning, May 8, 1916, Colbert is shot by firing squad.

Colbert Railway Station in Limerick, Con Colbert Road in Dublin and the Fianna Fáil cumann in the University of Limerick are named in his honor. Colbert Street in his native Athea, County Limerick, is named after him, as is the local community hall. Colbert Avenue and Colbert Park Janesboro, Limerick, are also named after him.

On May 4, 1958, a plaque is erected over a bed in Barringtons Hospital, County Limerick. The plaque has since disappeared.

In May 2016, one hundred years after his execution, a full-scale limestone sculpture of Colbert is unveiled at the gable of his one-time house in Moanleana, County Limerick.


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Birth of Thomas Finlay, Judge, Politician & Barrister

Thomas Aloysius Finlay, Irish judge, politician and barrister, is born on September 17, 1922, in Blackrock, Dublin. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South-Central constituency from 1954 to 1957, a Judge of the High Court from 1971 to 1985, President of the High Court from 1974 to 1985 and Chief Justice of Ireland and a Judge of the Supreme Court from 1985 to 1994.

Finlay is the second son of Thomas Finlay, a politician and senior counsel whose career is cut short by his early death in 1932. He is educated at Clongowes Wood College, University College Dublin (UCD) and King’s Inns. While attending UCD, he is elected Auditor of the University College Dublin Law Society. His older brother, William Finlay, serves as a governor of the Bank of Ireland.

Finlay is called to the Bar in 1944, practicing on the Midlands circuit and becomes a senior counsel in 1961.

Finlay is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD for the Dublin South-Central constituency at the 1954 Irish general election. He loses his seat at the 1957 Irish general election.

Following his exit from politics in 1957, having lost his Dáil seat, Finlay resumes practicing as a barrister. He successfully defends Captain James Kelly in the infamous 1970 arms trial.

In 1971, Finlay is tasked by the Fianna Fáil government with representing Ireland before the European Commission of Human Rights, when, in response to the ill treatment of detainees by security forces in Northern Ireland, they charge the British government with torture. Despite the notional recourse such prisoners would have within the British legal system, the Commission rules the complaint admissible.

Finlay is subsequently appointed a High Court judge and President of the High Court in January 1974. In 1985, Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and his government nominates him to the Supreme Court and to the office of Chief Justice of Ireland. On October 10, 1985, he is appointed by President Patrick Hillery to both roles.

During this period Finlay presides over a number of landmark cases, including Attorney General v X in 1992, when he overturns a High Court injunction preventing a pregnant teenage rape victim travelling to the UK for an abortion.

When, in the same year, Judge Liam Hamilton of the High Court, chair of the Beef Tribunal, seeks disclosure of the cabinet’s minutes for a particular meeting, Chief Justice Finlay along with the majority of the Supreme Court deny the request ruling that the concept of collective government responsibility in the Constitution takes precedence.

Finlay announces his resignation as Chief Justice of Ireland and retirement as a judge in 1994.

After his retirement, Finlay presides over a number of public inquiries.

In 1996, Finlay oversees the inquiry into the violence by English fans at the aborted 1995 friendly soccer match versus the Republic of Ireland at Lansdowne Road. His report to Bernard Allen, Minister for Sport, is critical of security arrangements on the night and recommends improvements to ticketing, seat-allocation, fan-vetting and policing arrangements. The Irish Government shares his report with the British Home Office.

After the collapse of The Irish Press group in 1995, the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, John Bruton, receives a damming report from the Competition Authority that Independent Newspapers has abused its dominant position and acted in an anti-competitive manner by purchasing a shareholding in The Irish Press. In September 1995, Bruton announces the Commission on the Newspaper Industry with an extremely wide remit to examine diversity and ownership, competitiveness, editorial freedom and standards of coverage in Irish newspapers as well as the impact of the sales of the British press in Ireland. Minister Bruton appoints 21 people to the commission and appoints Finlay chair. Due to the wide remit and huge number of submissions, the commission’s report is delayed but is eventually published at the end of July recommending widespread reforms.

Following the discovery of the BTSB anti-D scandal, in 1996, Finlay is appointed the chair and singular member of the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Blood Transfusion Service Board. The speed and efficiency with which his BTSB Tribunal conducts its business, restores confidence in the Tribunal as a mechanism of resolving great controversies in the public interest.

Finlay also sits on an Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) panel to adjudicate on the cases of Rugby players accused of using banned performance-enhancing substances.

Finlay is married to Alice Blayney, who predeceases him in 2012. They have five children, two of whom follow in his family’s legal tradition: his son John being a Senior Counsel and his daughter Mary Finlay Geoghegan a former judge of the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. Whenever his work schedule allows, he escapes to County Mayo where he indulges his passion for fishing.

Thomas Finlay dies at the age of 95 in Irishtown, Dublin, on December 3, 2017.


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Birth of Thomas Pringle, Irish Independent Politician

Thomas Pringle, an Irish independent politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Donegal constituency since the 2016 Irish general election, is born into an Irish Republican family in Dublin on August 30, 1967. From 2011 to 2016 he is the TD for the Donegal South-West constituency.

Pringle’s father, Peter, is a supporter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and is convicted of the killing of two members of the Gardaí in 1980, a conviction that is subsequently declared as unsafe, although it has not been certified as a miscarriage of justice. Pringle is a patron of the People’s Movement, which campaigns against the Treaty of Lisbon. He is previously a member of Donegal County Council, where he manages a water treatment plant and is a shop steward, having been elected as an independent member in the 1999 Irish local elections, and then as a Sinn Féin candidate in the 2004 Irish local elections. He leaves Sinn Féin in 2007 and retains his seat as an independent in the 2009 Irish local elections.

Pringle is elected as a TD for the Donegal South-West constituency at the 2011 Irish general election, unseating the incumbent Tánaiste Mary Coughlan. He quickly becomes an ally of Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, elected as an independent TD at the same time as Pringle, but for the Roscommon–South Leitrim constituency. Flanagan and Pringle go on to support each other on many issues, including reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and opposition to the Mercosur deal. Even when Flanagan is elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Midlands–North-West constituency after spending three years in the Dáil, he and Pringle continue to work together, and Flanagan visits Donegal to canvass for Pringle ahead of the 2020 Irish general election.

On December 5, 2011, Pringle delivers a televised address to the nation, representing the technical group of TDs in Dáil Éireann. He does so in response to Taoiseach Enda Kenny‘s address to the nation of the previous evening. Later that month, he calls on people for support in a campaign not to pay a new household charge brought in as part of the latest austerity budget and announces that he will not register for the tax or pay it.

In February 2012, Pringle publishes his expenses online. He is elected leader of the technical group in Dáil Éireann in March 2012.

In May 2012, Pringle brings an unsuccessful High Court challenge over the 2012 European Fiscal Compact referendum and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Treaty which is appealed to the Supreme Court in July 2012. In July 2012, the Irish Supreme Court decides to refer three questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) arising out of his challenge of the European Stability Mechanism Treaty and doubts about the ESM’s legality under the Treaties of the European Union. The CJEU holds an oral hearing on the referral on October 23, 2012. It is the first time that the full court sits to hear a reference from a member state of the Union. The 27 judges hear oral arguments from the counsel for Pringle, Ireland, nine other member states, the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament. On November 27, 2012, the EU Court of Justice dismisses Pringle’s arguments and rules that the ESM is in accordance with the Treaties.

In the 2016 Irish general election, after a re-drawing of constituency boundaries, Pringle campaigns in the new five-seater Donegal constituency. He is re-elected to the final seat by a margin of just 184 votes over Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn. During negotiations to form a government, Pringle says he is glad not to have signed up to the Independent Alliance, after that group enters talks with Taoiseach Enda Kenny. He says that unless Kenny or Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin sign up to Right2Change, he will not support either as Taoiseach.

As of April 2016, Pringle had become a member of the Independents 4 Change technical group in the Dáil.

In May 2016, Pringle introduces legislation designed to retain water in public ownership and avoid further privatisation.

Pringle puts forward a bill calling on the government to end public spending from fossil fuels, which passes, making Ireland the first country to fully divest public money from fossil fuels. In June 2022, he puts forward a bill proposing a referendum on lowering the voting age to sixteen.

Pringle is married and has three children.


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The Founding of Na Fianna Éireann

Na Fianna Éireann (The Fianna of Ireland), known as the Fianna (“Soldiers of Ireland”), an Irish nationalist youth organization, is founded by Constance Markievicz on August 16, 1909, with later help from Bulmer Hobson. Fianna members are involved in setting up the Irish Volunteers and have their own circle of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). They take part in the 1914 Howth gun-running and, as Volunteer members, in the 1916 Easter Rising. They are active in the Irish War of Independence, and many take the anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War.

An earlier “Fianna” is organised “to serve as a Junior Hurling League to promote the study of the Irish Language” on June 26, 1902, at the Catholic Boys’ Hall, Falls Road, in West Belfast, the brainchild of Bulmer Hobson. Hobson, a Quaker influenced by suffragism and nationalism, joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1904 and is an early member of Sinn Féin during its monarchist-nationalist period, alongside Arthur Griffith and Constance Markievicz. Hobson later relocates to Dublin and the Fianna organisation collapses in Belfast. Markievicz, inspired by the rapid growth of Robert Baden-Powell‘s Boy Scouts, forms sometime before July 1909 the Red Branch Knights, a Dublin branch of Irish National Boy Scouts. After discussions involving Hobson, Markievicz, suffragist and labour activist Helena Molony and Seán McGarry, the Irish National Boy Scouts change their name to Na Fianna Éireann at a meeting in 34 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, on August 16, 1909, at which Hobson is elected as president, thus ensuring a strong IRB influence, Markievicz as vice-president and Pádraig Ó Riain as secretary. Seán Heuston is the leader of the Fianna on Dublin’s north side, while Cornelius “Con” Colbert is the leader on the south side. The Fianna forms as a Nationalist alternative to Powell’s Scouts with the aim to achieve the full independence of Ireland by training and teaching scouting and military exercises, Irish history, and the Irish language.

The Fianna finds its first years difficult and by 1912 has barely 1,000 members and a skeleton structure outside of the cities of Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Galway. But in the next couple of years the momentum of events carries the Fianna forward. It is involved in initiating the militarisation of the IRB, the launch of the Irish Volunteers and showing solidarity with the striking Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). It is also crucial to the success of the Howth and Kilcoole gun-running operations. Alongside these headline-grabbing activities, the Fianna continues with classes, drilling, camps and protests and reaps the benefits of an expanding membership and structure. When the fighting starts, the Fianna are not found wanting either. In 1916, Na Fianna members are present in all areas that mobilise and fight alongside all the other Republican organisations. They continue to fight throughout the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War. Seeing comrades being killed in action or executed or suffering imprisonment does not dim their enthusiasm for the fight. In Na Fianna Éireann’s March 1922 Árd Fheis, the 187 delegates representing 30,000 members vote unanimously to reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

The Fianna are declared an illegal organisation by the government of the Irish Free State in 1931. This is reversed when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932 but re-introduced in 1938. During the splits in the Republican movement of the later part of the 20th century, the Fianna and Cumann na mBan support Provisional Sinn Féin in 1969 and Republican Sinn Féin in 1986. The Fianna have been a proscribed organisation in Northern Ireland since 1920.

While the events in which the Fianna members are involved over the revolutionary years have a special place in Irish history, the specific role of the Fianna is absent from most written histories. This, allied with the failure to adequately commemorate the organisation’s centenary, marks a kind of revisionism of omission.


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Birth of Arthur Cox, Solicitor & Senator

Arthur Conor Joseph Cox, solicitor and senator, is born on July 25, 1891, in Dublin.

Cox is the younger of two sons of Dr. Michael Cox, physician originally of Roscommon and Sligo, and Elizabeth Cox (née Nolan). Like his father, he supports the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and maintains an interest in a wide range of subjects outside his chosen career throughout his life. He attends Belvedere College (1900-09), where he often obtains first place in his class and wins the Union prize for essay writing three years in a row (1905–07). He is the first auditor of the Belvedere Debating Society and is succeeded in the post by George O’Brien, who remains his lifelong friend. In 1909, he wins both a Royal University of Ireland (RUI) scholarship and an entrance exhibition to University College Dublin (UCD), a college of the new National University of Ireland (NUI).

Working for an arts degree at UCD, then housed at 86 St. Stephen’s Green, Cox overcomes an innate shyness to cultivate a reputation as a skillful and humorous orator in the Literary and Historical Society (L&H), where he befriends both Kevin O’Higgins and John A. Costello. He has immense respect for both men, and they remain firm friends. The respect is reciprocal, and during their subsequent careers O’Higgins and Costello often have occasion to seek Cox’s wise counsel. In 1912, Cox defeats Costello for the auditorship of the L&H by 112 votes to 63, and in the same year attains a first-class honours BA. His role as auditor means that he is involved with UCD for a further year. He attends lectures at the Incorporated Law Society while at the same time he pursues both the LL. B course, a one-year postgraduate law degree, and an MA at UCD. By the end of 1913 he has achieved first place in the LL. B and first-class honours in his MA. In addition, he has become auditor of the Solicitors’ Apprentices’ Debating Society.

After university Cox is apprenticed to a solicitor, Francis Joseph Scallan, who runs a firm in partnership with his brother, John Louis Scallan. On qualifying in 1915, he remains with the firm as an assistant solicitor until 1920, when he forms a partnership with another solicitor, John McAreavey. The firm is called Arthur Cox & Co. and has its offices at 5 St. Stephen’s Green. Initially the new firm’s clients are predominantly made up of those for whom he worked at his previous firm, and friends from his university days. Through George O’Brien he meets Sir Horace Plunkett, president of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), a connection of enormous benefit, which sees the firm both become solicitor to the IAOS and gain a large number of clients through its membership.

Despite his relative youth, Cox is held in high esteem by those attempting to construct the apparatus of the newly independent Irish Free State in 1922. This is clear when he provides Hugh Kennedy, law officer to the provisional government and future Chief Justice of Ireland, with a lengthy opinion on the status of the Anglo–Irish Treaty, in the context of drafting a constitution for the new state. He is conscious of the need to counter claims that the treaty does not go far enough in acknowledging Irish nationhood; and he advises that the first article of the new constitution should explicitly state that the sovereignty of the new state derives from the Irish people. This is ultimately done in the preamble of the Constitution of the Irish Free State (1922).

In 1923, Cox is appointed solicitor to Siemens-Schuckert, the German engineering firm, and helps to negotiate the terms of an agreement with the Irish government for the construction of a hydro-electric station at Ardnacrusha, County Clare. In 1926, the Electricity (Supply) Act is passed, on which he advises. Although he experiences much success in these years, he is very much affected by the death of his friend Kevin O’Higgins, who is shot and dies from his injuries on July 10, 1927. He visits O’Higgins on his deathbed. Arthur Cox & Co. expands rapidly in its early years, and in 1926 Cox and McAreavey purchase new premises at 42–3 St. Stephen’s Green. Four years later he buys his partner out of the firm.

Given his friendships with various members of the original Free State administration, and the amount of work he receives from it, government work for Cox dries up when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932. However, the protectionist corporate policies and implementing legislation of the new administration bring new opportunities. The legislation places severe restrictions on foreign companies owning and operating enterprises in Ireland. He develops a reputation for assisting corporate clients to circumnavigate the restrictive laws. Along with his friend James Beddy, chief executive of the Industrial Credit Corporation, he realises that foreign investment is essential to the growth of the Irish economy. He introduces many clients to Beddy, and between them they find ways to assist the firms in investing in various enterprises without breaching the law. During this period, he cements his reputation as the foremost corporate lawyer in Ireland. This is evident when James Marmion Gilmor Carroll appoints him, as one of only two non-family members, to the board of the tobacco manufacturers P. J. Carroll & Co. He plays a key role in transforming the archaic practices of the firm by persuading Carroll to recruit Kevin McCourt as executive director. He and McCourt later convince Carroll to employ his nephew, Don Carroll, who plays a key role in the modernisation and diversification of the firm. In 1960 He and Carroll negotiate the sale of 40 per cent of the company to Rothmans International.

Despite his reputation as a corporate lawyer, Cox also represents non-corporate clients, some of whom include well-known personalities. In 1946, he agrees to assist Hungarian film-maker Gabriel Pascal in attempting to persuade the Irish government to establish an Irish film studio, with a view to filming the plays of George Bernard Shaw. He puts much time and energy into trying to convince the government to provide finance for the venture, but to no avail.

In 1942, Cox is elected to the council of the Incorporated Law Society and becomes president of the society for the 1951-52 term, presiding over the celebrations to commemorate the centenary of the society’s charter of incorporation. In 1951, he also becomes chairman of the company law reform committee, which produces its report, known as “the Cox report,” in 1958. Renowned for his eccentricities, he is almost as well known for his shabby mode of dress as he is for his incisive mind and immense capacity for work. His reputation is also based on a strict adherence to discretion and confidentiality. This is clear in 1948 when his old friend John A. Costello, having been offered the office of Taoiseach in the first inter-party government, turns to him for advice on whether he should accept the post. In 1954, Costello nominates him to the 8th Seanad.

In October 1953, the London firm of Nicholl Manisty & Co. retains him to represent British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill in a libel action brought by Brigadier Eric Dorman O’Gowan, arising from comments in Churchill’s The Second World War: The Hinge of Fate. Churchill also relies on the advice of his friend Sir Hartley Shawcross, leader of the English bar, who makes several visits to Dublin to meet Cox and counsel (including John A. Costello). Cox and Shawcross believe it necessary to reach some form of settlement to avoid Churchill having to appear in court. The action is therefore withdrawn in return for an undertaking that certain corrections will be made.

On August 5, 1940, Cox marries Brigid O’Higgins (née Cole), widow of his friend Kevin O’Higgins. Prior to this he lives with his mother at 26 Merrion Square. He had purchased Carraig Breac in Howth in 1936 and moves there on his marriage. His commitment to his work means that he often works seven days a week and he therefore keeps a flat on Mespil Road, Dublin, from 1940. In 1959, he sells Carraig Breac and moves to 8 Shrewsbury Road, Dublin.

On February 14, 1961, Brigid Cox dies. Soon after, Cox decides to retire from his profession and study for the priesthood. He is intent on becoming a Jesuit and discusses his intentions with the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who agrees to ordain him after two years of private tuition at the Jesuit theologate at Milltown Park, Dublin. On being accepted by the Jesuits, he makes arrangements to settle his worldly affairs by selling his home on Shrewsbury Road and leaving his practice to the existing partners. He enters Milltown Park on October 15, 1961, and is ordained on December 15, 1963. His impact on Irish life over the previous forty years is evident by the presence at his ordination of John A. Costello, W. T. Cosgrave, Seán T. O’Kelly, and James Dillon, among others.

Following ordination Cox is appointed to serve at the Jesuit mission in Monze, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). He arrives at Monze in August 1964 and is appointed extraordinary chaplain to the local convent and hospital. On June 8, 1965, he suffers head injuries in a car accident while traveling to Namwada in Zambia. Taken to Choma hospital, he initially appears to be relatively unscathed but collapses and dies on June 11, 1965. He is found to have suffered from a cerebral haemorrhage and a fractured skull. He is buried in the grounds of the Jesuit retreat house in Chikuni, Zambia.

Many of the Cox family papers are housed at the UCD archives.

(From: “Cox, Arthur Conor Joseph” by Shaun Boylan, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Maurice Ahern is Elected Lord Mayor of Dublin

Maurice Ahern, Fianna Fáil politician and brother of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, is elected Lord Mayor of Dublin on July 3, 2000. Fine Gael’s P. J. Hourican, a native of County Longford, is elected Lord Mayor of Cork.

Ahern is born in Dublin in 1938. He is a member of Dublin City Council for the Cabra–Glasnevin local electoral area from 1999 to 2009. He is first elected at the 1999 Irish local elections, topping the poll. He is re-elected at the 2004 Irish local elections. Prior to his election as the Lord Mayor of Dublin in 2000, he is the former Leader of the Fianna Fáil group on the council. He is a member of the Irish Sports Council.

Ahern is married to Moira Murray, and they have five sons and one daughter. His eldest son, Dylan Ahern, is found dead in his apartment on November 22, 2009.

Ahern is the elder brother of Bertie and Noel Ahern, both of whom serve as Fianna Fáil TDs, with Bertie serving as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008.

Ahern is the Fianna Fáil candidate in the Dublin Central by-election which is held on June 5, 2009. He loses that election being beaten into 5th place. On the same day, he also loses his council seat in the 2009 Irish local elections.