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Birth of John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam

John MacHale, Irish Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam and Irish nationalist, is born in Tubbernavine, near Lahardane, County Mayo on March 6, 1791.

MacHale’s parents are Patrick and Mary Mulkieran MacHale. He is so feeble at birth that he is baptised at home by Father Andrew Conroy. By the time he is five years of age, he begins attending a hedge school. Three important events happen during his childhood: the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the landing at Killala of French troops, whom the boy, hidden in a stacked sheaf of flax, watches marching through a mountain pass to Castlebar, and a few months later the brutal hanging of Father Conroy on a false charge of high treason.

Being destined for the priesthood, at the age of thirteen, the he is sent to a school at Castlebar to learn Latin, Greek, and English grammar. In his sixteenth year the Bishop of Killala gives him a busarship at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. At the age of 24, he is ordained a priest by Daniel Murray, Archbishop of Dublin. In 1825, Pope Leo XII appoints him titular bishop of Maronia, and coadjutor bishop to Dr. Thomas Waldron, Bishop of Killala.

With his friend and ally, Daniel O’Connell, MacHale takes a prominent part in the important question of Catholic emancipation, impeaching in unmeasured terms the severities of the former penal code, which had branded Catholics with the stamp of inferiority. During 1826 his zeal is omnipresent. He calls on the Government to remember how the Act of Union in 1800 was carried by William Pitt the Younger on the distinct assurance and implied promise that Catholic emancipation, which had been denied by the Irish Parliament, should be granted by the Parliament of the Empire.

Oliver Kelly, Archbishop of Tuam, dies in 1834, and the clergy selects MacHale as one of three candidates, to the annoyance of the Government who despatches agents to induce Pope Gregory XVI not to nominate him to the vacant see. Disregarding their request, the pope appoints MacHale Archbishop of Tuam. He is the first prelate since the Reformation who has received his entire education in Ireland. The corrupt practices of general parliamentary elections and the Tithe War cause frequent rioting and bloodshed, and are the subjects of denunciation by the new archbishop, until the passing of a Tithes bill in 1838. He also leads the opposition to the Protestant Second Reformation, which is being pursued by evangelical clergy in the Church of Ireland, including the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, Thomas Plunket.

The repeal of the Acts of Union 1800, advocated by O’Connell, enlists MacHale’s ardent sympathy and he assists the Liberator in many ways, and remits subscriptions from his priests for this purpose. In his zeal for the cause of the Catholic religion and of Ireland, so long down-trodden, but not in the 1830s, he frequently incurs from his opponents the charge of intemperate language, something not altogether undeserved. In his anxiety to reform abuses and to secure the welfare of Ireland, by an uncompromising and impetuous zeal, he makes many bitter and unrelenting enemies, particularly British ministers and their supporters.

The Great Famine of 1846–47 affects his diocese more than any. In the first year he announces in a sermon that the famine is a divine punishment on his flock for their sins. Then by 1846 he warns the Government as to the state of Ireland, reproaches them for their dilatoriness, and holds up the uselessness of relief works. From England as well as other parts of the world, cargoes of food are sent to the starving Irish. Bread and soup are distributed from the archbishop’s kitchen. Donations sent to him are acknowledged, accounted for, and disbursed by his clergy among the victims.

The death of O’Connell in 1847 is a setback to MacHale as are the subsequent disagreements within the Repeal Association. He strongly advises against the violence of Young Ireland. Over the next 30 years he becomes involved in political matters, particularly those involving the church. Toward the end of his life he becomes less active in politics.

MacHale attends the First Vatican Council in 1869. He believes that the favourable moment has not arrived for an immediate definition of the dogma of papal infallibility. Better to leave it a matter of faith, not written down, and consequently he speaks and votes in the council against its promulgation. Once the dogma had been defined, he declares the dogma of infallibility “to be true Catholic doctrine, which he believed as he believed the Apostles’ Creed“. In 1877, to the disappointment of the archbishop who desires that his nephew should be his co-adjutor, Dr. John McEvilly, Bishop of Galway, is elected by the clergy of the archdiocese, and is commanded by Pope Leo XIII after some delay, to assume his post. He had opposed this election as far as possible, but submits to the papal order.

Every Sunday MacHale preaches a sermon in Irish at the cathedral, and during his diocesan visitations he always addresses the people in their native tongue, which is still largely used in his diocese. On journeys he usually converses in Irish with his attendant chaplain, and has to use it to address people of Tuam or the beggars who greet him whenever he goes out. He preaches his last Irish sermon after his Sunday Mass, April 1881. He dies in Tuam seven months later, on November 7, 1881.

A marble statue perpetuates his memory on the grounds of the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Tuam. MacHale Park in Castlebar, County Mayo and Archbishop McHale College in Tuam are named after him. In his birthplace the Parish of Addergoole, the local GAA Club, Lahardane MacHales, is named in his honour. The Dunmore GAA team, Dunmore MacHales, is also named after him.


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Birth of Gaelic Footballer Mick O’Connell

Michael “Mick” O’Connell, retired Gaelic footballer, is born on Valentia Island, County Kerry, on January 4, 1937. His league and championship career with the Kerry senior team spans nineteen seasons from 1956 to 1974. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the game.

O’Connell is raised in a family that has no real link to Gaelic football. His father is a fisherman who also works on the family’s small farm on the island. From an early age O’Connell shows his footballing talent and “inimitable signs of excellence.” He excels at the game in his youth and also at Cahersiveen CBS.

O’Connell begins his club football career with neighbouring Waterville. When a football club, Valentia Young Islanders, is founded on Valentia Island, as per GAA rules he switches allegiance to his local parish team. He wins three Kerry Senior Football Championship medals with the South Kerry divisional side.

O’Connell’s career with Kerry begins in 1955 when he lines out in the Munster Minor Championship. Kerry loses the replayed Munster final to Tipperary.

O’Connell quickly joins the Kerry senior football team, making his debut in 1956 against Tipperary in the Munster Championship. He later lines out in the Munster final against Cork, but loses out in a replay. In 1958 he wins the first of eight consecutive Munster Senior Football Championship titles, however, Kerry suffers a shocking defeat by Derry in the All-Ireland semi-final. In 1959 he is captain when Kerry wins the National Football League. He later guides his native-county to another Munster title, however, he has to retire due to injury in Kerry’s All-Ireland victory over Galway.

Following a second National League victory in 1961, O’Connell captures his second All-Ireland medal in 1962 when Kerry defeats Roscommon in the final. A third National League victory quickly follows at the start of 1963. After two All-Ireland defeats by Galway in 1964 and 1965 Kerry surrenders their provincial crown to Cork in 1966 and 1967. He wins a ninth Munster title in 1968, however, Kerry loses out to Down in the All-Ireland final. This defeat is followed by a great year of success in 1969 as he adds a fourth National League medal to his collection before winning a tenth Munster title. He later wins a third All-Ireland medal following a victory over Offaly.

In 1970 O’Connell enters the third decade of his inter-county football career, winning an eleventh Munster title in the process. A fourth All-Ireland medal quickly follows after a victory over Meath in the first 80-minute All-Ireland final. He claims two more National league medals in 1971 and 1972, before winning his twelfth and final provincial medal in 1972. That year Offaly later defeats Kerry in O’Connell’s last All-Ireland final appearance. In spite of this loss he is still presented with an GAA GPA All Star award. He retires from inter-county football in 1973.

In 1972 O’Connell marries his wife Rosaleen. They have three children, Máire, Mícheál and Diarmuid. Mícheál marries Emma, daughter of then President of Ireland Mary McAleese in December 2009.

In retirement from playing O’Connell publishes his autobiography, A Kerry Footballer, in 1974. Ten years later in 1984, the GAA’s centenary year, his reputation as one of the all-time greats is recognised when he is named in the midfield position on the GAA Football Team of the Century. In 2000 he is also named on the associations Football Team of the Millennium.


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The Murders of Patrick & Harry Loughnane

Brothers Patrick and Harry Loughnane, both members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), are abducted and killed by Black and Tans at Kinvara, County Galway on November 26, 1920.

County Galway sees its share of controversial incidents during the Irish War of Independence. Most of these incidents are carried out by Crown Forces, specifically the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and a new force, the Auxiliaries, created in order to help the RIC in dealing with militant republicanism.

Patrick Loughnane, aged 29, is a local IRA leader and Sinn Féin secretary. He was also active in the local Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). His younger brother Harry, aged 22, is president of the local Sinn Féin club and a goalkeeper with Beagh Hurling Club.

While working on the family farm in Shanaglish, County Galway, the two brothers are arrested by the Auxiliaries. Not a word is heard from the boys until a week after their arrest when a group of Auxiliaries call Mrs. Loughnane to inform her that her sons had escaped capture. This raises fear and suspicion among the brothers’ family and friends and a search is organised. Ten days after they had been arrested, their bodies are found in a muddy pond near Ardrahan.

Exactly what happened to the two brothers will never be known, however, witnesses, including others arrested at the same time tell a tale of merciless brutality. After being arrested the brothers are beaten for hours in Gort Bridewell and then tied to the tailgate of a lorry, bound to each other, and dragged along the roads to Drumharsna Castle, the headquarters of the Black and Tans, where they are beaten again. At 11:00 PM that night they are taken from Drumharsna Castle to Moy O’Hynes wood where they are shot. Witnesses recount on Saturday morning, Harry is still alive and is heard moaning. On Sunday morning, the Auxiliaries take the bodies to Umbriste near Ardrahan where they are set on fire. After failing to bury the bodies because of the rocky ground they throw them into a muddy pond and, to make their discovery more difficult, throw dirty oil into the water.

After the bodies are discovered they are examined by a local doctor. The letters “IV” are carved into the charred flesh in several places, two of Harry’s fingers are missing, his right arm is broken and hung over his shoulder. Both of Patrick’s legs and wrists are broken. The doctor believes it possible that hand grenades had been put into their mouths and exploded.

A memorial to the two brothers is later built on the spot where they died.

(From: Stair na hÉireann | History of Ireland, http://www.stairnaheireann.net)


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Bloody Sunday (1920)

More than 30 people are killed or fatally wounded in a day of violence in Dublin on November 21, 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. It goes down in Irish history as the first “Bloody Sunday,” though unfortunately not the last.

Through the centuries the British have crushed Irish revolutionary movements through the use of spies and informers. Michael Collins, Minister for Finance of the Irish Republic, head of the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood and Irish Republican Army (IRA) Chief of Intelligence, is in the process of beating the British at their own game. The day begins in the early morning hours with an IRA operation, organised by Collins, to assassinate members of the “Cairo Gang” – a team of undercover British intelligence agents working and living in Dublin. IRA members go to a number of addresses and kill or fatally wounded 16 men, mostly British Army intelligence officers. Five other men are wounded.

When word of the success of the operation gets back to Collins, knowing the caliber of the men in England‘s infamous “Black and Tan” force, he sends a message to the Gaelic Athletic Association, telling them to cancel that day’s Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary. However, it is too late and the match goes on.

Later that afternoon, lashing out blindly, the Black and Tans surround Croke Park during the match and move in. Their supposed purpose is to attempt to capture members of Sinn Féin who might be in the crowd, but they soon open fire indiscriminately on the players and spectators. They kill or fatally wound fourteen civilians and wound at least sixty others before members of the Auxiliary Division, another brutal force created to crush the Irish insurrection, finally manages to get them to cease-fire.

That evening, two Irish republicans and members of Collins’ squad, Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, who had helped plan the earlier assassinations, along with a third man, a civilian named Conor Clune, who happened to be caught with the others, are beaten and shot dead in Dublin Castle by their captors, who claim they were killed during an escape attempt.

Overall, Bloody Sunday is considered a victory for the IRA, as Collins’s operation severely damages British intelligence, while the later reprisals do no real harm to the guerrillas but increase support for the IRA at home and abroad.

(Pictured: The headline of the Dublin Evening Herald reads ‘Latest Stories about Irish Tragedies’, 22nd November 1920. The newspaper reports on the massacre at a Croke Park football match, shootings in Dublin, and the discovery of a priest’s corpse in a Galway bog. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)


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First All-Ireland Medal Auctioned at Sotheby’s

The only remaining medal from the first All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, one of the rarest pieces of Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) memorabilia, goes up for auction at Sotheby’s in London on November 15, 2005.

A winner’s medal from the 1887 All-Ireland Football Final, which was actually played in April 1888 and matched the Limerick Commercials GAA club against Dundalk Young Irelands, is sold for €31,000. The medal is a rare piece of GAA memorabilia and it goes for around three times the original estimate when it goes under the hammer.

The 9ct-gold medal is purchased by the Limerick Leader newspaper which says it will put it on public display in Limerick. The Chairman of the Limerick Leader, John McStay, bids for it by telephone.

The medal had been won by Malachi O’Brien from Ballinvrina, County Limerick, who played for the Limerick Commercials GAA Club. They beat Dundalk Young Irelands by 1-4 to 0-3 in April 1888.

The medal is eventually passed down through the family to Mary Doran who lives in Northampton and who is the daughter of Malachi O’Brien’s great-grandnephew. She says she is delighted it will be going on public display in Limerick.


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Murder of George Clancy, Mayor of Limerick

george-clancyGeorge Clancy, Irish nationalist politician and Mayor of Limerick, is shot in his home by Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Auxiliaries and dies on March 7, 1921 during the Irish War of Independence.

Clancy is born at Grange, County Limerick in 1881 to a family with a strong republican tradition. He is educated at Crescent College, Limerick, and thereafter at the Catholic University in St. Stephen’s Green, now University College, Dublin. Among his friends at the university are James Joyce, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney. He helps form a branch of the Gaelic League at college and persuades his friends, including Joyce, to take lessons in the Irish language. He plays hurling and is a good friend of Michael Cusack. With Arthur Griffin he joins the Celtic Literary Society. It is said that he is the model for the character of Michael Davin in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Clancy graduates in 1904 and finds a position teaching the Irish language at Clongowes Wood College and is active in the Gaelic Athletic Association. Due to ill health he has to return to his home at Grange. In 1908 he comes to Limerick to teach Irish. In 1913 he joins the Irish Volunteers. In 1915 he marries Máire Killeen, a teacher. After the 1916 Easter Rising he is arrested and imprisoned in Cork, but is released before he comes to trial following a hunger strike.

Clancy helps in Éamon de Valera‘s election campaign in East Clare. He nearly dies of Spanish flu during the 1918 epidemic but recovers and, in January 1921, he is elected Sinn Féin Mayor of Limerick.

On the night of March 6, 1921 three Auxiliaries come to Clancy’s house and one of them shoots him, injuring him fatally. His wife is also injured in the attack. The previous Mayor, Michael O’Callaghan, is also murdered on the same night by the same group.

Suspicion immediately falls upon members of the Black and Tans, but a British inquiry into the murder, like most such inquiries through the years, absolve Crown forces of any blame. One of Clancy’s killers is later said to be George Nathan who dies in the Spanish Civil War in July 1937.


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President McAleese Visits Brakey Orange Hall

mcaleese-at-brakey-orange-hallPresident Mary McAleese makes the first official visit by an Irish head of state to an Orange Order hall when she visits Brakey Orange Hall, just outside Bailieborough, County Cavan on November 28, 2008.

Brakey Orange Hall had been destroyed in an arson attack on July 13, 2000, but had since been rebuilt and reopened in 2004. Further extensions and improvements have been made since, with the latest recently completed in time for the occasion.

Approximately 50 local people, many of the men in their orange lapels and other regalia, pack the little hall to honour their guest. Placing the visit in a wider context, McAleese says the “journey of peace-building and peace-making” since the signing of the Belfast Agreement ten years earlier must continue, and calls for a new culture of tolerance and acceptance in both parts of Ireland.

McAleese is welcomed by Cavan County Grand Master Henry Latimer, who praises the financial support for Orange halls in Border counties provided by the Government. He outlines to the President and her husband, Dr. Martin McAleese, the close bond between local communities and Orange halls and the facilities provided for meetings, classes and social events. “Given the widespread nature of such activity, it demonstrates why when halls are damaged, attacked, destroyed or [placed] beyond use for periods of time, the community activity of its related hinterland suffers and is curtailed,” he adds.

McAleese hails the occasion as an example of fresh understanding in relationships between different traditions. “We have taken the first important steps towards ending the bitter culture of ‘either-or,’ of them versus us,” she says. She calls on Irish people everywhere “to build a new culture . . . each accepting that there are different perspectives and practices.”

McAleese praises Latimer as a good Cavan man, a good Irishman and a good Orangeman. The burning of Orange halls, she says, are “intemperate acts of vandalism” which are “a throw-back to another time.”

Appealing for an end to attacks on Orange halls and GAA clubs by arsonists McAleese adds, “I invite them all to stop and think how wonderfully transformed all our lives would be if we were all made as welcome in each other’s homes as I have been made welcome here.”

McAleese receives a bouquet of flowers and a piece of Cavan crystal to mark her visit. She later attends other engagements throughout Cavan.

(From: “President makes first official visit by Irish head of state to an Orange hall” by Dan Keenan, The Irish Times, November 28, 2008)


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Death of Luke Dolan, Ireland’s Oldest Man

luke-dolanIreland’s oldest man, Luke Dolan, dies at the age of 108 at Cloverhill nursing home on November 9, 2014.

Dolan, from Cloonfree, Strokestown, County Roscommon, lives at home on the family farm until he is over 100 years old. A keen Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) man, he attributes his longevity to a boiled egg every day, plenty of sugar in his tea and a devoted wife. He has also not had a cigarette for almost 50 years, having kicked the habit at age 60.

Dolan is one of seven children including one sister, Mary-Kate, who lived to the age of 106. A father of seven himself, his wife Peggy passed away in 2005 at the age of 85.

In 1932, Dolan plays for Strokestown GAA when the club wins the county championship and he is proud of the fact that his grandson, also named Luke Dolan, has lined out for the Roscommon GAA senior team for a number of years.

Dolan’s funeral takes place at Strokestown parish church on November 12. Local councillor Eugene Murphy pays tribute to Dolan and notes how “He was a very learned man.” He is survived by his sons John Joe, Tom, Pat, Michael, Gerard and daughters Madeline and Bernadette, as well as his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

With the passing of Dolan, County Roscommon retains the distinction of being home to Ireland’s oldest man. Michael Lambert, from Ballintubber, turned 107 in October 2014 (Lambert dies less than three months later on January 25, 2015). The two men, who were born a year and less than 20 miles apart, met for the first time during the summer of 2014, when Lambert dropped into Cloverhill to chat about the old days.

(From: “Ireland’s oldest man Luke Dolan dies at 108” by Marese McDonagh, The Irish Times, November 10, 2014)


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The Funeral of Charles Stewart Parnell

parnell-grave-stoneThe funeral and burial of Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist politician who serves from 1875 as Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, takes place in Dublin on October 11, 1891.

Parnell dies of pneumonia at half-past eleven on the night of October 6 at his residence at 10 Walsingham Terrace, Aldrington, near Brighton, England. He dies in the arms of his wife Katherine whom he had married just five months earlier.

Prior to the funeral, Parnell’s body lay in state for several hours and his death is the primary topic of conversation around Dublin. The belief that his demise would close the chasm in the Irish ranks is no longer tenable. His death makes it too wide even to be bridged. His old opponents may have felt inclined to forget and forgive, but this spirit is crushed almost before it is born, and his old adherents are simply ferocious in their enmity.

The city is astir at an unusually early hour, and there is a crowd of thousands in and around the Westland Row Station before seven o’clock. In front, as a guard of honor, stands a body of the Gaelic Athletic Association, armed with camans, around which are bound crape and green ribbon. It is nearly eight o’clock when Parnell’s body is placed in a hearse drawn by four black horses. The Gaels march in front. Thousands join the cortège, which includes several bands and fife corps.

Though an Anglican, Parnell’s funeral at the Irish National nondenominational Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin is attended by more than 200,000 people. His notability is such that his gravestone of unhewn Wicklow granite, erected in 1940, reads only “Parnell.”

Parnell is buried amid warring elements and in the presence of an immense assemblage. As a scene of great but suppressed excitement, and of still greater impressiveness, the funeral and its surroundings will never be forgotten by those who witness it, and it will long furnish a landmark in history for Ireland.


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Birth of Michael Cusack, Founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association

michael-cusackMichael Cusack, teacher and founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association, is born to Irish speaking parents on September 20, 1847 in the parish of Carran on the eastern fringe of the Burren, County Clare during the Great Famine.

Cusack becomes a national school teacher, and after teaching in various parts of Ireland becomes a professor in 1874 at Blackrock College, then known as the French College. In 1877, he establishes his own Civil Service Academy, Cusack’s Academy, in Dublin which proves successful in preparing pupils for the civil service examinations.

A romantic nationalist, Cusack is also “reputed” to have been associated with the Fenian movement. He is active in the Gaelic revival as a member of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language which is founded in 1876, and later the Conradh na Gaeilge who in 1879 breaks away from the Society. Also in 1879, he meets Pat Nally, who is a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a leading nationalist and athlete. He finds that Nally’s views on the influence of British landlordism on Irish athletics are the same as his. He recalls how both Nally and himself while walking through the Phoenix Park in Dublin seeing only a handful of people playing sports in the park so depressed them that they agreed it was time to “make an effort to preserve the physical strength of [their] race.” Nally organises a National Athletics Sports meeting in County Mayo in September 1879 which is a success, with Cusack organising a similar event which is open to ‘artisans’ in Dublin the following April.

On November 1, 1884, Cusack, together with Maurice Davin of Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, call a meeting in Hayes’ Commercial Hotel, Thurles, County Tipperary, and found the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Davin is elected president and Cusack becomes its first secretary. Later, Archbishop Thomas William Croke (May 28, 1824 – July 22, 1902), Archbishop of Cashel & Emly, Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell become patrons. Cusack also becomes involved in the Irish language movement, founding The Celtic Times, a weekly newspaper which focuses on “native games” and Irish culture.

Michael Cusack dies in Dublin at the age of 59 on November 27, 1906.