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Death of Kathleen Napoli McKenna, Nationalist Activist & Journalist

Kathleen Napoli McKenna, Irish nationalist activist and journalist closely associated with Arthur Griffith, dies in Rome, Italy, on March 22, 1988.

McKenna is born Kathleen Maria Kenna on September 9, 1897, in Oldcastle, County Meath. Her parents are William, a draper and hardware merchant, and Mary Kenna (née Hanley). She is the eldest child of seven, with three sisters and three brothers. She and her siblings add “Mc” to their surname as teenagers. Her maternal grandfather, a Fenian, miller and land agitator, is a strong influence on her. Agnes O’Farrelly is her paternal great aunt. She attends the Oldcastle Endowed School and goes on to pass the National University of Ireland (NUI) matriculation examination. She attends University College Dublin (UCD) briefly, but the family’s circumstances prevent her from completing her course.

McKenna’s father had been an active member of the Irish National Land League and the Meath Labour Union. He is one of the organisers of a short-lived local newspaper, Sinn Féin – Oldcastle Monthly Review, in 1902. Both her parents are members of Conradh na Gaielge. Arthur Griffith and Brian O’Higgins frequently visit the family home. Denounced by the local parish priest, Fr. Robert Barry, her father’s business goes into decline. The family leaves Oldcastle and moves to Dundalk in August 1915, and to Rugby, Warwickshire, England, in March 1916. In Rugby, her father teaches typing and shorthand, and her mother works in an ammunition factory. She works as a secretary for an engineering firm. Members of the family return to Ireland from 1919 to 1922, and by the time of her father’s death in 1939, he is living back in Oldcastle.

McKenna spends some holidays in Ireland and, during a visit to Dublin in the summer of 1919, she presents herself to the Sinn Féin offices in Harcourt Street. She has a letter of introduction from her father to Griffith, which emphasises her willingness to work for Irish independence. For her holidays, she works in the Sinn Féin press bureau and is employed as one of the first “Dáil girls” of the clandestine government. She is informed that if a planned news bulletin comes through, she will be summoned back to Dublin. In October 1919, she receives that summons and, after a typing test on November 11, she joins the Irish Bulletin under Minister for Publicity, Desmond FitzGerald, and director of publicity, Robert Brennan. She also becomes a member of the Conradh na Gaielge Parnell branch.

The Irish Bulletin is published five times a week, circulating the misdeeds of the British government in Ireland. McKenna edits and mimeographs a summary of “acts of aggression” from British forces in Ireland weekly, compiled by Anna Kelly. Frank Gallagher does most of the writing, edited by FitzGerald, and later Erskine Childers. Though she is sometimes described as the Bulletin‘s editor, she is more akin to an editorial assistant. R. M. Smyllie later recalls that she was in regular contact with the media. She types out each issue on a wax stencil in a typewriter which is used to create mimeograph copies, and then circulated to England. In the beginning, about 30 recipients, mostly London journalists, receive the Bulletin but by October 1920 it has grown to 600, and by July 1921 over 1,200. She also keeps the accounts, takes dictation of statements, and at times works up articles from notes given to her by Griffith or others. She also acts as a confidential messenger, couriering between Dáil departments and Irish Republican Army (IRA) leaders such as Michael Collins. Through this, she meets Moya Llewelyn Davies.

The Bulletin becomes a symbol of the underground government and a target for British forces. This necessitates the frequent moving of the operation from one Dublin hideout to another. She fears that if she were captured, she would break under interrogation. When FitzGerald is arrested, he is asked about “the girl wearing a green tam” in reference to McKenna’s tam-o’-shanter hat which prompts her to change her choice of hat. Despite the capture of a number of the Bulletin staff, as well as the capture of the office files and equipment on March 26, 1921, it never misses an issue.

McKenna’s sister Winifred also works as a secretary to the clandestine government. Her brother, Tadhg (Timothy), is a member of Sinn Féin and in Greenore, County Louth, is involved in trade union affairs. He is detained, beaten, and interned in March 1921. He is later an activist with the Irish Labour Party. Her brother William is a messenger for the Irish government during this period and during the Irish Civil War serves in the Free State Army.

After the truce in 1921, McKenna is assigned to the Dáil cabinet secretarial staff at the Mansion House, where she continues to work in the publicity department. She travels as Griffith’s private secretary to London as part of the Irish delegation to the treaty negotiations in October 1921. She is an admirer of both Griffith and Collins and is a firm supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She works as Griffith’s secretary until just before his death and also does some secretarial work for Collins during the negotiations. One of her sisters is anti-Treaty, and she later recalls that she lost friends due to her support of the treaty.

When the Irish Free State government is established, McKenna becomes a private secretary to a number of Ministers for External Affairs, including FitzGerald, Kevin O’Higgins and W. T. Cosgrave. In 1924, she is a private secretary to the Boundary Commission, as well as one of a pair of secretaries who travels with the Irish delegation to the London Imperial Conference in 1924. From 1927 to 1931 she is James Dolan‘s secretary and parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Before its closure in 1924, she writes a number of articles for the Freeman’s Journal.

McKenna marries Vittorio Napoli in 1931. He is a captain, and later a general, in the Italian royal grenadier guards. They meet when she is on holiday in Italy in 1927. For the first five years of their marriage, they live in the port of Derna in Cyrenaica, Libya, while her husband is stationed there. A son and daughter are born there. From September 1939 to June 1940, the family lives in Albania, but after Italy enters World War II, she and the children move to Viterbo. Her husband is taken prisoner in Greece in September 1943, and is detained in Germany and Poland. He returns to Italy in September 1945. Viterbo had been heavily bombed, and after Allied troops arrive, McKenna works as a translator and gives English language lessons to support her family. Her husband remains in the army, and they remain in Viterbo until 1956, later moving to Rome.

After the war, McKenna writes articles for the Irish Independent and other publications from Ireland, the United States and New Zealand, including The Irish Press, Irish Travel, Standard, Word, and Writer’s Digest. Sometimes she writes under her own name, as well as her pen name Kayn or Kayen MacKay. As the wives of Italian officers do not traditionally work, the money she earns from this is kept for travel and other leisure activities. This money allows her to visit her family in Ireland in 1947 for the first time since 1932. After their retirement, she and her husband visit Ireland regularly, and travel around Italy.

McKenna applies for an Irish military pension in 1950/51 and 1970, receiving references in support of her claim from Gallagher. As she had not served in a military organisation, her claims are rejected. As an Irish War of Independence veteran, she is awarded free travel in 1972, which is later extended to her husband. In her later years, she becomes concerned about the inaccuracies in the history around the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. She gives two talks to Radio Éireann in 1951, speaking about her time with the Irish Bulletin. Copies of these recordings are now held by the Bureau of Military History. During her lifetime, extracts of her memoir are published in the Capuchin Annual and The Irish Times. She drafted and redrafted these memoirs from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. A version edited by her daughter and niece is published in 2014 as A Dáil girl’s revolutionary recollections.

McKenna dies on March 22, 1988, in Rome. She is buried with an Irish flag which she had kept with her. A large collection of her papers is held in the National Library of Ireland (NLI). In 2010, 2011 and 2016, some of her memorabilia is sold in Dublin.


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The Second Warrington Bombing Attack

The second of two bombing attacks in early 1993 in Warrington, Cheshire, England, takes place on March 20, 1993. The first attack takes place on February 26, when a bomb explodes at a gas storage facility. This explosion causes extensive damage, but no injuries. In the March 20 attack, two smaller bombs explode in litter bins outside shops and businesses on Bridge Street. Two children are killed and 56 people are injured.

The attacks are carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). From the early 1970s, the IRA had been carrying out attacks in both Northern Ireland and England with the stated goal of putting pressure on the UK Government to withdraw from Northern Ireland. The IRA is designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom.

Shortly before midday on Saturday, March 20, 1993, the Samaritans in Liverpool receive a bomb warning by telephone. According to police, the caller says only that a bomb has been planted outside a Boots shop. Merseyside Police send officers to branches of Boots in Liverpool and warn the Cheshire Constabulary, who patrols nearby Warrington. About 30 minutes later, at about 12:25 p.m., two bombs explode on Bridge Street in Warrington, about 100 yards apart. The blasts happen within a minute of each other. One explodes outside Boots and McDonald’s, and the other outside the Argos catalogue store. The area is crowded with shoppers. Witnesses say that shoppers flee from the first explosion into the path of the second. It is later found that the bombs had been placed inside cast iron litter bins, causing large amounts of shrapnel. Buses are organised to ferry people away from the scene and twenty paramedics and crews from seventeen ambulances are sent to deal with the aftermath.

Three-year-old Johnathan Ball dies at the scene. He had been in town with his babysitter, shopping for a Mother’s Day card. The second victim, 12-year-old Tim Parry, is gravely wounded. He dies on March 25, 1993, when his life support machine is switched off, after tests find only minimal brain activity. Another 54 people are injured, four of them seriously. One of the survivors, 32-year-old Bronwen Vickers, the mother of two young daughters, has to have a leg amputated, and dies just over a year later from cancer.

The Provisional IRA issues a statement the day after the bombing, acknowledging its involvement but saying:

“Responsibility for the tragic and deeply regrettable death and injuries caused in Warrington yesterday lies squarely at the door of those in the British authorities who deliberately failed to act on precise and adequate warnings.”

A day later, an IRA spokesman says that “two precise warnings” had been given “in adequate time,” one to the Samaritans and one to Merseyside Police. He adds, “You don’t provide warnings if it is your intention to kill.” Cheshire’s assistant chief constable denies there had been a second warning and says, “Yes, a warning was given half-an-hour before, but no mention was made of Warrington. If the IRA think they can pass on their responsibility for this terrible act by issuing such a nonsensical statement, they have sadly underestimated the understanding of the British public.”

The deaths of two young children ensures that the March 20 bombings receive major coverage in the media and cause widespread public anger. Shortly after the bombings, a group called “Peace ’93” is set up in Dublin. The main organiser is Susan McHugh, a Dublin housewife and mother. On March 25, 1993, thousands hold a peace rally in Dublin. They sign a condolence book outside the General Post Office and lay bouquets and wreaths, with messages of sorrow and apology, to be taken to Warrington for the boys’ funerals. Some criticise Peace ’93 for focusing only on IRA violence and for not responding to the deaths of children in Northern Ireland.

On April 1, 1993, the Irish Government announces measures designed to make extradition easier from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom.

On September 19, 1994, Irish rock band The Cranberries release the song “Zombie,” which is written in protest of the bombings. The song goes on to become their biggest hit.

On November 14, 1996, the Duchess of Kent officially inaugurates a memorial called The River of Life, depicting “a symbol of hope for future generations,” in Bridge Street. It is developed in the aftermath of the bomb attack and commissioned by the Warrington Borough Council. The project, consisting of a symbolic water sculpture that features a commemorative plaque, is designed by the local primary school and Stephen Broadbent.

The parents of Tim Parry set up the Tim Parry Trust Fund to promote greater understanding between Great Britain and Ireland. The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace works jointly with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) to develop The Peace Centre, close to Warrington town centre, which opens on the seventh anniversary of the attack in 2000. Its purpose is to promote peace and understanding amongst all communities affected by conflict and violence. The centre hosts an annual peace lecture, as well as being home to the local NSPCC and is the home of Warrington Youth Club until 2022.

The bombings receive further attention in 2019 after the Brexit Party selects former Living Marxism writer Claire Fox as their lead candidate in the North West England constituency for the 2019 European Parliament election. The Revolutionary Communist Party, of which Fox is a leading member in 1993, defends the IRA’s bombing in their party newsletter. Despite the controversy, which sees another Brexit Party candidate resign from the party list in protest at the comments, Fox and the Brexit Party top the poll in several areas of the North West, including in Warrington.

The killing of Ball and Parry is still on Cheshire Police’s list of unsolved murders.

A piece on BBC North West‘s Inside Out programme in September 2013 speculates that the bombing may have been the work of a “rogue” IRA unit, which was supported by the IRA but operated independently and who used operatives who were from England to avoid suspicion. The programme also examines a possible link between the attack and British leftist political group Red Action, though nothing is ever proven.

(Pictured: Army bomb disposal at the Warrington Bomb scene in March 1993, photo credit: Walker Howard)


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Government Imposes Temporary Ban on Livestock Marts

On Monday, February 26, 2001, the Irish Government imposes a temporary ban on the country’s 120 livestock marts as the devastating foot-and-mouth disease spreads and threatens to become an epidemic in Great Britain. Strict procedures are also implemented in airports around Ireland to keep the disease out of the country. All marts along the border counties have been suspended since the previous Friday, February 23.

Joe Walsh, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, announces the emergency measure on Sunday night. The total suspension comes into force immediately and is intended to dramatically reduce the number of livestock movements. The ban is to remain in place for at least a fortnight.

In a related move, Central Statistics Office staff undertaking survey work are instructed not to enter farm premises until further notice.

The Government orders emergency staff to ports and airports on Sunday as the foot-and-mouth outbreak nears epidemic proportions in Britain and Continental countries begin the wholesale slaughter of thousands of animals imported from the United Kingdom.

In an atmosphere of mounting alarm, the Irish Farmers’ Association demands a ban on movement of all animals including racehorses to Britain and for the thorough disinfection of “every foot and tyre” entering Ireland from the UK. Horses and horseboxes arriving at British racecourses are already being disinfected and Sunday’s meeting at Newcastle is abandoned because of its proximity to one of the affected areas. Additional measures are expected to be announced.

Irish rugby fans are asked not to travel to Cardiff on Saturday, March 3, to minimise the risk of spreading the disease, and it seems likely the Government will urge punters to stay away from the Cheltenham Festival if, indeed, the festival goes ahead as scheduled. The Jockey Club says it will follow the Government’s request, but the decision angers the British government, which may order the meeting to be cancelled.

Five new cases of the disease are confirmed in Britain on Sunday, bringing the total to 12 confirmed cases with two suspected outbreaks. The suspected outbreak of most concern to Ireland is at Welsh Country Foods, an abattoir on Anglesey. It remains cordoned off.

British Ministry of Agriculture officials continue tests on the suspect sheep found at the plant over the weekend. Final results of the tests are not available until Monday morning.

A 10-mile exclusion zone is ordered around the Gaerwen plant, which is located adjacent to the Menai Suspension Bridge. However, both exporters and the Farmers’ Union of Wales believe the foot-and-mouth virus is, in fact, present in the plant, which is located less than 15 miles from Holyhead.

British veterinarians are alarmed at the increase in new cases. An epidemic is to be declared if the number of new cases reaches more than 30 per day.

(From: “All marts closed in threat of epidemic” by Ralph Riegel, Irish Independent, http://www.independent.ie, February 26, 2001)


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Daniel O’Connell Addresses British House of Commons About Great Hunger

Daniel O’Connell, a prominent political leader in Ireland, is known for his strong advocacy for Irish independence and his efforts to bring about reforms in the British government‘s treatment of Ireland. On February 17, 1846, he takes to the floor of Britain’s House of Commons to warn of the dangers of Ireland’s Great Hunger, also known as the Potato Famine.

In 1846, Ireland is in the midst of one of its greatest disasters – the Great Hunger, a period of mass starvation caused by the failure of the potato crop, the staple food of the Irish population. The conditions in Ireland are dire, with widespread poverty, disease, and death. In response to this crisis, O’Connell takes to the floor of Britain’s House of Commons to deliver a speech warning of the dangers of the situation in Ireland.

O’Connell begins his speech by pointing out the stark reality of the situation in Ireland, where people are dying of starvation on a daily basis. He draws the attention of the House to the fact that the Irish people are suffering because of a lack of food, and that this is due to the failure of the potato crop, which is the only source of sustenance for the majority of the population. He then goes on to argue that the British government is failing in its duty to provide relief to the Irish people and that they are turning a blind eye to the suffering of the Irish people.

O’Donnell then goes on to make a passionate plea for the British government to take action to alleviate the suffering of the Irish people. He argues that the government has a moral obligation to help the Irish people and that their failure to do so will be a stain on their reputation. He also warns that the situation in Ireland is rapidly deteriorating and that unless the British government takes action soon, the situation could become much worse.

O’Connell ends his speech by calling on the British government to take immediate action to provide food and assistance to the Irish people. He argues that the government should do everything in its power to prevent further starvation and death in Ireland and that the British people have a duty to help their fellow citizens in Ireland.

O’Connell’s speech in the House of Commons is an important moment in the history of Ireland and its relationship with Britain. It is a powerful reminder of the suffering of the Irish people and a call to action for the British government to take responsibility for the crisis in Ireland. The speech is significant in that it brings attention to the plight of the Irish people and highlights the moral obligation of the British government to help those in need.

O’Connell’s speech is also significant in that it demonstrates his strong leadership skills and his ability to effectively advocate for the rights of the Irish people. His passion and commitment to helping the Irish people inspires many others to join the cause and fight for justice for the Irish people.

(From: “On This Day: Daniel O’Connell addressed British government warning of Great Hunger” by IrishCentral Staff, http://www.IrishCentral.com, February 17, 2023)


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Death of Brendan McGahon, Fine Gael Politician

Brendan McGahon, Irish Fine Gael politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Louth constituency from 1982 to 2002, dies on February 8, 2017, following a brief illness. Often described as “colourful,” with a reputation as a social conservative, he is first elected to Dáil Éireann at the November 1982 Irish general election and retains his seat until retiring at the 2002 Irish general election.

McGahon is born in Dundalk, County Louth, on November 22, 1936, and is educated at St. Mary’s College, Dundalk. His grandfather, T.F. McGahon, is one of the inaugural members of Dundalk Urban District Council when it is created along with other Irish local authorities by the British Government in 1898. T.F. McGahon is a leading member of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). He starts a local newspaper, the Dundalk Democrat, which is supportive of the IPP. He is a critic of the Irish War of Independence campaign, of Sinn Féin, and of the then Irish Republican Army (IRA), arguing that the campaign will result in the partition of Ireland. He is later succeeded on the council by his son, O.B. McGahon, who in turn is followed by his nephew, Hugh McGahon. The family subsequently supports the National League Party and the Independent TD James Coburn and joins Fine Gael when Coburn joins the party. They are also prominent members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

McGahon marries Celine Lundy, a widow from Newry, County Down, and takes over the running of the family newspaper business in the 1960s. He plays soccer for Dundalk F.C. in the League of Ireland Premier Division for a number of years.

McGahon succeeds his cousin Hugh on Dundalk Town Council and on Louth County Council at the 1979 Irish local elections. He is an unsuccessful candidate at the 1981 Irish general election and at the February 1982 Irish general election. He is first elected to Dáil Éireann for Louth at the November 1982 Irish general election, defeating incumbent Fine Gael TD, Bernard Markey. He is re-elected at the next five general elections.

A notable aspect of McGahon’s political career is his stand against the Provisional IRA when that organisation’s campaign of violence is at its height. At great personal risk, he refuses to close his newsagents shop in Dundalk during the funerals of the hunger strikers in 1981. He takes another huge risk a few years later when he gives evidence in the High Court in support of The Sunday Times, which is being sued for libel by Thomas Murphy for accusing him of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain. Local Gardaí are ordered not to get involved in the case, but McGahon is not deterred from giving evidence that helps the newspaper to defend the claims being made against it by Murphy.

A maverick and outspoken TD, McGahon is known to speak his mind on many issues including divorce, crime, and single mothers. He once advocates that pedophiles should be castrated as part of their prison sentence and is the only TD to oppose the referendum to abolish the death penalty from the Constitution. He also argues that those under 21 years of age should not be able to drive or drink. He is a member of the World Anti-Communist League and opposes the decriminalisation of homosexuality. In 1993, he is the only TD to oppose the decriminalisation of homosexuality and says in the Dáil that:

“I regard homosexuals as being in a sad category, but I believe homosexuality to be an abnormality, some type of psycho-sexual problem that has defied explanation over the years. I do not believe that the Irish people desire this normalisation of what is clearly an abnormality. Homosexuality is a departure from normality and while homosexuals deserve our compassion, they do not deserve our tolerance. That is how the man in the street thinks. I know of no homosexual who has been discriminated against. Such people have a persecution complex because they know they are different from the masses or normal society. They endure inner torment, and it is not a question of the way others view them. The lord provided us with sexual organs for a specific purpose. Homosexuals are like left-hand drivers driving on the right-hand side of the road.”

On the other hand, McGahon speaks out strongly against the influence of the drink industry and defies his own party whip to vote with his left-wing friend Tony Gregory in favour of banning of hare coursing. He is also on good personal terms with members of the Oireachtas such as Michael D. Higgins and David Norris despite holding fundamentally opposed views to them.

McGahon does not contest the 2002 Irish general election and retires from politics.

McGahon lives in Ravensdale, County Louth. His son Conor is a Louth County Councillor from 1991 to 1999 and his brother Johnny is a Louth County Councillor from 1995 to 2004. Johnny’s nephew, John McGahon, is elected to Louth County Council at the 2014 Irish local elections and to Seanad Éireann in 2020.

McGahon dies at the age of 80 on February 8, 2017, following a short illness. Following a Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on February 11, he is buried afterwards in St. Patrick’s Cemetery.


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Birth of Hugh Logue, Economist & SDLP Politician

Hugh Anthony Logue, former Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) politician and economist who now works as a commentator on political and economic issues, is born on January 23, 1949, in Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He is also a director of two renewable energy companies in Europe and the United States. He is the father of author Antonia Logue.

Logue grows up outside the village of Claudy in County Londonderry, the eldest of nine children born to Denis Logue, a bricklayer, and Kathleen (née Devine). He gains a scholarship to St. Columb’s College which he attends from 1961 to 1967. In 1967, he commences at St. Joseph’s Teacher Training college (Queen’s University) in Belfast from which he qualifies as a teacher of Mathematics in 1970. He first comes to prominence as a member of the executive of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), the only SDLP member of the executive. He stands as a candidate in elections to the new Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 and is elected for Londonderry, at the age of 24, the youngest candidate elected that year. With John Hume and Ivan Cooper, he is arrested by the British Army during a peaceful demonstration in Londonderry in August 1971. Their conviction is ultimately overturned by the Law Lords R. (Hume) v Londonderry Justices (972, N.I.91) requiring the then British Government to introduce retrospective legislation to render legal previous British Army actions in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland State Papers of 1980 show that together with John Hume and Austin Currie, Logue plays a key role in presenting the SDLP’S ‘Three Strands’ approach to the Thatcher Government’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Humphrey Atkins in April 1980. The “Three Strands” approach eventually becomes the basis for the Good Friday Agreement. The Irish State papers from 1980 reveal that he is a confidante of the Irish Government of that time, briefing it regularly on the SDLP’s outlook.

Logue is also known for his controversial comments at Trinity College Dublin at the time of the power sharing Sunningdale Agreement, which many blame for helping to contribute to the Agreement’s defeat, to wit, that: [Sunningdale was] “the vehicle that would trundle Unionists into a united Ireland.” The next line of the controversial speech says, “the speed the vehicle moved at was dependent on the Unionist community.” In an article in The Irish Times in 1997 he claims that this implies that unity is always based on consent and acknowledged by Unionist Spokesman John Laird in the NI Assembly in 1973.

Logue unsuccessfully contests the Londonderry seat in the February 1974 and 1979 Westminster Elections. He is elected to the 1975 Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention and the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly. He is a member of the New Ireland Forum in 1983. In the 1980s he is a member of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace and plays a prominent part in its efforts to resolve the 1981 Irish hunger strike. His role is credited in Ten Men Dead: The Story of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike by David Beresford, Biting the Grave by P. O’Malley and, more recently, in Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-block Hunger Strike (New Island Books, 2016) and Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer that Changed Irish History (Lilliput Press, 2011) by former Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer Richard O’Rawe. Following the New Ireland Forum in 1984 and John Hume’s decision to represent the redrawn Londonderry constituency as Foyle and a safe seat, Logue leaves the Dublin-based, National Board for Science and Technology and joins the European Commission in 1984 in Brussels.

Following the 1994 Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, Logue, along with two EU colleagues, is asked by EU President Jacques Delors to consult widely throughout Northern Ireland and the Border regions and prepare recommendations for a Peace and Reconciliation Fund to underpin the peace process. Their community-based approach becomes the blueprint for the Peace Programme. In 1997, then EU President Jacques Santer asks the team, led by Logue, to return to review the programme and advise for a renewed Peace II programme. Papers published by National University Galway in 2016 from Logue’s archives indicate that he is the originator of the Peace Fund concept within the European Commission.

At the European Commission from 1984 to 1998, Logue creates Science and Technology for Regional Innovation and Development in Europe (STRIDE). In 1992, he is joint author with Giovanni de Gaetano, of RTD potential in the Mezzogiorno of Italy: the role of science parks in a European perspective and, with A. Zabaniotou and University of Thessaloniki, Structural Support For RTD.

Further publications by Logue follow: Research and Rural Regions (1996) and RTD potential in the Objective 1 regions (1997). With the fall of the Berlin Wall, his attention turns to Eastern Europe and in March 1998 publishes a set of studies Impact of the enlargement of the European Union towards central central and Eastern European countries on RTD- Innovation and Structural policies.

Logue convenes the first EU seminar on “Women in Science” in 1993 and jointly publishes with LM Telapessy Women in Scientific and Technological Research in the European Community, highlighting the barriers to women’s advancement in the Research world.

As the former vice-chairman of the North Derry Civil Rights Association, Logue gives evidence at the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. He is special adviser to the Office of First and Deputy First Minister from 1998 to 2002 and as an official of the European Commission. In 2002–03, he is a fellow of the Institute for British – Irish Studies at University College Dublin (UCD). In July 2006, he is appointed as a board member of the Irish Peace Institute, based at the University of Limerick and in 2009 is appointed Vice Chairman. He is a Life Member of the Institute of International and European Affairs.

On December 17, 2007, Logue is appointed as a director to InterTradeIreland (ITI), the North-South Body established under the Good Friday Agreement to promote economic development in Ireland. There he chairs the ITI’s Fusion programme, bringing north–south industrial development in Innovation and Research. Integrating Ireland economically is a theme of his writing throughout his career, most recently in The Irish Times and in earlier publications as economic spokesman for the SDLP. He is economist at the Dublin-based National Board for Science and Technology from 1981 to 1984.

Logue, after leaving the European Commission in 2005, becomes involved in Renewable Energy and is chairman of Priority Resources as well as a director of two companies, one in solar energy, the other in wind energy. In November 2011, he is elected to the main board of European Association of Energy (EAE).

In November 2023, Logue is awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Galway in recognition of “a lifetime dedicated to civil rights, human rights, equality and peace in Northern Ireland, Ireland and Europe.” He donates an archive of material, more than 20 boxes of manuscripts, documents, photographs and political ephemera, on the development of the SDLP from the early 1970s to the University of Galway.


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Sinn Féin MPs Enter the House of Commons

On January 21, 2002, Sinn Féin‘s four MPs take the historic step of signing up to use the facilities of the House of Commons, whose authority over Northern Ireland republicans have been fighting for almost a century. Party policy is also changed to allow MPs to sit in the Irish Parliament, the Dáil.

Amid concern among some republicans that the move comes close to recognising British rule, Sinn Féin president and Belfast West MP, Gerry Adams, insists that his party will never take its seats at Westminster. “There will never ever be Sinn Féin MPs sitting in the British houses of parliament,” he tells a Westminster press conference.

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Northern Ireland First Minister, predicts this controversial move is a first step towards the same situation in Westminster.

However, flanked by his three fellow Sinn Féin MPs, Martin McGuinness (Mid Ulster), Pat Doherty (West Tyrone) and Michelle Gildernew (Fermanagh and South Tyrone), Adams says taking up seats in the Dáil is a very different proposition from doing so the Commons. No Sinn Féin member would take the loyalty oath to the Queen, needed to take up a seat in Parliament, but that was a mere side issue to the key question of sovereignty, he says. Even if the oath were amended, the party would still refuse to take its seats because republicans do not recognise parliament’s jurisdiction over Northern Ireland.

“There are lots of things which there can be no certainty of and there are some things of which we can be certain,” Adams says. “There will never, ever be Sinn Féin MPs sitting in the British Houses of Parliament. The transfer of power by London and Dublin to the Assembly in the north … is all proof of where we see the political centre of gravity on the island of Ireland and that is in the island of Ireland.”

Adams insists his party’s presence in the Commons is a “temporary” measure until they can join the parliament of a united Ireland.

A ban on MPs using Commons facilities without taking the loyalty oath was lifted in December 2001 to Conservative fury. Tories end three decades of cross-party cooperation over the move, which also entitles Sinn Féin’s four MPs to allowances of £107,000 a year each.

Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Quentin Davies claims Adams plans to use the cash for party political campaigning – something forbidden by Westminster rules. He accuses British Prime Minister Tony Blair of “deliberately contributing to a great propaganda coup in which … the British Government are licking their boots.” The Prime Minister’s spokesman says Blair acknowledges “many victims do feel very strongly about what has happened, but the Prime Minister’s view is that this peace process has saved many lives.”

Sitting alongside a giant Irish tricolour inside his new office, Adams likens his presence there to that of MPs who had served in the British Army and intelligence services – suggesting some of them still do. He also dismisses concerns about the misuse of the money, accusing those “complaining loudest” of being from parties “indicted for corruption and sleaze.”

Sinn Féin’s move into their new offices coincides with a “routine” meeting with the Prime Minister in Downing Street to discuss the peace process. The Sinn Féin president uses publicity surrounding the controversial move to issue a new challenge to Blair to tackle the loyalist “killing campaign.” Adams is joined in Downing Street by his three fellow Sinn Féin MPs.

“There have been 300 bombs over the last nine or ten months,” Adams says. “The British Prime Minister has to face up to the reality that the threat to the peace process within Northern Ireland comes from within loyalism.”

Adams blames Betty Boothroyd‘s decision to bar Sinn Féin MPs from using Commons facilities for the current controversy. “We are here, elected, with our mandate renewed and increased,” he adds.

Adams is asked how he would react if he met former Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit and his wife, who was badly injured by the 1984 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb attack at the Tories conference at the Grand Brighton Hotel in Brighton, at the Commons. “I don’t ignore anyone. As someone who has been wounded and shot and someone whose house has been bombed, I understand precisely how others who have suffered more than me feel about all of this,” Adams replies. “I would like to think that as part of building a peace process that all of us agree there must be dialogue.”

(Pictured: from left, Sinn Fein MPs Michelle Gildernew, Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams and Pat Doherty)


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Death of Seán MacEntee, Fianna Fáil Politician

Seán Francis MacEntee (Irish: Seán Mac an tSaoi), Fianna Fáil politician, dies on January 9, 1984, in Booterstown, Dublin. He serves as Tánaiste (1959-65), Minister for Social Welfare (1957-61), Minister for Health (1957-65), Minister for Local Government and Public Health (1941-48), Minister for Industry and Commerce (1939-41), and Minister for Finance (1932-39 and 1951-54). He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1969. At the time of his death, he is the last surviving member of the First Dáil.

MacEntee is born as John McEntee at 47 King Street, Belfast, on August 23, 1889, the son of James McEntee, a publican, and his wife, Mary Owens, both of whom are from Monaghan. James McEntee is a prominent Nationalist member of Belfast Corporation and a close friend of Joseph Devlin MP.

MacEntee is educated at St. Mary’s Christian Brothers’ Grammar School, St. Malachy’s College and the Belfast Municipal College of Technology where he qualifies as an electrical engineer. His early political involvement is with the Irish Socialist Republican Party in Belfast. He quickly rises through the ranks of the trade union movement becoming junior representative in the city’s shipyards. Following his education, he works as an engineer in Dundalk, County Louth, and is involved in the establishment of a local corps of the Irish Volunteers in the town. He mobilises in Dundalk and fights in the General Post Office garrison in the Easter Rising in 1916. He is sentenced to death for his part in the rising. This sentence is later commuted to life imprisonment. He is released in the general amnesty in 1917 and is later elected a member of the National Executives of both Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers in October 1917. He is later elected Sinn Féin Member of Parliament (MP) for South Monaghan at the 1918 Irish general election.

An attempt to develop MacEntee’s career as a consulting engineer in Belfast is interrupted by the Irish War of Independence in 1919. He serves as Vice-Commandant of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is also a member of the Volunteer Executive, a sort of Cabinet and Directory for the Minister for Defence and the HQ Staff, however, he remains one of the few Sinn Féiners from the north. On August 6, 1920, he presents ‘a Memorial’ lecture to the Dáil from the Belfast Corporation. He tells the Dáil it is the only custodian of public order, that a Nationalist pogrom is taking place, and he advises them to fight Belfast. The Dáil government’s policy is dubbed Hibernia Irredenta or “Greening Ireland.” He is asked to resign his South Monaghan seat after voting against a bunting celebration in Lurgan to mark the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

In April 1921 MacEntee is transferred to Dublin to direct a special anti-partition campaign in connection with the May general election. It remains Michael Collins‘s policy, he declares, that the largely Protestant shipyard workers of Belfast are being directed by the British, urging all Irishmen to rejoin the Republic. Correspondingly the Ulster Unionist Council rejects the call for a review of the boundary commission decision made on Northern Ireland. But when Ulstermen choose James Craig as Premier, Collins denounces democracy in the north as a sham. It is on the partition of Ireland issue that MacEntee votes against the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. During the subsequent Irish Civil War, he commands the IRA unit in Marlboro Street Post Office in Dublin. He later fights with Cathal Brugha in the Hamman Hotel and is subsequently interned in Kilmainham and Gormanstown until December 1923.

After his release from prison, MacEntee devotes himself more fully to his engineering practice, although he unsuccessfully contests the Dublin County by-election of 1924. He becomes a founder-member of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and is eventually elected a TD for Dublin County at the June 1927 Irish general election.

MacEntee founds the Association of Patent Agents in 1929, having gained his interest in Patents when he worked as an assistant engineer in Dundalk Urban District Council. He values his status as a Patent Agent as he maintains his name on the Register for over 30 years while he holds Ministerial rank in the Irish Government, although he is not believed to have taken any active part in the patent business, which is carried on by his business partners.

In 1932, Fianna Fáil comes to power for the very first time, with MacEntee becoming Minister for Finance. In keeping with the party’s protectionist economic policies his first budget in March of that year sees the introduction of new duties on 43 imports, many of them coming from Britain. This sees retaliation from the British government, which in turn provokes a response from the Irish government. This is the beginning of the Anglo-Irish Trade War between the two nations, however, a treaty in 1938, signed by MacEntee and other senior members brings an end to the issue.

In 1939, World War II breaks out and a cabinet reshuffle results in MacEntee being appointed as Minister for Industry and Commerce, taking over from his rival Seán Lemass. During his tenure at this department, he introduces the important Trade Union Act (1941). In 1941, another reshuffle of ministers takes place, with him becoming Minister for Local Government and Public Health. The Health portfolio is transferred to a new Department of Health in 1947. Following the 1948 Irish general election, Fianna Fáil returns to the opposition benches for the first time in sixteen years.

In 1951, Fianna Fáil are back in government, although in minority status, depending on independent deputies for survival. MacEntee once again returns to the position of Minister for Finance where he feels it is vital to deal with the balance of payments deficit. He brings in a harsh budget in 1951 which raises income tax and tariffs on imports. His chief aim is to cut spending and reduce imports, however, this comes at a cost as unemployment increases sharply. The increases are retained in his next two budgets in 1952 and 1953. It is often said that it is his performance during this period that costs Fianna Fáil the general election in 1954. The poor grasp on economics also does his political career tremendous damage as up to that point he is seen as a likely successor as Taoiseach. Seán Lemass, however, is now firmly seen as the “heir apparent.”

In 1957, Fianna Fáil returns to power with an overall majority with MacEntee being appointed Minister for Health. The financial and economic portfolios are dominated by Lemass and other like-minded ministers who want to move away from protection to free trade. He is credited during this period with the reorganisation of the health services, the establishment of separate departments of health and social welfare, and the fluoridation of water supplies in Ireland. In 1959, he becomes Tánaiste when Seán Lemass is elected Taoiseach.

Following the 1965 Irish general election, MacEntee is 76 years old and retires from the government. He re-emerges in 1966 to launch a verbal attack on Seán Lemass for deciding to step down as party leader and Taoiseach. The two men, however, patch up their differences shortly afterwards. MacEntee retires from Dáil Éireann in 1969 at the age of 80, making him the oldest TD in Irish history.

MacEntee dies in Dublin on January 9, 1984, at the age of 94. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.


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The Birmingham Pub Bombings

The Birmingham pub bombings are carried out on November 21, 1974, when bombs explode in two public houses in Birmingham, England, killing 21 people and injuring 182 others. The bombings are one of the deadliest acts of the Troubles, and the deadliest act of terrorism to occur in England between World War II and the 2005 London bombings.

In 1973, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) extends its campaign to mainland Britain, attacking military and symbolically important targets to both increase pressure on the British government, via popular British opinion, to withdraw from Northern Ireland and to maintain morale amongst their supporters. By 1974, mainland Britain sees an average of one attack — successful or otherwise — every three days.

In the early evening hours of November 21, at least three bombs connected to timing devices are planted inside two separate public houses and outside a bank located in and around central Birmingham. It is unknown precisely when these bombs were planted. If official IRA protocol of preceding attacks upon non-military installations with a 30-minute advance warning to security services is followed, and subsequent eyewitness accounts are accurate, the bombs would have been planted at these locations after 7:30 p.m. and before 7:47 p.m.

According to testimony delivered at the 1975 trial of the six men wrongly convicted of the bombings, the bomb planted inside the Mulberry Bush pub is concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase, whereas the bomb planted inside the Tavern in the Town is concealed inside a briefcase or duffel bag (possibly concealed within a large, sealed plastic bag) and Christmas cracker boxes. The remnants of two alarm clocks recovered from the site of each explosion leaves the possibility that two bombs had been planted at each public house. The explosion crater at each location indicates that if two bombs had been planted at each public house, they would each have been placed in the same location and likely the same container.

Reportedly, those who plant the bombs then walk to a preselected phone box to telephone the advance warning to security services. However, the phone box has been vandalised, forcing the caller to find an alternative phone box and thus shortening the amount of time police have to clear the locations.

At 8:11 p.m., an unknown man with a distinct Irish accent telephones the Birmingham Post newspaper. The call is answered by operator Ian Cropper. The caller says, “There is a bomb planted in the Rotunda and there is a bomb in New Street at the tax office. This is Double X,” before terminating the call. (“Double X” is an IRA code word given to authenticate any warning call.) A similar warning is also sent to the Birmingham Evening Mail newspaper, with the anonymous caller again giving the code word, but again failing to name the public houses in which the bombs had been planted.

The Rotunda is a 25-story office block, built in the 1960s, that houses the Mulberry Bush pub on its lower two floors. Within minutes of the warning, police arrive and begin checking the upper floors of the Rotunda, but they do not have sufficient time to clear the crowded pub at street level. At 8:17 p.m., six minutes after the first telephone warning had been delivered to the Birmingham Post, the bomb, which had been concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase located ner the rear entrance to the premises, explodes, devastating the pub. The explosion blows a 40-inch crater in the concrete floor, collapsing part of the roof and trapping many casualties beneath girders and concrete blocks. Many buildings near the Rotunda are also damaged, and pedestrians in the street are struck by flying glass from shattered windows. Several of the victims die at the scene, including two youths who had been walking past the premises at the moment of the explosion.

Ten people are killed in this explosion and dozens are injured, including many who lose limbs. Several casualties are impaled by sections of wooden furniture while others have their clothes burned from their bodies. A paramedic called to the scene of this explosion later describes the carnage as being reminiscent of a slaughterhouse. One fireman says that, upon seeing a writhing, “screaming torso,” he begs police to allow a television crew inside the premises to film the dead and dying at the scene, in the hope the IRA would see the consequences of their actions. However, the police refuse this request, fearing the reprisals would be extreme.

The Tavern in the Town is a basement pub on New Street located a short distance from the Rotunda and directly beneath the New Street Tax Office. Patrons there hear the explosion at the Mulberry Bush, but do not believe that the sound, described by one survivor as a “muffled thump,” is an explosion.

Police have begun attempting to clear the Tavern in the Town when, at 8:27 p.m., a second bomb explodes there. The blast is so powerful that several victims are blown through a brick wall. Their remains are wedged between the rubble and live underground electric cables that supply the city centre. One of the first police officers on the scene, Brian Yates, later testifies that the scene which greeted his eyes was “absolutely dreadful,” with several of the dead stacked upon one another, others strewn about the ruined pub, and several screaming survivors staggering aimlessly amongst the debris, rubble, and severed limbs. A survivor says the sound of the explosion is replaced by a “deafening silence” and the smell of burned flesh.

Rescue efforts at the Tavern in the Town are initially hampered as the bomb had been placed at the base of a set of stairs descending from the street, the sole entrance to the premises, had been destroyed in the explosion. The victims whose bodies are blown through a brick wall and wedged between the rubble and underground electric cables take up to three hours to recover, as recovery operations are delayed until the power can be isolated. A passing West Midlands bus is also destroyed in the blast.

This bomb kills nine people outright, and injures everyone in the pub, many severely. Two later die of their injuries. After the second explosion, police evacuate all pubs and businesses in Birmingham city centre and commandeer all available rooms in the nearby City Centre Hotel as an impromptu first-aid post. All bus services into the city centre are halted, and taxi drivers are encouraged to transport those lightly injured in the explosions to hospital. Prior to the arrival of ambulances, rescue workers remove critically injured casualties from each scene upon makeshift stretchers constructed from devices such as tabletops and wooden planks. These severely injured casualties are placed on the pavement and given first aid prior to the arrival of ambulance services.

At 9:15 p.m., a third bomb, concealed inside two plastic bags, is found in the doorway of a Barclays Bank on Hagley Road, approximately two miles from the site of the first two explosions. This device consists of 13.5 pounds of Frangex connected to a timer and is set to detonate at 11:00 p.m. The detonator to the device activates when a policeman prods the bags with his truncheon, but the bomb does not explode. The device is destroyed in a controlled explosion early the following morning.

The bombings stoke considerable anti-Irish sentiment in Birmingham, which then has an Irish community of 100,000. Irish people are ostracised from public places and subjected to physical assaults, verbal abuse and death threats. Both in Birmingham and across England, Irish homes, pubs, businesses and community centres are attacked, in some cases with firebombs. Staff at thirty factories across the Midlands go on strike in protest of the bombings, while workers at airports across England refuse to handle flights bound for Ireland. Bridget Reilly, the mother of the two Irish brothers killed in the Tavern in the Town explosion, is herself refused service in local shops.

The bombings are immediately blamed on the IRA, despite the organisation not having claimed responsibility. Due to anger against Irish people in Birmingham after the bombings, the IRA Army Council places the city “strictly off-limits” to IRA active service units. In Northern Ireland, loyalist paramilitaries launch a wave of revenge attacks on Irish Catholics and within two days of the bombings, five Catholic civilians have been shot dead by loyalists. The Provisional IRA never officially admits responsibility for the Birmingham pub bombings.

Six Irishmen are arrested within hours of the blasts and in 1975 are sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombings. The men, who become known as the Birmingham Six, maintain their innocence and insist police had coerced them into signing false confessions through severe physical and psychological abuse. After 16 years in prison, and a lengthy campaign, their convictions are declared unsafe and unsatisfactory, and quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991. The episode is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

In 2001, each of the Birmingham Six is subsequently paid between £840,000 and £1.2 million in compensation.

(Pictured: The Mulberry Bush pub after the November 21, 1974, bombing)


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Ulster Day

Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant, commonly known as the Ulster Covenant, is signed by nearly 500,000 people on and before September 28, 1912, in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill introduced by the British Government in the same year.

The Covenant is first drafted by Thomas Sinclair, a prominent unionist and businessman from Belfast. Sir Edward Carson is the first person to sign the Covenant at Belfast City Hall with a silver pen, followed by Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry (the former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland), representatives of the Protestant churches, and then by Sir James Craig. The signatories, 471,414 in all, are all against the establishment of a Home Rule parliament in Dublin. The Ulster Covenant is immortalised in Rudyard Kipling‘s poem “Ulster 1912.” On September 23, 1912, the Ulster Unionist Council votes in favour of a resolution pledging itself to the Covenant.

The Covenant has two basic parts: the Covenant itself, which is signed by men, and the Declaration, which is signed by women. In total, the Covenant is signed by 237,368 men; the Declaration, by 234,046 women. Both the Covenant and Declaration are held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). An online searchable database is available on the PRONI website.

In January 1913, the Ulster Volunteers aim to recruit 100,000 men between the ages of 17 and 65 who had signed the Covenant as a unionist militia. A British Covenant, similar to the Ulster Covenant in opposition to the Home Rule Bill, receives two million signatures in 1914.

The majority of the signatories of the Covenant are from Ulster, although the signing is also attended by several thousand southern unionists. Acknowledging this, Carson pays tribute to “my own fellow citizens from Dublin, from Wicklow, from Clare [and], yes, from Cork, rebel Cork, who are now holding the hand of Ulster,” to cheers from the crowd.

Robert James Stewart, a Presbyterian from Drum, County Monaghan, and the grandfather of Heather Humphreys, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (2014-16) in the Republic of Ireland, is one of around 6,000 signatories in County Monaghan, where one quarter of the population is Protestant before the establishment of the Irish Free State. Almost 18,000 people sign either the Covenant or the Declaration in County Donegal.

The signature of Frederick Hugh Crawford is claimed by him to have been written in blood. However, this is disputed. Based on the results of a forensic test that he carries out in September 2012 at PRONI, Dr. Alastair Ruffell of Queen’s University Belfast asserts that he is 90% positive that the signature is not blood. Crawford’s signature is injected with a small amount of luminol. This substance reacts with iron in blood’s hemoglobin to produce a blue-white glow. The test is very sensitive and can detect tiny traces even in old samples. Crawford’s signature is still a rich red colour today which would be unlikely if it had been blood. Nevertheless, some unionists are not convinced by the evidence.

The term “Solemn League and Covenant” recalls a key historic document signed in 1643, by which the Scottish Covenanters make a political and military alliance with the leaders of the English Parliamentarians during the First English Civil War.

The Ulster Covenant is used as a template for the “Natal Covenant,” signed in 1955 by 33,000 British-descended Natalians against the nationalist South African government’s intention of declaring the Union a republic. It is signed in Durban‘s City Hall. Loosely based on Belfast’s Ulster Covenant, the Ulster scene is almost exactly reproduced.

September 28 is today known as “Ulster Day” to unionists.

(Pictured: Sir Edward Carson signing the Solemn League and Covenant)