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Birth of Irish Republican Thomas “Slab” Murphy

Thomas Murphy, Irish republican also known as “Slab” and believed to be a former Chief of Staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, is born on August 26, 1949. His farm straddles County Armagh and County Louth on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. One of three brothers, he is a lifelong bachelor who lives on the Louth side of his farm prior to his imprisonment in February 2016 following a tax evasion conviction.

Murphy is allegedly involved with the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA before being elected Chief of Staff by the IRA Army Council. Toby Harnden, ex-correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, names him as planning the Warrenpoint ambush of 1979, in which 18 British soldiers are killed. He is also allegedly implicated in the Mullaghmore bombing the same day, which kills four people, including two children and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. He is involved in smuggling huge stockpiles of weapons from Libya in the 1980s and is a member of the Army Council that decides to end its first ceasefire with the 1996 Docklands bombing in London that kills two men.

Accused by The Sunday Times of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain, in 1987 Murphy unsuccessfully sues the paper for libel in Dublin. The original verdict is overturned by the court of appeal because of omissions in the judge’s summing up and there is a retrial, which he also loses. At the retrial, both Sean O’Callaghan and Eamon Collins, former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, testify against Murphy, as do members of the Gardaí, Irish customs officials, British Army and local TD Brendan McGahon. Collins, who had also written a book about his experiences, Killing Rage, is beaten and killed by having a spike driven through his face near his home in Newry eight months later. In 1998, a Dublin court dismisses Murphy’s case after a high-profile trial, during which Murphy states that he has “never been a member of the IRA, no way” and claims not to know where the Maze prison is located. The jury rules, however, that he is an IRA commander and a smuggler.

The Sunday Times subsequently publishes statements given by Adrian Hopkins, the skipper who ferries weapons from Libya to the IRA, to the French authorities who intercept the fifth and final Eksund shipment. Hopkins details how Murphy met a named Libyan agent in Greece, paid for the weapons to be imported, and helped unload them when they arrived in Ireland. According to A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney, Murphy has been the IRA Army Council’s chief of staff since 1997. Toby Harnden’s Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh also details Murphy’s IRA involvement.

On September 20, 2016, the BBC‘s Spotlight airs a programme in which an alleged British spy who had infiltrated the IRA claims that in 2006, Murphy had demanded the killing of Denis Donaldson, an IRA member and British informer, in order to maintain discipline. The BBC says it had tried to contact Murphy but had received no reply. He has yet to respond to the allegation. On September 23, 2016, the Donaldson family’s solicitor says that the allegation is “absolute nonsense.”

In October 2005, officers of the British Assets Recovery Agency and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau carry out raids on a number of businesses in Manchester and Dundalk. It is extensively reported in the media that the investigation is aimed at damaging the suspected multi-million-pound empire of Murphy, who according to the BBC’s Underworld Rich List, has accumulated up to £40 million through smuggling oil, cigarettes, grain and pigs, as well as through silent or partial ownership in legitimate businesses and in property.

A large, purpose-built underground chamber that Gardaí believes the IRA used for interrogation is discovered close to Murphy’s home.

In his first-ever press release, issued on October 12, 2005, Murphy denies he owned any property and denies that he had any links with co-accused Cheshire businessman Dermot Craven. Furthermore, he claims that he had to sell property to cover his legal fees after his failed libel case against The Sunday Times, and that he made a living from farming.

On March 9, 2006, police, soldiers and customs officials from both sides of the Irish border launch a large dawn raid on Murphy’s house and several other buildings in the border region. Three persons are arrested by the Gardaí but are released three days later. A fleet of tankers, computers, documents, two shotguns, more than 30,000 cigarettes and the equivalent of 800,000 euros in sterling bank notes, euro bank notes and cheques are seized. Four diesel laundering facilities attached to a major network of storage tanks, some of which are underground, are also found. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau later obtains seizure orders to take possession of euro cash and cheques and sterling cash and cheques, together worth around one million Euros.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams makes a public statement in support of Murphy following the March 2006 raids. Under political and media pressure over allegations of the IRA’s continued presence in South Armagh, Adams says, “Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He’s a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids, and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin’s peace strategy and has been for a very long time.” He adds, “I want to deal with what is an effort to portray Tom Murphy as a criminal, as a bandit, as a gang boss, as someone who is exploiting the republican struggle for his own ends, as a multimillionaire. There is no evidence to support any of that.”

Commenting in Armagh on Murphy’s imprisonment for tax fraud, Arlene Foster, First Minister of Northern Ireland says, “Whilst some people refer to Murphy as a ‘good republican’ the people of this area know him to be a criminal.”

Murphy is arrested in Dundalk, County Louth, on November 7, 2007, by detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau, on charges relating to alleged revenue offences. The following day, he is charged with tax evasion under the Tax Consolidation Act. He is later released on his own bail of €20,000 with an independent surety of €50,000.

On October 17, 2008, in an agreed legal settlement, Murphy and his brothers pay over £1 million in assets and cash to the authorities in Britain and the Republic in settlement of a global crime and fraud investigation relating to proceeds of crime associated with smuggling and money laundering. After an investigation involving the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, more than 625,000 euros (£487, 000) in cash and cheques is confiscated by the Republic’s courts, while nine properties in North West England worth £445,000 are confiscated by British courts. Murphy is still fighting a claim in the Republic’s courts for tax evasion, relating to non-completion of tax returns for eight years from 1996. On April 26, 2010, he is further remanded on bail.

In 2011, there are claims that Murphy had become disillusioned with the Northern Ireland peace process and that he had fallen out with Sinn Féin. However, there is no evidence to support he is sympathetic to any dissident republican groups. In March 2013, the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), along with members of the Irish Customs Authority and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), raid his farm on the Louth-Armagh border. The Sunday World reports that two hours prior to the raid, at approximately 4:00 a.m., fire is seen coming from Murphy’s yard. There are serious concerns within the Garda and PSNI that a mole may have tipped off Murphy about the raid hours earlier as laptops, computer disks and a large amount of documentation is destroyed in the fires. As a result, an internal Garda investigation takes place.

On December 17, 2015, Murphy is found guilty on nine charges of tax evasion by a three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court trial sitting in Dublin, lasting nine weeks. He is tried under anti-terrorist legislation due to the belief by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) that there would not be a fair trial because of the potential of the intimidation of prosecution witnesses and jurors, and the security surrounding the trial.

Murphy is found guilty on all charges of failing to furnish tax returns on his income as a “cattle farmer” between 1996 and 2004. He is prosecuted following a 14-year-long Criminal Assets Bureau investigation, which during a raid of his property uncovers bags with more than €250,000 and more than £111,000 sterling in cash, along with documents, diaries and ledgers. He is remanded on bail until early 2016 for sentencing.

On February 26, 2016, Murphy is sentenced to 18 months in prison. None of the jail term is suspended. Following sentencing, he is immediately transferred from court to Ireland’s highest-security prison, Portlaoise Prison, reserved for terrorists, dissident republicans and serious gangland criminals, under a heavily armed Garda and Irish Army escort due to security concerns.

Murphy appeals the conviction in November 2016. His lawyer, John Kearney, claims that the tax Murphy had not paid had in fact been paid by his brother, Patrick. The Court of Appeal dismisses the appeal on all grounds in January 2017.

In January 2017, and scheduled for release in April 2018, Murphy is moved from Midlands Prison in Portlaoise to the Loughan House low-security prison in County Cavan.


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Birth of Patrick Coveney, Prelate of the Catholic Church

Patrick Coveney, Irish prelate of the Catholic Church who works in the diplomatic service of the Holy See from 1966 to 2009, is born in Tracton, County Cork, on July 29, 1934. He becomes an archbishop in 1985 and fulfills several assignments as Apostolic Nuncio, including stints in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, New Zealand, and Greece.

Coveney obtains the academic degree of Bachelor of Arts in classical languages and literature at Maynooth College, and the Licentiate of Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome, Italy. He is ordained as a priest at the age of twenty-four on February 21, 1959, by the archbishop vicegerent (deputy vicar general of Rome) Luigi Traglia in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran.

After doing parish work in Kidlington, England, Coveney teaches in St. Finbarr’s College, the minor seminary of the Diocese of Cork and Ross in Cork from 1960 to 1966. When use of the vernacular language is introduced into the celebration of the Roman Rite Mass, he edits a lectionary in English.

In September 1966, Coveney goes to work in the English-language section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. This sometimes involves acting as interpreter at audiences of Pope Paul VI, as when the Pope receives the three astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission that first lands human beings on the Moon.

At the Pontifical Lateran University Coveney obtains the degree of Doctor of Canon Law in 1969.

To prepare for a diplomatic career Coveney enters the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1969 and enters the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1971.

Coveney serves with the rank of Secretary in the Apostolic Nunciature in Buenos Aires from 1972 to 1976, returning then to the Secretariat of State in the Vatican. He is counselor of the nunciatures in New Delhi (1982–1984) and Khartoum (1984–1985).

On July 27, 1985, Coveney is appointed titular Archbishop of Satrianum and Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Zimbabwe and Apostolic Delegate to Mozambique. He is ordained to the episcopate on September 15, 1985, in the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne, Cork. The principal consecrator is the Cardinal Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli. The principal co-consecrators are Archbishop Gaetano Alibrandi, Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, and Bishop Michael Murphy, Bishop of Cork and Ross. In Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, he represents the Holy See at the 8th Summit Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement on September 1–6, 1986.

On January 25, 1990, Coveney is appointed Nuncio to Ethiopia and also becomes Apostolic Delegate to Djibouti on March 26, 1992, and Nuncio to Eritrea on September 30, 1995.

Coveney becomes Apostolic Nuncio to New Zealand, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, and Samoa, and Apostolic Delegate for Oceania on hpril 27, 1996. His remit is expanded to include Apostolic Nuncio to Fiji, Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Vanuatu on October 15, 1996, and Apostolic Nuncio to Nauru on December 7, 1996. He is also named Apostolic Nuncio to the Cook Islands and Palau on July 14, 2001. As the longest-serving resident diplomatic representative to New Zealand, Archbishop Coveney serves for a time as Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. While based in Wellington, he also represents the Holy See at the inauguration of Chen Shui-bian as president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) on May 18, 2004.

Coveney’s last diplomatic appointment is as Apostolic Nuncio to Greece on January 25, 2005. On November 5, 2008, he officiates at the presentation to the Acropolis Museum in Athens of a fragment of the Parthenon Frieze on loan from the Vatican Museums. He resides in Athens until his retirement in 2009.

Coveney returns to the Diocese of Cork and Ross to reside in Crosshaven Parish. He assists in Crosshaven parish and celebrates the Sacrament of Confirmation in many parishes throughout the Diocese of Cork and Ross. He dies at the age of 88 on October 22, 2022.


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Birth of Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany FRSL, Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, is born in London, England, on July 24, 1878. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appear in his lifetime, and a modest amount of material is published posthumously.

Plunkett, known to his family as “Eddie,” is the first son of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany (1853–1899), and his wife, Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle-Erle-Drax (née Burton) (1855–1916). From a historically wealthy and famous family, he is related to many well-known Irish figures. He is a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett, the martyred Archbishop of Armagh. He is also related to the prominent Anglo-Irish unionist and later nationalist Home Rule politician Sir Horace Plunkett and George Noble Plunkett, Papal Count and Republican politician, father of Joseph Plunkett, executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising.

Plunkett’s only grown sibling, a younger brother, from whom he is estranged from about 1916, for reasons not fully clear but connected to his mother’s will, is the noted British naval officer Sir Reginald Drax. Another younger brother dies in infancy.

Plunkett grows up at the family properties, notably, Dunstall Priory in Shoreham, Kent, and Dunsany Castle in County Meath, but also in family homes such as in London. His schooling is at Cheam School, Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, which he enters in 1896.

The title passes to Plunkett at his father’s death in 1899 at a fairly young age. The young Lord Dunsany returns to Dunsany Castle in 1901 after war duty. In that year he is also confirmed as an elector for the Representative Peers for Ireland in the House of Lords.

In 1903, Plunkett meets Lady Beatrice Child Villiers (1880–1970), youngest daughter of Victor Child Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey, who is then living at Osterley Park. They marry in 1904. Their one child, Randal, is born in 1906. Lady Beatrice is supportive of her husband’s interests and helps him by typing his manuscripts, selecting work for his collections, including the 1954 retrospective short story collection, and overseeing his literary heritage after his death.

The Plunketts are socially active in Dublin and London and travel between homes in Meath, London and Kent, other than during the First and Second World Wars and the Irish War of Independence. He circulates with many literary figures of the time. To many of these in Ireland he is first introduced by his uncle, the co-operative pioneer Sir Horace Plunkett, who also helps to manage his estate and investments for a time. He is friendly, for example, with George William Russell, Oliver St. John Gogarty, and for a time, W. B. Yeats. He also socialises at times with George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells and is a friend of Rudyard Kipling.

In 1910 Plunkett commissions a two-story extension to Dunsany Castle, with a billiard room, bedrooms and other facilities. The billiard room includes the crests of all the Lords Dunsany up to the 18th.

Plunkett serves as a second lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards in the Second Boer War. Volunteering in World War I and appointed Captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, he is stationed for a time at Ebrington Barracks in Derry, Northern Ireland. Hearing while on leave of disturbances in Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916, he drives in to offer help and is wounded by a bullet lodged in his skull. After recovery at Jervis Street Hospital and what is then the King George V Hospital (now St. Bricin’s Military Hospital), he returns to duty. His military belt is lost in the episode and later used at the burial of Michael Collins. Having been refused forward positioning in 1916 and listed as valuable as a trainer, he serves in the later war stages in the trenches and in the final period writing propaganda material for the War Office with MI7b. There is a book at Dunsany Castle with wartime photographs, on which lost members of his command are marked.

During the Irish War of Independence, Plunkett is charged with violating the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920, tried by court-martial on February 4, 1921, convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine of 25 pounds or serve three months in prison without labour. The Crown Forces had searched Dunsany Castle and had found two double-barrelled shotguns, two rook rifles, four Very pistols, an automatic pistol and a large quantity of pistol ammunition, along with shotgun and rifle ammunition.

During World War II, Plunkett signs up for the Irish Army Reserve and the British Home Guard, the two countries’ local defence forces, and is especially active in Shoreham, Kent, the English village bombed most during the Battle of Britain.

Plunkett’s fame arises chiefly from his prolific writings. He is involved in the Irish Literary Revival. Supporting the Revival, he is a major donor to the Abbey Theatre, and he moves in Irish literary circles. He is well acquainted with W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Percy French, George “AE” Russell, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Padraic Colum and others. He befriends and supports Francis Ledwidge, to whom he gives the use of his library, and Mary Lavin.

Plunkett makes his first literary tour to the United States in 1919 and further such visits up to the 1950s, in the early years mostly to the eastern seaboard and later, notably, to California. His own work and contribution to the Irish literary heritage are recognised with an honorary degree from Trinity College Dublin.

In 1940, Plunkett is appointed Byron Professor of English in the University of Athens in Greece. Having reached Athens by a circuitous route, he is so successful that he is offered a post as Professor of English in Istanbul. However, he has to be evacuated due to the German invasion of Greece in April 1941, returning home by an even more complex route, his travels forming a basis for a long poem published in book form (A Journey, in 5 cantos: The Battle of Britain, The Battle of Greece, The Battle of the Mediterranean, Battles Long Ago, The Battle of the Atlantic, special edition January 1944). Olivia Manning‘s character Lord Pinkrose in her novel sequence the Fortunes of War is a mocking portrait of Dunsany in that period.

In 1947, Plunkett transfers his Meath estate in trust to his son and heir and settles in Kent at his Shoreham house, Dunstall Priory, not far from the home of Rudyard Kipling. He visits Ireland only occasionally thereafter and engages actively in life in Shoreham and London. He also begins a new series of visits to the United States, notably California, as recounted in Hazel Littlefield-Smith’s biographical Dunsany, King of Dreams.

In 1957, Plunkett becomes ill while dining with the Earl and Countess of Fingall at Dunsany, in what proves to be an attack of appendicitis. He dies in hospital in Dublin, at the age of 79, on October 25, 1957. He is buried in the churchyard of the ancient church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Shoreham, Kent. His funeral is attended by many family members, representatives of his old regiment and various bodies in which he had taken an interest, and figures from Shoreham. A memorial service is held at Kilmessan in County Meath, with a reading of “Crossing the Bar,” which coincides with the passing of a flock of geese.

Beatrice survives Plunkett, living mainly at Shoreham and overseeing his literary legacy until her death in 1970. Their son Randal succeeds to the barony and is in turn succeeded by his grandson, the artist Edward Plunkett. Plunkett’s literary rights pass from Beatrice to Edward.


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Birth of Hannah Lynch, Feminist, Novelist & Journalist

Hannah Lynch, Irish feminist, novelist, journalist and translator, is born in Dublin on March 25, 1859.

Lynch’s father, who is a committed, non-violent Fenian, dies when she is young. Her mother, Anna Theresa Calderwood, is married twice. She grows up in a cultivated, literary, very female household with her mother and ten sisters and half-sisters. Her stepfather is James Cantwell, also a Fenian, who runs the Star and Garter Hotel. From her early childhood she is familiar with many leading political agitators and writers in Dublin. Having been educated at a convent school in France, she considers training as a doctor and later as a concert pianist. However, economic circumstances lead to her to work as a sub-editor for a provincial paper and as a governess in Europe.

A nationalist like her father and stepfather, Lynch is an executive member of the Ladies’ Land League and as a result closely associates with Fanny Parnell. She writes extensively, producing short stories and satirical sketches, as well as Land War fiction, travel writing, translations and literary criticism. Her satirical pieces include “A Dublin Literary Coterie Sketched by a Non-Pretentious Observer” (1888) and “My Friend Arcanieva” (1895). She publishes William O’Brien‘s paper United Ireland from France, after it is suppressed in Ireland. She disagrees with William Butler Yeats on the literary merit of Emily Lawless, calling her work “highly polished literary stories.”

Lynch also writes fiction on the subject of political and cultural affairs in Ireland, sometimes meeting controversy. Her first novel, Through Troubled Waters (1885), is a fictionalised version of a real-life incident in Galway in which the daughters of a prosperous landowning family are murdered to make way for the sons to inherit the land. The novel also depicts the rural clergy as complicit, by denouncing the victims from the pulpit. The newspaper United Ireland strongly criticises the novel, claiming it peddles in anti-Irish stereotypes for a British audience. She responds by stating that she had intended the book for an Irish publisher and audience, and that she should not be asked “to prove my patriotism at the expense of truth.”

Lynch publishes across Ireland, the United Kingdom and from Paris. Her political work eventually leads to a breakdown in her health, after which she spends a period recuperating on the Isle of Wight. By 1896, she has settled in Paris, having also lived in both Spain and Greece. She speaks Greek and French. She then returns to lecture in Ireland and is a part of the salons of Paris in the Belle Époque as well as the Irish Literary Revival in Dublin. She is friends with the historian, biographer and literary critic Arvède Barine (pseudonym of Louise-Cécile Vincens), the writers Mabel and Mary Robinson, and the medievalist Gaston Paris. Her work however does not bring significant income, and she is forced to apply to the Royal Literary Fund for help on multiple occasions. Eventually it takes a toll on her health. She spends time in hospital in Margate, England in 1903.

Lynch dies at 60 Rue de Breteuil in Paris on January 9, 1904, where she spends much of her working life.


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Birth of Rosaleen Brigid Ganly, Painter & Sculptor

Brigid Ganly HRHA, Irish painter and sculptor, is born Rosaleen Brigid O’Brien on January 29, 1909, in Dublin.

Ganly is one of five children born to Dermod O’Brien, a painter, and his wife Mabel Smiley. Her great-grandfather is the Irish Republican William Smith O’Brien. She grows up on a farm in Cahirmoyle, County Limerick, until the family moves to Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin. She goes on to attend the Metropolitan School of Art where she has the opportunity to study under Patrick Tuohy, Seán Keating and Oliver Sheppard. She is a talented sculptor and wins several awards, including the Taylor scholarship in 1929, for her allegorical male nude, Pity. She spends time in Paris in 1951 where she trains with André Lhote. She travels to Greece where Lhote continues to influence her work.

Ganly also studies painting in the Royal Hibernian Academy School where she has Margaret Clarke and Seán O’Sullivan as teachers. She is made an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1928 and becomes a member in 1935 though, in 1969, resigns her membership in protest of the lack of young artists being given the opportunity to exhibit. In 1972 she is made an honorary member and returns.

Ganly is a representational artist and while known as a portrait artist, she also paints landscapes, interiors and may be best known for her still lifes. Some of her best works are portraits of her husband, her sister Ethel, her father, and her friend Sheila Pim. She illustrates the book-jackets of Sheila Pim’s works. She has many exhibitions, with the RHA and the Water Colour Society of Ireland. There is a retrospective of her life in 1998 at the Hugh Lane Gallery and her works are in the collections there. She is also in the collections of the Waterford Municipal Gallery, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork and in The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland. She is part of the 2014 exhibition ‘Irish Women Artists: 1870-1970.’

Ganly’s sister-in-law is Kitty Wilmer O’Brien with whom she often exhibits. She marries Andrew Ganly, a dental surgeon and writer with a strong involvement in theatre, in 1936. He dies in 1982. They have two children, Eoghan and Phillida.

Brigid Ganly dies on March 25,2002.

(Pictured: “Storm Over Poros” (1964) by Rosaleen Brigid Ganly, HRHA)


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Death of Hannah Lynch, Feminist, Novelist, Journalist & Translator

Hannah Lynch, Irish feminist, novelist, journalist and translator, dies in Paris, France on January 9, 1904, where she spends much of her working life.

Lynch is born in Dublin on March 25, 1859. Her father, who is a committed, non-violent Fenian, dies when she is young. Her mother, Anna Theresa Calderwood, is married twice. She grows up in a very female house with her mother and ten sisters and half-sisters. Her stepfather is James Cantwell, also a Fenian, who runs the Star and Garter Hotel. After finishing school, she works as a sub-editor for a provincial paper and as a governess in Europe.

A nationalist like her father and stepfather, Lynch is an executive member of the Ladies’ Land League and as a result closely associates with Fanny Parnell. She writes extensively, producing short stories and satirical sketches, as well as Land War fiction, travel writing, translations and literary criticism. Her satirical pieces include “A Dublin Literary Coterie Sketched by a Non-Pretentious Observer” (1888) and “My Friend Arcanieva” (1895). She publishes William O’Brien‘s paper United Ireland from France, after it is suppressed in Ireland. She disagrees with William Butler Yeats on the literary merit of Emily Lawless, calling her work “highly polished literary stories.”

Lynch also writes fiction on the subject of political and cultural affairs in Ireland, sometimes meeting controversy. Her first novel, Through Troubled Waters (1885), is a fictionalised version of a real-life incident in Galway in which the daughters of a prosperous landowning family are murdered to make way for the sons to inherit the land. The novel also depicts the rural clergy as complicit, by denouncing the victims from the pulpit. The newspaper United Ireland strongly criticises the novel, claiming it peddles in anti-Irish stereotypes for a British audience. She responds by stating that she had intended the book for an Irish publisher and audience, and that she should not be asked “to prove my patriotism at the expense of truth.”

Lynch publishes across Ireland, the United Kingdom and from Paris. By 1896, she has settled in Paris, having also lived in both Spain and Greece. She speaks Greek and French. She then returns to lecture in Ireland and is a part of the salons of Paris in the Belle Époque as well as the Irish Literary Revival in Dublin. She is friends with the historian, biographer and literary critic Arvède Barine (pseudonym of Louise-Cécile Vincens), the writers Mabel and Mary Robinson, and the medievalist Gaston Paris. Her work however does not bring significant income, and she is forced to apply to the Royal Literary Fund for help on multiple occasions. Eventually it takes a toll on her health. She spends time in hospital in Margate, England in 1903.

Lynch dies in Paris on January 9, 1904.


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Birth of John Boland, Politician & Olympic Medalist

John Mary Pius Boland, Irish Nationalist politician, is born at 135 Capel Street, Dublin, on September 16, 1870. He serves as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party for South Kerry (1900–1918). He is also noteworthy as a gold medalist tennis player at the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.

Boland is born to Patrick Boland (1840–1877), businessman, and Mary Donnelly. Following the death of his mother in 1882, he is placed with his six siblings under the guardianship of his uncle Nicholas Donnelly, auxiliary bishop of Dublin.

Boland is educated at two private Catholic schools, one Irish, the second English, and both of whose existence and evolution are influenced by John Henry Newman – the Catholic University School, Dublin, and The Oratory School, Birmingham. His secondary education at the two schools helps give him the foundation and understanding to play an influential role in the politics of Great Britain and Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, when he is a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party which pursues constitutional Home Rule.

In 1892 Boland graduates with a BA from London University. He studies for a semester in Bonn, Germany, where he is a member of Bavaria Bonn, a student fraternity that is member of the Cartellverband. He studies law at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with a BA in 1896 and MA in 1901. Although called to the Bar in 1897, he never practises.

Boland is the first Olympic champion in tennis for Great Britain and Ireland at the first modern Olympics, which takes place in Athens in 1896. He visits his friend Thrasyvoulos Manos in Athens during the Olympics, and Manos, a member of the organising committee, enters Boland in the tennis tournament. Boland promptly wins the singles tournament, defeating Friedrich Traun of Germany in the first round, Evangelos Rallis of Greece in the second, Konstantinos Paspatis of Greece in the semifinals, and Dionysios Kasdaglis of Greece in the final.

Boland then enters the doubles event with Traun, the German runner whom he had defeated in the first round of the singles. Together, they win the doubles event. They defeat Aristidis and Konstantinos Akratopoulos of Greece in the first round, have a bye in the semifinals, and defeat Demetrios Petrokokkinos of Greece and Dimitrios Kasdaglis in the final. When the Union Flag and the German flag are run up the flagpole to honour Boland and Traun’s victory, Boland points out to the man hoisting the flags that he is Irish, adding “It’s a gold harp on a green ground, we hope.” The officials agree to have an Irish flag prepared.

Following a visit to Kerry, Boland becomes concerned about the lack of literacy among the native population, as he also has a keen interest in the Irish language.

In 1908, Boland is appointed a member of the commission for the foundation of the National University of Ireland (NUI). From 1926 to 1947, he is General Secretary of the Catholic Truth Society. He receives a papal knighthood, becoming a Knight of St. Gregory in recognition for his work in education, and in 1950 he is awarded an honorary doctorate of Laws by the NUI.

Boland marries Eileen Moloney (1876–1937), daughter of an Australian Dr. Patrick Moloney, at SS Peter and Edward, Palace-street, Westminster, on October 22, 1902. They have one son and five daughters. His daughter Honor Crowley (née Boland) succeeds her husband, Frederick Crowley, upon his death sitting as Fianna Fáil TD for South Kerry from 1945 until her death in 1966. His daughter Bridget Boland is a playwright who writes The Prisoner.

Boland dies at the age of 87 at his home in London on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1958.


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Birth of Bob Tisdall, Olympic Gold Medalist

bob-tisdall

Robert (“Bob”) Morton Newburgh Tisdall, gold medalist in the 400 metres hurdles at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, is born on May 16, 1907, in Nuwara Eliya, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

Born to a family of Irish landed gentry, he lives on his father’s plantation in Ceylon until the age of five, when they return to the family home in Nenagh, County Tipperary. Following prep school at Mourne Grange, he goes on to Shrewsbury School, where he wins the Public Schools 402 metres, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he wins a record four events – 402 metres and 110 metres hurdles, long jump and shot put – in the annual match against Oxford. This record is only equaled nearly 60 years later.

Tisdall sets South African and Canadian records in the 201 metres low hurdles in 1929, a year later setting Greek records in the same event. While at Cambridge in March 1932, he decides to try for a place on the Irish Olympic squad and, after he runs a record 54.2 seconds for the Irish Championship 402 metres hurdles in June that year, the authorities agree to let him run in his new event at the Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Tisdall had run only six 400 metres hurdles when he wins the gold medal at the 1932 Olympic Games in a world record time of 51.7 seconds, which is not recognised under the rules of the time because he had a hit a hurdle. Later, because of the notoriety of this incident, the rules are changed and the President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, presents Tisdall with a Waterford Crystal rose bowl with the image of him knocking over the last hurdle etched into the glass. Though the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) did not recognise the record at the time, they now recognise the mark, giving Tisdall credit for setting the milestone of being the first man under 52 seconds.

Following his victory, Tisdall is invited to a dinner in Los Angeles where he is seated next to Amelia Earhart on one side and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. on the other.

Later in life, Tisdall lives in South Africa, where he runs a gymnasium during the day, which he converts to a night club after dark. He grows coffee in Tanzania, but moves to Nambour, Queensland in 1969 with his wife Peggy, where he farms fruit crops and cattle. He admits to running his last race at the age of 80, though he runs in the Sydney Olympics torch relay at age 93. At that point he is the oldest living recipient of an individual track and field Olympic medal。

At the age of 96 Tisdall falls down a steep set of rock stairs and breaks his shoulder, ribs and ruptures his spleen. He never completely recovers and dies on July 27, 2004. At that time, he is the world’s oldest track and field Olympic Gold medalist. He does not want a funeral because “they are altogether too sad.” His wake is attended by family and a few friends.

In 2002, three statues honouring Olympic champions with links to Nenagh, Matt McGrath, Johnny Hayes and Bob Tisdall, are unveiled in front of the Nenagh Courthouse.


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Ireland Joins the European Monetary System

counting cashIreland joins the new European Monetary System (EMS) on March 13, 1979. The EMS is an arrangement established in 1979 under the Jenkins Commission where most nations of the European Economic Community (EEC) link their currencies to prevent large fluctuations relative to one another.

After the demise of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, most of the EEC countries agree in 1972 to maintain stable exchange rates by preventing exchange rate fluctuations of more than 2.25%. In March 1979, this system is replaced by the European Monetary System, and the European Currency Unit (ECU) is defined.

The basic elements of the arrangement are:

  • The ECU: With this arrangement, member currencies agree to keep their foreign exchange rates within agreed bands with a narrow band of +/− 2.25% and a wide band of +/− 6%
  • An Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM)
  • An extension of European credit facilities
  • The European Monetary Cooperation Fund: created in April 1973 and allocates ECUs to members’ central banks in exchange for gold and US dollar deposits

Although no currency is designated as an anchor, the Deutsche Mark and German Deutsche Bundesbank soon emerge as the centre of the EMS. Because of its relative strength, and the low-inflation policies of the bank, all other currencies are forced to follow its lead if they want to stay inside the system. Eventually, this situation leads to dissatisfaction in most countries, and is one of the primary forces behind the drive to a monetary union.

Periodic adjustments raise the values of strong currencies and lower those of weaker ones, but after 1986 changes in national interest rates are used to keep the currencies within a narrow range. In the early 1990s the European Monetary System is strained by the differing economic policies and conditions of its members, especially the newly reunified Germany, and the permanent withdrawal of the United Kingdom and Italy from the system in September 1992. Speculative attacks on the French franc during the following year lead to the so-called Brussels Compromise in August 1993 which establishes a new fluctuation band of +15%.

In May 1998, the European Monetary System is no longer a functional arrangement as the member countries fix their mutual exchange rates when participating in the euro. Its successor however, the ERM-II, is launched on January 1, 1999. In ERM-II the ECU basket is discarded and the new single currency euro becomes an anchor for the other currencies participating in the ERM-II. Participation in the ERM-II is voluntary and the fluctuation bands remain the same as in the original ERM, i.e. +15 percent, once again with the possibility of individually setting a narrower band with respect to the euro. Denmark and Greece become new members at this time.


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Birth of Frank Harris, Journalist & Novelist

frank-harris

Frank Harris, Irish American editor, novelist, short story writer, journalist and publisher, is born James Thomas Harris to Welsh parents in Galway, County Galway on February 14, 1855. He is friendly with many well-known figures of his day.

Harris’s father, Thomas Vernon Harris, is a naval officer from Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales. While living with his older brother he is, for a year or more, a pupil at The Royal School, Armagh. At the age of twelve he is sent to Wales to continue his education as a boarder at the Ruabon Grammar School in Denbighshire, a time he is to remember later in My Life and Loves. He is unhappy at the school and runs away within a year.

Harris runs away to the United States in late 1869, arriving in New York City virtually penniless. The 13-year-old takes a series of odd jobs to support himself, working first as a shoeshiner, a porter, a general laborer, and a construction worker on the erection of the Brooklyn Bridge. He later turns these early occupational experiences into art, incorporating tales from them into his book The Bomb (1908).

From New York Harris moves to Chicago, where he takes a job as a hotel clerk and eventually a manager. Owing to Chicago’s central place in the meat packing industry, he makes the acquaintance of various cattlemen, who inspire him to leave the big city to take up work as a cowboy. He eventually grows tired of life in the cattle industry and enrolls at the University of Kansas, where he studies law and earns a degree, gaining admission to the Kansas Bar Association.

Harris is not cut out to be a lawyer and soon decides to turn his attention to literature. He returns to England in 1882, later traveling to various cities in Germany, Austria, France, and Greece on his literary quest. He works briefly as an American newspaper correspondent before settling down in England to seriously pursue the vocation of journalism.

Harris first comes to general notice as the editor of a series of London papers including The Evening News, The Fortnightly Review and the Saturday Review, the latter being the high point of his journalistic career, with H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw as regular contributors.

From 1908 to 1914 Harris concentrates on working as a novelist, authoring a series of popular books such as The Bomb, The Man Shakespeare, and The Yellow Ticket and Other Stories. With the advent of World War I in the summer of 1914, he decides to return to the United States.

From 1916 to 1922 Harris edits the U.S. edition of Pearson’s Magazine, a popular monthly which combines short story fiction with socialist-tinted features on contemporary news topics. One issue of the publication is banned from the mails by United States Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson during the period of American participation in World War I. Despite this Harris manages to navigate the delicate situation which faces the left-wing press and keeps Pearson’s Magazine functioning and solvent during the war years.

Harris becomes an American citizen in April 1921. In 1922 he travels to Berlin to publish his best-known work, his four-volume autobiography My Life and Loves (1922–1927). It is notorious for its graphic descriptions of his purported sexual encounters and for its exaggeration of the scope of his adventures and his role in history. A fifth volume, supposedly taken from his notes but of doubtful provenance, is published in 1954, long after his death.

Harris also writes short stories and novels, two books on William Shakespeare, a series of biographical sketches in five volumes under the title Contemporary Portraits and biographies of his friends Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. His attempts as a playwright are less successful. Only Mr. and Mrs. Daventry (1900), which is based on an idea by Oscar Wilde, is produced on the stage.

Married three times, Harris dies of a heart attack in Nice, France on August 26, 1931. He is buried at Cimetière Sainte-Marguerite, adjacent to the Cimetière Caucade, in Nice. Just after his death a biography written by Hugh Kingsmill (pseudonym of Hugh Kingsmill Lunn) is published.