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Death of Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan

Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan, an Irish army officer, is killed at Huy, Belgium, on August 21, 1693, while serving in the French Royal Army. He is now best remembered as an Irish patriot and military hero.

Originally of English descent, Sarsfield is born into a wealthy Catholic family around 1655. His father, Patrick, is an Irish landowner and soldier, and his mother is Anne O’Moore, daughter of Rory O’Moore, a Gaelic noble who plays a leading part in the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

There are few surviving records of Sarsfield’s early life, although it is generally agreed he is brought up on the family estates at Tully. While some biographies claim he is educated at a French military college, there is no evidence for this.

In the 1670 Secret Treaty of Dover, Charles II agrees to support a French attack on the Dutch Republic, and supply 6,000 troops for the French army. When the Franco-Dutch War begins in 1672, Sarsfield is commissioned into his brother-in-law James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth‘s regiment. Although England leaves the war in 1674, the brigade continues to serve in the Rhineland, under Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne. Sarsfield transfers into a regiment commanded by Irish Catholic Sir George Hamilton.

Sarsfield fights at Entzheim, Turckheim and Altenheim. He and Hamilton are standing next to Turenne when he is killed by a chance shot at Salzbach in July 1675. He remains in France until the war ends in 1678, then returns to London to join a new regiment being recruited by Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick. However, the Popish Plot then results in Sarsfield and other Catholics being barred from serving in the military.

This leaves Sarsfield short of money, and he becomes involved in an expensive legal campaign to regain Lucan Manor from the heirs of his brother William, who dies in 1675. This ultimately proves unsuccessful amid allegations of forged documents, and in 1681 he returns to London, where he makes two separate attempts to abduct an heiress and is lucky to escape prosecution. When Charles’s Catholic brother James becomes king in 1685, Sarsfield rejoins the army and fights in the decisive Battle of Sedgemoor, which ends the Monmouth Rebellion. James is keen to promote Catholics, whom he views as more loyal, and by 1688 Sarsfield is colonel of a cavalry unit.

After Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, is appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1687, he begins creating a Catholic-dominated Irish army and political establishment. Aware of preparations for invasion by his nephew and son-in-law William of Orange, James sends Sarsfield to Dublin in September to persuade Tyrconnell to provide him with Irish troops. This proves unsuccessful, and in November James is deposed by the Glorious Revolution. Sarsfield takes part in the Wincanton Skirmish, one of the few military actions during the invasion. He remains in England until January when he is allowed to join James in France.

Accompanied by French troops and English exiles, James lands in Ireland in March 1689, beginning the Williamite War in Ireland. Sarsfield is promoted brigadier, elected to the 1689 Irish Parliament for County Dublin, and commands cavalry units in the campaign in Ulster and Connacht. When an Irish brigade is sent to France in October, French ambassador Jean-Antoine de Mesmes proposes Sarsfield as its commander. He notes that while “not…of noble birth […], (he) has distinguished himself by his ability, and (his) reputation in this kingdom is greater than that of any man I know […] He is brave, but above all has a sense of honour and integrity in all that he does”.

James rejects this, stating that although unquestionably brave, Sarsfield is “very scantily supplied with brains.” His role at the Battle of the Boyne is peripheral, although the battle is less decisive than often assumed, Jacobite losses being around 2,000 from a force of 25,000. James returns to France, leaving Tyrconnell in control. He is the leader of the “Peace Party,” who want to negotiate a settlement preserving Catholic rights to land and public office. Sarsfield heads the “War Party,” who feel they can gain more by fighting on. It includes the Luttrell brothers, Nicholas Purcell and English Catholic William Dorrington, a former colleague from Monmouth’s Regiment.

The position of the War Party is strengthened by the Declaration of Finglas, which offers the rank and file amnesty but excludes senior officers. French victories in the Low Countries briefly increases hopes of a Stuart restoration, and the Jacobites establish a defensive line along the River Shannon. Sarsfield cements his reputation with an attack on the Williamite artillery train at Ballyneety, widely credited with forcing them to abandon the  first siege of Limerick. The Jacobites also retain Athlone, offset by the loss of Kinsale and Cork, which make resupply from France extremely difficult.

With Tyrconnell absent in France, Sarsfield takes control and in December 1690, arrests several leaders of the peace faction. He then bypasses James by asking Louis XIV directly for French support, and requesting the removal of Tyrconnell and the army commander James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, James’ illegitimate son. The latter, who later describes Sarsfield as “a man […] without sense”, albeit “very good-natured,” leaves Limerick for France in February.

Tyrconnell returns in January 1691, carrying letters from James making Sarsfield Earl of Lucan, an attempt to placate an “increasingly influential and troublesome figure.” A large French convoy arrives at Limerick in May, along with Charles Chalmot de Saint-Ruhe, appointed military commander in an attempt to end the conflict between the factions. Saint-Ruhr and 7,000 others die at Aughrim in July 1691, reputedly the bloodiest battle ever on Irish soil. Sarsfield’s role is unclear: one account claims he quarrels with Saint-Ruhe and is sent to the rear with the cavalry reserves.

The remnants of the Jacobite army regroup at Limerick. Tyrconnell dies of a stroke in August, and in October, Sarsfield negotiates terms of surrender. He is criticised for this, having constantly attacked Tyrconnell for advocating the same thing, while it is suggested the Williamite army is weaker than he judged. However, the collapse of the Shannon line and surrender of Galway and Sligo leaves him little option. Without French supplies, the military position is hopeless, and defections mean his army is dissolving.

The military articles of the Treaty of Limerick preserve the Jacobite army by allowing its remaining troops to enter French service. About 19,000 officers and men, including Sarsfield, choose to leave in what is known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. Sarsfield’s handling of the civil articles is less successful. Most of its protections are ignored by the new regime, although Sarsfield possibly views it as temporary, hoping to resume the war.

On arrival in France, Sarsfield becomes Major-General in the army of exiles, an appointment James makes with great reluctance. In addition to other acts of perceived insubordination, Sarsfield allegedly tells William’s negotiators at Limerick “change but kings with us, and we will fight it over again.” After the planned invasion of England is abandoned in 1692, the exiles become part of the French army, and Sarsfield a French maréchal de camp.

Sarsfield fights at Steenkerque in August 1692, and is fatally wounded at the Battle of Landen in 1693, dying at Huy on August 21, 1693. Despite several searches, no grave or burial record has been found, although a plaque at St. Martin’s Church, Huy, has been set up in commemoration and an announcement in 2023 states that, pending exhumation and identification, his remains have been located. Like much else, his reputed last words, “Oh that this had been shed for Ireland!” are apocryphal.


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Death of John Bowes, 1st Baron Bowes

John Bowes, 1st Baron Bowes, PC (I), Anglo-Irish peer, politician and judge, dies in Dublin on July 22, 1767. He is noted for his great legal ability, but also for his implacable hostility to Roman Catholics.

Bowes is born in London, the second son of Thomas Bowes, a merchant and member of the Worshipful Company of Turners, and his wife, a Miss North, and is called to the Bar in 1712. He comes to Ireland as a member of the staff of Richard West, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in 1723. He builds up a large practice at the Irish Bar and is appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1730, and Attorney-General for Ireland in 1739. He is raised to the Bench as Lord Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1741, having previously failed to become third Baron (which is a surprisingly lucrative office, as the Baron receives several extra fees). He is appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland by King George II in 1757, despite the chronic ill-health which afflicts him. In his last years, his legs are so swollen that he can scarcely walk.

Bowes epitomizes the severity of the 18th century Penal Laws against Irish Catholics when he rules, in about 1759, that: “The law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic, nor could such a person draw breath without the Crown’s permission”. Such views, given that Roman Catholics make up more than 90% of the Irish population at the time, inevitably make him bitterly unpopular, and in 1760 he is assaulted during a riot outside the House of Commons.

In spite of his religious bigotry, Bowes is considered one of the outstanding judges of his time. In particular, he is a reforming Lord Chancellor, who is praised for making the Court of Chancery “a terror for fraud, and a comfort and protection for honest men”. As Attorney-General he shows considerable courage in going on assize during the Irish Famine (1740–1741) despite the infectious fever which is raging at the time, and which claims the lives of three other judges who decide to brave the dangers.

Between 1731 and 1742, Bowes represents Taghmon in the Irish House of Commons.

Bowes is considered one of the finest speakers of his time. His speech for the prosecution at the trial of Henry Barry, 4th Baron Barry of Santry, who is charged with murder in 1739, is described by those who hear it as a masterpiece of eloquence and logic, and leads to the Irish House of Lords bringing in a unanimous verdict of guilty against Santry.

Bowes is raised to the peerage of Ireland in 1758 as Baron Bowes, of Clonlyon in the County of Meath.

Bowes dies in Dublin on July 22, 1767, his mental faculties fully intact despite his bodily infirmities. He is buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, where his brother raises a memorial to him. He never marries, and his title becomes extinct on his death. He lives at Belvedere House, Drumcondra. His estates passes to his brother Rumsey Bowes of Binfield, Berkshire.


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Birth of William Joyce, Last Person Executed for Treason in the UK

William Brooke Joyce, an American-born fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster during World War II, is born on Herkimer Street in Brooklyn, New York, on April 24, 1906. He has the distinction of being the last person to be executed for treason in the United Kingdom.

Joyce is the eldest of three sons of Michael Joyce, an Irish Catholic from a family of tenant farmers in Ballinrobe, County Mayo, and his wife, Gertrude (née Brooke), who although born in Shaw and Crompton, Lancashire, is from a well-off Anglican Anglo-Irish family of physicians associated with County Roscommon. The Joyces return to Ireland in 1909. William, a precocious child, attends Coláiste Iognáid SJ, a Jesuit school in County Galway, from 1915 to 1921. At the age of fourteen, he abandons Catholicism for Anglicanism, apparently after being told that all non-Catholics, including his mother, would be damned. In adult life he is nominally anglican, though his adherence to Christianity is tenuous.

The Joyces are unionists and teach their children fervent imperialism. During the Irish War of Independence, Joyce openly associates with the Black and Tans and acts as a scout for them. An acquaintance claims that his views are so extreme even loyalists dislike him. On December 9, 1921, he flees to England to join the Worcestershire Regiment and is followed to England in 1923 by the rest of the family. When he enlists, he claims to be eighteen, but after he contracts rheumatic fever, his age is discovered, and he is discharged in March 1922. For a time, he studies mathematics and chemistry at Battersea Polytechnic Institute as a pre-medical student (1922–23), but he leaves of his own accord, with a reputation for laziness and violent political views. His studies in English and history at Birkbeck College are more successful. He is a brilliant linguist and mathematician and graduates BA with first-class honours in 1927. He publishes an academic article on philology and considers progressing to an MA. He later falsely claims that his research had been plagiarised by a Jewish academic. In 1932, he enrolls at King’s College, London, for a Ph.D. in educational psychology.

Joyce is disturbed by the difference between depressed post-war Britain and the imperial ideal that he had imbibed in Galway and is mocked for his outspoken patriotism and obvious Irishness. He identifies strongly with Thomas Carlyle, an earlier angry anti-liberal from the provinces. His life is marked by repeated episodes of hero worship, followed by disillusion and bitter denunciation. In 1923, he joins the British Fascists, an organisation that has a significant Irish loyalist membership, and in 1924 he allies himself with a militant splinter group, the National Fascists. Most British fascists see themselves as Tory auxiliaries, and they often provide a security presence at conservative meetings. On October 22, 1924, while stewarding a meeting addressed by a Jewish conservative candidate, he has his face slashed and is left with a prominent scar across his right cheek. He joins the Conservative Party in 1928 and is active in the Chelsea constituency until 1930, when he is forced out because of his eccentricities and sexual misbehaviour. On April 30, 1927, he marries Hazel Kathleen Barr. They have two daughters but separate in 1935, largely because of his infidelities, heavy drinking, and temper. The marriage is dissolved in 1937.

In November 1933, Joyce abandons his Ph.D. studies to work for Sir Oswald Mosley‘s British Union of Fascists (BUF). By early 1934 he has become its paid publicity director, traveling throughout Britain to organise meetings. He is a powerful, rabble-rousing speaker, driven by an instinctive awareness that vitriolic verbal abuse gives speaker and audience a sense of power and solidarity. MI5 sees him as a compelling, though deranged, personality. On February 8, 1937, he marries Margaret Cairns White, a BUF activist from Lancashire, with whom he had cohabited since 1936.

Joyce leads a BUF faction that favours a recruitment strategy based on uncompromising ideological assertion. This is challenged by populists who prioritise marches and displays and hold that indoctrination should follow membership. In February 1937, he is BUF candidate for the London County Council in Shoreditch. The party wins 14 percent of the vote. In March 1937, he, along with many full-time BUF staff, are sacked when the BUF cuts expenses. But his dismissal also reflects Mosley’s awareness that his obsessive rhetoric repels “respectable” recruits and that he is no longer a biddable, slavish admirer of “the Leader.” He later falsely claims near-exclusive credit for the BUF’s escalating antisemitism, a view that Mosley eventually finds it convenient to adopt in order to evade his own responsibility.

In April 1937, Joyce founds the National Socialist League, helped by a wealthy patron. He supports himself as a private tutor, refusing to take Jewish pupils. He is active in various antisemitic and pro-Nazi groups such as the Right Club and engages in “peace” campaigns based on the view that British interests lay with Germany against Russia. Political marginalisation intensifies his admiration for Nazi Germany and hero worship of Adolf Hitler. By the time of the Munich crisis in 1938, he has decided that if war comes, he will go to Germany, though he also considers moving to Ireland. He renews his British passport for one-year terms in August 1938 and August 1939.

On August 26, 1939, Joyce and his wife leave London for Berlin. He is allegedly tipped off about his impending arrest and internment by an MI5 officer, to whom he had supplied information on communists. His siblings, whom he recruited into his fascist organisations, are variously penalised for his activities. At a loose end in Berlin, he is persuaded by a British associate to become a radio announcer with the English-language service of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG). He makes his first broadcast on September 6, 1939, and receives a contract in October. He finds in radio an outlet for his forceful style and delight in saying the unsayable, and in the early years of the war takes an exultant pride in recounting Nazi victories. His performances are admired by Joseph Goebbels, whom Joyce, to his regret, never meets. On September 26, 1940, he acquires German citizenship.

The novel experience of hearing the enemy in one’s own living room attracts wide audiences in Britain. Joyce’s practice of naming newly captured prisoners of war in his broadcasts is also a compelling motive for listening. In fact, he tries to recruit British prisoners of war as collaborators. The name “Lord Haw-Haw,” invented by the Daily Express radio critic in September 1939, initially applies to several English-language broadcasters but in time becomes associated with Joyce. He is initially a figure of fun, imitated by comedians, but there are sinister undercurrents of terrifying omnipotence, intensified by his sneering, gloating delivery and his delighted deployment of the “big lie” technique. It is widely believed that British-based fifth columnists supply him with information, that he predicts air raids, and shows minute local knowledge. In time, fear and his growing notoriety feed popular hatred of him in Britain, though his anti-British taunts allegedly win appreciative Irish audiences. He exults that he is daily committing treason and rendering himself liable to the death penalty.

In 1940, Joyce publishes a commissioned self-justifying propaganda work, Twilight over England. His representation of himself echoes that of Hitler in Mein Kampf – the provincial patriot, whose martial sacrifices are betrayed by corrupt elites, learning through poverty the hollowness of bourgeois patriotism and the need to synthesise socialism with nationalism. He shares with his hero a paranoid belief in his own ability to create an alternative reality through language and obstinacy. He dreams of becoming the English Führer.

In Berlin, the Joyces’ marriage comes under increasing strain, marked by drunken rows, domestic violence, and infidelity on both sides, though they retain a fierce mutual fascination. They divorce on August 12, 1941, but remarry on February 11, 1942, while continuing their previous behaviour. As the Axis powers begin to fail, his broadcasts become more defensive, focusing on the Soviet threat. On October 14, 1944, he is awarded the German War Merit Cross, first class. On October 22, he is sworn into the Volkssturm (territorial army) and begins drilling. The Joyces are evacuated from Berlin in March 1945, initially to Apen near the Dutch border and then to Hamburg, where he makes a last, drunken, defiant broadcast on April 30, 1945, the day of Hitler’s death. After an unsuccessful attempt to escape to Sweden, the Joyces hide at Flensburg near the Danish border. On May 28, 1945, he is shot and captured while gathering firewood.

Joyce is brought back to Britain on June 16 after Parliament passed legislation simplifying treason trial procedures. At his September 17-20 trial, he proves his American citizenship, but the court holds that his illegally acquired British passport incurred duties of allegiance. His appeals are rejected by the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. His fate is influenced by British public opinion, and possibly by a desire to avoid antagonising the Soviet Union. In his death cell he blames the defeat of national socialism on German limitations. He also fantasises that he could have saved Hitler from his incompetent subordinates.

Joyce is hanged by Albert Pierrepoint at Wandsworth Prison on January 3, 1946. Unlike most of his fellow Nazis, he proclaims to the end his allegiance to national socialism and hatred of Jews. He corresponds cheerfully with Margaret, joking evasively about the death camps and expressing a belief that his spirit will survive, watch over her, and continue his work. To neo-Nazis he becomes a martyr. Even among those to whom his activities had been repellent, a significant body of opinion holds he should not have been condemned on a questionable and innovative technicality. The historian A. J. P. Taylor maintains that Joyce was executed for making a false declaration to obtain a passport, a misdemeanour that normally incurs a £2 fine.

In 1976, Joyce is reinterred in Galway as it is feared that a grave in England might become a fascist shrine. Thomas Kilroy‘s play Double Cross (1986) juxtaposes Joyce and Brendan Bracken as Irishmen who reinvented themselves through fantasies of Britishness. The BBC Sound Archive has recordings of some of Joyce’s broadcasts and transcripts of others, collected during the war as evidence for a future treason trial.

(From: “Joyce, William Brooke (‘Lord Haw-Haw’)” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Thomas Francis Meagher Publicly Presents the Tricolour National Flag

Waterford native Thomas Francis Meagher presents the tricolour national flag of Ireland to the public for the first time at a meeting of the Young Ireland party in Dublin on April 15, 1848.

The mid-19th-century is a difficult time for the Irish. Under British subjugation, and amidst the vice-grip of the Great Famine, Ireland and its people are in desperate need for optimism, and something to bring the nation together.

News of the recent French Revolution has reached Irish ears and there is a growing belief that the path to independence is an achievable one.

During a trip to Paris with an Irish delegation sent to congratulate the French republicans on their successful revolution, Meagher is inspired to create a design for the Irish tricolour, similar to the French flag, with the help of a small group of French women sympathetic to the Irish cause.

The new flag has green, white and orange stripes – the colours symbolising the unification of two traditions into one nation – Catholics (green) and Protestants (orange). Few realise however, that Meagher’s original flag has the orange stripe closest to the staff, a design now used by Ivory Coast.

As Meagher outlines later, “The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between Orange and Green and I trust that beneath its folds the hands of Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics may be clasped in generous and heroic brotherhood.”

At a meeting in Waterford on March 7, 1848, Meagher first publicly unveils the flag from a second-floor window of the Wolfe Tone Club as he addresses a gathered crowd on the street below who are present to celebrate another revolution that has just taken place in France.

From March of that year the Irish tricolour appears side-by-side with the French tricolour at meetings held all over the country.

On April 14 and 15, the flag is paraded around the country. Political journalist John Mitchel says at the time, “I hope to see that flag one day waving, as our national banner.”

The flag is nearly forgotten following the Young Irelander’s failed rising later in 1848. The Fenians, the next Irish revolutionary movement, use the traditional green field and golden harp motif for its flags and it is the predominantly used flag for the next sixty years.

During this time, support for Meagher’s design grows, and following the events of the 1916 Easter Rising, it is resurrected by the Irish Volunteers and later by Sinn Féin and is unofficially adopted as the flag of Ireland. With the green stripe closest to the staff, Meagher’s tricolour becomes the official flag of the 26 counties of the Irish Republic.

In 1937, the design achieves constitutional status as the official Irish flag.

Until recently, display of the tricolour flag is illegal in the six occupied counties of Northern Ireland.

(From: “On this day in 1848: Ireland’s new flag is shown to public for first time” by Harry Brent, The Irish Post, http://www.irishpost.com, April 15, 2021)


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Death of Stephen Moylan, Patriot During the American Revolutionary War

Stephen Moylan, Irish American patriot leader during the American Revolutionary War, dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 11, 1811. He holds several positions in the Continental Army including Muster-Master General, Secretary and Aide to General George Washington, 2nd Quartermaster General, Commander of The Fourth Continental Light Dragoons and Commander of the Cavalry of the Continental Army.

Moylan is born to a Catholic family in Cork, County Cork, in 1737. His father, John Moylan, is a well-to-do merchant in Shandon, County Cork. His older brother Francis becomes Bishop of Cork. His family sends him to be educated in Paris. He then works in Lisbon for three years in the family shipping firm. He settles in Philadelphia in 1768 to organize his own firm. He is one of the organizers of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, an Irish American fraternal organization, and serves as its first president.

Moylan joins the American Continental Army in 1775 and upon the recommendation of John Dickinson, is appointed Muster-Master General on August 11, 1775. His brother John acts as United States Clothier General during the war. His experience in the shipping industry affords the United States a well-qualified ship outfitter, who helps fit out the first ships of the Continental Navy. On March 5, 1776, he becomes secretary to General George Washington with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is appointed Quartermaster General in the American Continental Army on June 5, 1776, succeeding Thomas Mifflin. He resigns from this office on September 28, 1776. However, he continues to serve as a volunteer of General Washington’s staff through December 1776.

In January 1776, Moylan writes a letter using the term “United States of America,” the earliest known use of that phrase.

Moylan then raises a troop of light dragoons, the 4th Continental Light Dragoons, also known as Moylan’s Horse, on January 3, 1777, at Philadelphia, and is appointed colonel in the Continental Army on January 5. The regiment is be noted for taking the field in captured British red coats. However, they see action in green coats at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777, and end the year by protecting the Cantonment at Valley Forge. He succeeds General Casimir Pulaski as Commander of the Cavalry in March 1778. Moylan’s Horse sees action at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778.

In the campaign of 1779 Moylan and the 4th Dragoons are stationed at Pound Ridge, New York, and see action when the British raid Norwalk, Connecticut, on July 11, 1779. He and the 4th Dragoons take part in the Battle of Springfield in New Jersey, on June 23, 1780, and General Anthony Wayne‘s expedition at Bull’s Ferry, New Jersey, on July 20, 1780. He commands his Dragoons at the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781, after which he is to take the cavalry to the Southern Campaign. However, his failing health causes him to leave the field and return to Philadelphia, where he constantly appeals to the Continental Congress to man, equip and maintain the Continental Dragoon Regiments.

Moylan is rewarded for his service by being breveted to brigadier general on November 3, 1783.

Moylan is married to Mary Ricketts Van Horne on September 12, 1778, and has two daughters, Elizabeth Catherine, and Maria. His two sons die as children. He dies in Philadelphia on April 11, 1811, and is buried there in the churchyard at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church.


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The Reavey and O’Dowd Killings

The Reavey and O’Dowd killings are two coordinated gun attacks on January 4, 1976, in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians die after members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, break into their homes and shoot them. Three members of the Reavey family are shot at their home in Whitecross and four members of the O’Dowd family are shot at their home in Ballydougan. Two of the Reaveys and three of the O’Dowds are killed outright, with the third Reavey victim dying of brain hemorrhage almost a month later.

In February 1975, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the British Government enter into a truce and restart negotiations. For the duration of the truce, the IRA agrees to halt its attacks on the British security forces, and the security forces mostly end their raids and searches. However, there are dissenters on both sides. There is a rise in sectarian killings during the truce, which “officially” lasts until February 1976.

The shootings are part of a string of attacks on Catholics and Irish nationalists by the “Glenanne gang,” an alliance of loyalist militants, rogue British soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers. Billy McCaughey, an officer from the Special Patrol Group (SPG), admits taking part and accuses another officer of involvement. His colleague John Weir says those involved include a British soldier, two police officers and an alleged police agent, Robin “the Jackal” Jackson.

At about 6:10 p.m., at least three masked men enter the home of the Reaveys, a Catholic family, in Whitecross, through a door that had been left unlocked. Brothers John (24), Brian (22) and Anthony Reavey (17) are alone in the house and are watching television in the sitting room. The gunmen open fire on them with two 9mm Sterling submachine guns, a 9mm Luger pistol and a .455 Webley revolver. John and Brian are killed outright. Anthony manages to run to the bedroom and take cover under a bed. He is shot several times and is left for dead. After searching the house and finding no one else, the gunmen leave. Badly wounded, Anthony crawls about 200 yards to a neighbour’s house to seek help. He dies of a brain haemorrhage on January 30. Although the pathologist says the shooting played no part in his death, Anthony is listed officially as a victim of the Troubles. A brother, Eugene Reavey, says “Our entire family could have been wiped out. Normally on a Sunday, the twelve of us would have been home, but that night my mother took everybody [else] out to visit my aunt.” Neighbours claim there had been two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) checkpoints set up — one at either end of the road — around the time of the attack. These checkpoints are to stop passers-by from seeing what is happening. The RUC denies having patrols in the area at the time but says there could have been checkpoints manned by the British Army‘s Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).

At about 6:20 p.m., three masked men burst into the home of the O’Dowds, another Catholic family, in Ballydougan, about fifteen miles away. Sixteen people are in the house for a family reunion. The male family members are in the sitting room with some of the children, playing the piano. The gunmen spray the room with bullets, killing Joseph O’Dowd (61) and his nephews Barry (24) and Declan O’Dowd (19). All three are members of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the family believes this is the reason they are targeted. Barney O’Dowd, Barry and Declan’s father, is also wounded by gunfire. The RUC concludes that the weapon used is a 9mm Sterling submachine gun, although Barney believes a Luger pistol with a suppressor was also used. The gunmen had crossed a field to get to the house, and there is evidence that UDR soldiers had been in the field the day before.

The following day, gunmen stop a minibus carrying ten Protestant workmen near Whitecross and shoot them dead by the roadside. This becomes known as the Kingsmill massacre. The South Armagh Republican Action Force (SARAF) claims responsibility, saying it is retaliation for the Reavey and O’Dowd killings. Following the massacre, the British Government declares County Armagh to be a “Special Emergency Area” and announces that the Special Air Service (SAS) is being sent into South Armagh.

Some of the Reavey family come upon the scene of the Kingsmill massacre while driving to the hospital to collect the bodies of John and Brian. Some members of the security forces immediately begin a campaign of harassment against the Reavey family and accuse Eugene Reavey of orchestrating the Kingsmill massacre. On their way home from the morgue, the Reavey family are stopped at a checkpoint. Eugene claims the soldiers assaulted and humiliated his mother, put a gun to his back, and danced on his dead brothers’ clothes. The harassment would later involve the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment. In 2007, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) apologises for the “appalling harassment suffered by the family in the aftermath at the hands of the security forces.”

After the killings of the Reavey brothers, their father makes his five surviving sons swear not to retaliate or to join any republican paramilitary group.

In 1999, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley states in the House of Commons that Eugene Reavey “set up the Kingsmill massacre.” In 2010, a report by the police Historical Enquiries Team clears Eugene of any involvement. The Reavey family seeks an apology, but Paisley refuses to retract the allegation and dies in 2014.


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Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Novelist, Essayist & Screenwriter

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, Irish American novelist, essayist, short story writer and screenwriter, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age, dies of a heart attack at the age of forty-four on December 21, 1940, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Fitzgerald is born into an Irish Catholic middle-class family on September 24, 1896, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His mother, Mary McQuillan Fitzgerald, is of Irish descent and his father, Edward Fitzgerald, has Irish and English ancestry. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term he popularized. During his lifetime, he publishes four novels, four collections of short stories, and 164 short stories. Although he achieves temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, he receives critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

Fitzgerald is raised primarily in New York. He attends Princeton University but owing to a failed relationship with socialite Ginevra King and a preoccupation with writing, he drops out in 1917 to join the United States Army. While stationed in Alabama, he romances Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belongs to Montgomery‘s exclusive country-club set. Although she rejects Fitzgerald initially, because of his lack of financial prospects, she agrees to marry him after he publishes the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel becomes a cultural sensation and cements his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.

Fitzgerald’s second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propels him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he writes numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s: The National Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, he frequents Europe, where he befriends modernist writers and artists of the “Lost Generation” expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), receives generally favorable reviews but is a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now widely praised, with some labeling it the “Great American Novel.” Following the deterioration of his wife’s mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, he completes his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).

Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works amid the Great Depression, Fitzgerald turns to Hollywood, writing and revising screenplays. While living in Hollywood, he cohabits with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attains sobriety only to die of a heart attack on December 21, 1940, at the age of 44. His friend Edmund Wilson completes and publishes an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald’s death.

At the time of his death, the Roman Catholic Church denies the family’s request that Fitzgerald, a non-practicing Catholic, be buried in the family plot in the Catholic St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland. He is buried instead with a simple Protestant service at Rockville Union Cemetery. When Zelda Fitzgerald dies in a fire at the Highland Mental Hospital in 1948, she is originally buried next to him at Rockville Union. In 1975, Fitzgerald’s daughter, Scottie, successfully petitions to have the earlier decision revisited, and her parents’ remains are moved to the family plot in St. Mary’s Cemetery.


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Attempted Assassination of Sir John French

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) attempts to assassinate British General John French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in his car at Phoenix Park, Dublin, on December 19, 1919. French is unhurt, but one IRA Volunteer, Martin Savage, is killed. IRA volunteer Dan Breen and two Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) men and a driver are wounded. A Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) sergeant is knocked unconscious.

On a cold December day in 1919, a group of young IRA volunteers wait at a public house near the Ashtown gate of Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Some are from Dublin, members of Michael Collins’ recently created assassination unit, the Squad. Others are from farther afield, like Dan Breen and Seán Treacy from County Tipperary and Martin Savage from County Sligo.

They are waiting for Sir John French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the most senior British official in the land. He is returning from a visit to the west of Ireland and has alighted at Ashtown train station before returning by car to his official residence, the Viceregal Lodge, in the Phoenix Park.

The IRA men have a signaler in a tree and when French’s car approaches, they attempt to block the road with a farm cart. However, they are too late to block the Lord Lieutenant’s car which sweeps through the impromptu barricade. Shots are fired and one policeman is wounded but French himself emerges unscathed.

A second car, which the IRA believes to contain French, bears the brunt of the volunteers’ revolver fire and grenades. Though the car is badly damaged, there are no casualties.

The third car in the convoy contains French’s military escort and the soldiers inside the vehicle return fire, killing one of the attackers, Martin Savage. Some of the volunteers attempt to recover his body but the Crown forces’ fire is too heavy. Savage’s body is left on the scene as the IRA party flees on bicycles back to the city.

The Irish Times, for one, expresses outrage at the attack, “the attempted assassination of the greatest of Irishmen” which it says will “shock Ireland” and force Sinn Féin, victorious in the election of the previous year, to reflect on whether it wants to be associated with “outrage and assassination.” “There will now be many throughout the world ready to attribute the character of a murder society to the whole new Irish movement.”

But some, even British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, are surprisingly unsympathetic. “They are bad shots” is his only remark on hearing of the attack.

Many in Ireland are even less sympathetic to hear of the escape of the Lord Lieutenant. The Irish Catholic bishops issue a statement the next day condemning not the attack but British rule in Ireland, which they characterise as “rule of the sword, utterly unsuited to a civilised nation.”

The attack is, in hindsight, a turning point, moving the standoff over Irish independence toward all out guerrilla warfare, but also, in a way, symbolising the eclipse of French and of his vision for what the country should be.

Sir John French’s health declines in 1920 and though he holds the position of Lord Lieutenant until April 1921, his central role in Irish affairs is eclipsed by new Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood. He wants to retire to his estates in Ireland in 1922 but is told it is simply too dangerous for him. During the Irish Civil War (1922-23), his country house at Drumdoe, County Roscommon, is raided by armed men who carry off much of the furniture.

French dies from cancer of the bladder at Deal Castle in Deal, Kent, England, on May 22, 1925.

(From: “Today in Irish History: 19 December 1919, The Attempted Assassination of Sir John French” by John Dorney, The Irish Story, http://www.theirishstory.com, December 18,2019 | Pictured: L to R, Sir John French and Martin Savage)


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Birth of Billy McKee, Founding Member of the Provisional IRA

Billy McKee (Irish: Liam Mac Aoidh), Irish republican and a founding member and leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, is born on November 12, 1921, in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

McKee joins Fianna Éireann in 1936. He is arrested following a raid on a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club in 1938, being imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol for several months. Following his release from prison, he joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1939. During World War II, the IRA carries out a number of armed actions in Northern Ireland known as the Northern Campaign. He is arrested and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol until 1946 for his role in this campaign. In 1956, the IRA embarks on another armed campaign against partition, known as the Border Campaign. He is again arrested and interned for the duration of the campaign. He is released in 1962.

Upon release, McKee becomes Officer Commanding (OC) of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade. However, he resigns this position in 1963, after a dispute with other republicans due to him acceding to a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) demand that he not fly an Irish tricolour during a republican march. He is succeeded by Billy McMillen.

As the 1960s proceed, McKee drifts away from the IRA. He grows very disillusioned with the organisation’s increasing emphasis on socialism and reformist politics over “armed struggle.” He is a devout Roman Catholic, who attends Mass daily. As a result, he is very uncomfortable with what he feels are “communist” ideas coming into the republican movement.

During the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, severe rioting breaks out in Belfast between Irish Catholic nationalists, Protestant loyalists, and the RUC. McKee is highly critical of the IRA’s failure to defend Catholic areas during these disturbances. On August 14, 1969, McKee, Joe Cahill and a number of other Irish Republican activists occupy houses at Kashmir Street, however, being poorly armed they fail to prevent Irish Catholics in Bombay Street and parts of Cupar Street and Kashmir Street being driven from their homes in the sectarian rioting that engulfs parts of the city. In the aftermath of the riots, he accuses Billy McMillen, the IRA’s Belfast commander, and the Dublin-based IRA leadership, of having failed to direct a clear course of action for the organization in civil disturbances. On September 22, 1969, he and a number of other IRA men arrive with weapons at a meeting called by McMillen and try to oust him as head of the Belfast IRA. They are unsuccessful but announce that they will no longer be taking orders from the IRA leadership in Dublin. In December 1969, the IRA splits into the Provisional IRA which is composed of traditional militarists like McKee, and the Official IRA which is composed of the remnants of the pre-split Marxist leadership and their followers. He sides with the Provisionals and joins the IRA Army Council in September 1970.

McKee becomes the first OC of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. From the start, there is intermittent feuding between McKee’s men and his former comrades in the Official IRA, as they vie for control of nationalist areas. However, the Provisionals rapidly gain the upper hand, due to their projection of themselves as the most reliable defenders of the Catholic community.

McKee himself contributes greatly to this image by an action he undertakes on June 27, 1970, the Battle of St Matthew’s. Rioting breaks out in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast after an Orange Order parade, and three Protestants are killed in gun battles between the Provisional IRA and loyalists. In response, loyalists prepare to attack the vulnerable Catholic enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast. When McKee hears about this, he drives to Short Strand with some men and weapons and takes up position at St Matthew’s Church. In the ensuing five-hour gun battle, he is wounded and one of his men is killed, along with at least four Protestants.

On April 15, 1971, McKee, along with Proinsias Mac Airt, is arrested by the British Army when found in possession of a handgun. He is charged and convicted for possession of the weapon and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol, and Joe Cahill takes over as OC of the Belfast Brigade.

In 1972, McKee leads a hunger strike protest in an effort to win recognition of IRA prisoners as political prisoners. Republicans who are interned already have special status, but those convicted of crimes do not. On June 19, the 35th day of hunger strike, he is close to death, William Whitelaw concedes Special Category Status (SCS) which, although not officially awarding political status, is tacit recognition of the political nature of the incarceration. Prisoners wear their own clothes, have no prison work, can receive one visit and food parcel per week and unlimited letters.

McKee is released on September 4, 1974, and resumes his position as OC of the Belfast Brigade. At this time the Provisional IRA calls a ceasefire, and he is involved, with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, in secret peace talks in Derry with the Northern Ireland Office. He is also involved in talks with Protestant clergy in Feakle, County Clare, in December 1974, where he voices his desire to end the violence.

However, in the same period, McKee authorises a number of sectarian attacks on Protestants as well as renewed attacks on rival republicans in the Official IRA. For this he is heavily criticised by a group of Provisional IRA activists grouped around Gerry Adams.

A faction led by Adams manages to get McKee voted off the IRA Army Council in 1977, effectively forcing him out of the leadership of the organisation. His health suffers in this period, and he does not resume his IRA activities. He joins Republican Sinn Féin after a split in Sinn Féin in 1986. At age 89, reflecting on his involvement in the Republican cause he says, “From the time I was 15 until 65 I was in some way involved. I have had plenty of time since to think if I was right or I was wrong. I regret nothing.”

In later years McKee, Brendan Hughes and Tommy McKearney are critical of the Belfast Agreement and of the reformist politics of Sinn Féin. In 2016 he sends a message of support to the launch of the hardline new Republican party Saoradh, reportedly the political wing of the New IRA.

McKee dies in Belfast at the age of 97 on June 11, 2019. His funeral takes place on June 15, 2019, in west Belfast. His coffin is carried on a gun carriage. He is buried in Milltown Cemetery.


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Birth of John D’Alton, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

John Francis D’Alton, Irish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who serves as Archbishop of Armagh and thus Primate of All Ireland from 1946 until his death, is born in Claremorris, County Mayo, on October 11, 1882. He is elevated to the cardinalate in 1953.

D’Alton is born to Joseph D’Alton and his wife Mary Brennan, at the height of the Land Wars in Ireland. He is baptised four days later, on October 15, 1882, with Michael and Mary Brennan acting as his godparents. His mother has a daughter, Mollie Brennan, from a previous marriage, she remarries again after the Cardinal’s father dies in 1883.

D’Alton obtains an extensive education at Blackrock College, Holy Cross College in Drumcondra, University College Dublin (UCD) and the Irish College in Rome. He is a contemporary of Éamon de Valera, whom he befriends at Blackrock College. In his first year in Blackrock, de Valera beats D’Alton in two subjects – Maths, which he later goes on to teach, and Religion.

D’Alton is ordained to the priesthood on April 18, 1908, for service in the Archdiocese of Dublin. He undertakes further postgraduate studies in Rome from 1908 to 1910, gaining a Doctor of Divinity and is appointed to teach Ancient Classics, Latin, and Greek at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

D’Alton occupies important roles at the National Seminary and is successively Professor of Ancient Classics (1912), Greek (1922), Vice-President (1934), and President (1936). He is raised to the rank of Monsignor on June 27, 1938.

On April 25, 1942, D’Alton is appointed coadjutor bishop of Meath and titular bishop of Binda. He receives his episcopal consecration on the following June 29 from Cardinal Joseph MacRory, with Bishops Edward Mulhern and William MacNeely serving as co-consecrators, in the chapel of St. Patrick’s College. He succeeds Thomas Mulvany as Bishop of Meath on June 16, 1943.

D’Alton is named Archbishop of Armagh and thus Primate of All Ireland on June 13, 1946, and is created Cardinal Priest of Sant’ Agata de’ Goti in Rome by Pope Pius XII in the consistory of January 12, 1953. As a cardinal elector in the 1958 papal conclave, he gives a hint of the difficulties involved in that papal conclave and achieving unanimity in the voting.

D’Alton is a member of the Central Preparatory Commission of the Second Vatican Council but lives long enough to attend only the Council’s first session in 1962.

One highlight of D’Alton’s time in Armagh is the Patrician Year Celebrations in 1961, marked by the Irish Catholic hierarchy as the 1,500th anniversary of the death of Saint Patrick and as such an opportunity to promote the “spiritual empire” created by the Irish Catholic church in the wider anglophone world. He writes a pastoral letter to mark the occasion.

Cardinal D’Alton is seen to be more ecumenical in outlook than other members of the Irish hierarchy. He tries to broker talks between the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom to ease the tensions between both countries, even going so far as to address the situation regarding the Irish ports, but to little avail.

In 1952, D’Alton becomes the first individual from the Republic of Ireland to receive an honorary degree from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), when he is conferred with a Doctorate in Literature. He already possesses a Doctor of Divinity, so this degree is a recognition of his earlier works such as Horace and His Age: A Study in Historical Background (1917), Roman Literary Theory and Criticism: A Study in Tendencies (1931), and Selections from St. John Chrysostom (1940).

D’Alton dies from a heart attack in Dublin at age 80 on February 1, 1963, and is buried on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh. He is succeeded by his auxiliary bishop, William Conway.

In D’Alton’s hometown of Claremorris, the Dalton Inn Hotel and Dalton Street (formerly Church Street) are named after him. A plaque commemorating him is unveiled at the Dalton Inn Hotel on September 28, 2023. Plans to canonise him have been discussed.