seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Irish Government


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The Hanging of Irish Republican Charlie Kerins

Charlie Kerins, a physical force Irish Republican and Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is hanged on December 1, 1944 at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin by the English hangman Albert Pierrepoint.

Kerins is born in Caherina, Tralee, County Kerry and attends Balloonagh Mercy Convent School and then the CBS, Edward Street. At the age of 13, he wins a Kerry County Council scholarship and completes his secondary education at the Green Christian Brothers and the Jeffers Institute. In 1930, he passes the Intermediate Certificate with honours and the matriculation examination to the National University of Ireland (NUI). He later does a commercial course and takes up employment in a radio business in Tralee.

In 1940, Kerins is sworn into the IRA and is appointed to the GHQ staff in May 1942. At the time, the Fianna Fáil government of Éamon de Valera is determined to preserve Irish neutrality during World War II. Therefore, the IRA’s bombing campaign in England, its attacks against targets in Northern Ireland, and its ties to the intelligence services of Nazi Germany are regarded as severe threats to Ireland’s national security. IRA men who are captured by the Gardaí are interned for the duration of the war by the Irish Army in the Curragh Camp in County Kildare.

On the morning of September 9, 1942, Garda Detective Sergeant Denis O’Brien is leaving his home in Ballyboden, Dublin. He is between his front gate and his car when he is cut down with Thompson submachine guns. O’Brien, an Anti-Treaty veteran of the Irish Civil War, had enlisted in the Garda Síochána in 1933. He is one of the most effective Detectives of the Special Branch division, which has its headquarters at Dublin Castle. The shooting greatly increases public feeling against the IRA, particularly as the murder is carried out in full view of his wife.

Following the arrest of Hugh McAteer in October 1942, Kerins is named Chief of Staff of the IRA. Despite a massive manhunt by Gardaí, he remains at large for two years. He stays at a County Waterford home for two weeks while he is on the run, having given his name as Pat Carney. He is captured several months after he leaves the home.

Kerins had previously left papers and guns hidden at Kathleen Farrell’s house in the Dublin suburb of Rathmines. He telephones the house, as he intends to retrieve them. However, Farrell’s telephone had been tapped by the Gardaí. On June 15, 1944, he is arrested in an early morning raid. He is sleeping when the Gardaí enter his bedroom and does not have an opportunity to reach the Thompson submachine gun which is hidden under his bed.

At a trial before the Special Criminal Court in Collins Barracks, Dublin, Kerins is formally charged on October 2, 1944 for the “shooting at Rathfarnham of Detective Dinny O’Brien.” At the end of his trial, the president of the Military Court delays sentence until later in the day to allow Kerins, if he wishes, to make an application whereby he might avoid a capital sentence. When the court resumes, he says, “You could have adjourned it for six years as far as I am concerned, as my attitude towards this Court will always be the same.” He thus deprives himself of the right to give evidence, to face cross-examination, or to call witnesses.

Despite legal moves initiated by Seán MacBride, public protests, and parliamentary intervention by TDs from Clann na Talmhan, Labour, and Independent Oliver J. Flanagan in Leinster House, the Fianna Fáil government of Éamon de Valera refuses to issue a reprieve. On December 1, 1944 in Mountjoy Prison, Kerins is hanged by British chief executioner Albert Pierrepoint, who is employed by the Irish Government for such occasions.

Kerins is the last IRA member to be executed in the Republic of Ireland. He is buried in the prison yard. In September 1948, his remains are exhumed and released to his family. He is buried in the Republican plot at Rath Cemetery, Tralee, County Kerry.


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Death of Mary Raftery, Investigative Journalist

mary-rafteryMary Frances Thérèse Raftery, Irish investigative journalist, filmmaker and writer, dies in Dublin on January 10, 2012.

Raftery is born in Dublin on December 21, 1957. Her father, Adrian, is in the Irish foreign service, and she spends much of her childhood abroad. Though she enters University College Dublin to study engineering, she is derailed by an interest in journalism and never finishes her degree.

Raftery starts her investigative journalism career with In Dublin magazine in the 1970s, before moving on to Magill magazine and then to the Irish television channel Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) in 1984. Her documentary series States of Fear is broadcast on RTÉ in 1999. A book she writes later that year called Suffer the Little Children adds more detail to her claim that the Irish childcare system between the 1930s and 1970s was guilty of widespread persecution and abuse.

In 2000, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is established by the Irish Government to examine the evidence with its report published in May 2009. Her programme “Cardinal Secrets” is broadcast as a Prime Time special on RTÉ in 2002. It leads to the setting up of the Murphy Commission of Investigation into clerical abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin which published the Murphy Report in 2009. Colm O’Gorman of Amnesty International Ireland says, “Ms. Raftery’s work transformed Ireland. Without the work that Mary did as a journalist (on the abuse of children), I don’t think much of this would have surfaced.”

Raftery is nominated for “NNI National Journalist of the Year” in 2011 for her work in exposing clerical abuse of children.

Mary Frances Thérèse Raftery dies of ovarian cancer at the age of 54 at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin on January 10, 2012. She is survived by her mother, three siblings, her husband and her son.


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Birth of Eoin O’Duffy, Political Activist & Police Commissioner

Eoin O’Duffy, Irish political activist, soldier, police commissioner and organizer of the infamous Blueshirts, is born in Castleblayney, County Monaghan, on October 20, 1892.

O’Duffy does an apprenticeship as an engineer in Wexford before working as an engineer and architect in Monaghan. In 1919 he becomes an auctioneer. He is a leading member of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ulster in the 1910s. In 1912 he is appointed secretary of the Ulster provincial council. He is also a member of Harps’ Gaelic Football Club.

O’Duffy joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1917 and is the leader of the Monaghan Brigade of the IRA during the Irish War of Independence and in this capacity becomes Chief of Staff of the IRA in 1922. He is one of the Irish activists who along with Michael Collins accepts the Anglo-Irish Treaty and fights as a general in the Irish Civil War on the pro-Treaty side.

Professionally, O’Duffy becomes the second Commissioner of the Garda Síochána, the police force of the new Irish Free State, after the Civic Guard Mutiny and the subsequent resignation of Michael Staines. He holds this post until 1933, when he is dismissed by Éamon de Valera. In his political life O’Duffy is an early member of Sinn Féin, founded by Arthur Griffith. He is elected as a Teachta Dála (TD) for his home county of Monaghan during the 1921 election.

After a split in 1923 he becomes associated with Cumann na nGaedheal and becomes head of a veteran’s group then known as the Army Comrades Association. O’Duffy changes its name to “National Guard” and begins to stage fascist-style rallies and adopts a fascist salute. Its members begin to wear blue uniform shirts and become known as the Blueshirts. When government opposition groups form Fine Gael in September 1933, he becomes its first president, reaching the apex of his political power.

Subsequently, the government bans O’Duffy’s National Guard, as well as the group he creates to replace it, the Young Ireland Association, which he in turn replaces with the League of Youth, but their blue shirts indicate its continued fascist ideology. Fine Gael’s other leaders soon tire of his inflammatory rhetoric and the frequent violent behavior of the Blueshirts but are still surprised when their opposition causes him to resign his party leadership in September 1934. He is then ousted as leader of the Blueshirts as well but does retain a small loyal following.

An anti-communist, O’Duffy is attracted to the various authoritarian nationalist movements on the Continent. In 1936, he raises the Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War as an act of Catholic solidarity and is inspired by Benito Mussolini‘s Italy to found the National Corporate Party. He offers to Nazi Germany the prospect of raising an Irish Brigade to fight in Operation Barbarossa during World War II on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union, but this is not taken up.

Eoin O’Duffy takes no further part in Irish politics and dies in Dublin on November 30, 1944. In spite of his later politics, he is given a state funeral for his earlier contributions to the Irish government. He is buried in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery.


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Opening of the Tipperary Rural & Business Development Institute in Thurles

The Tipperary Rural & Business Development Institute (TRBDI), a college of higher education, development agency and research centre founded by the Irish Government in 1998, opens in Thurles, County Tipperary on September 27, 1999. It is one of the five constituent schools of Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT).

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern officially inaugurates the institute on April 7, 2000. The college uses Tipperary Institute as its trading name. In 2010 the Irish government introduces rationalization measures to cut costs of third level bodies, and commences a merger between Tipperary Institute and Limerick Institute of Technology. The formal integration of Tipperary Institute into LIT on September 1, 2011, sees the two campuses become LIT Tipperary.

The college has two academic departments: Business, Education and Social Science and Technology, Media and Science. It is fully accredited by the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC) and offers National Framework of Qualifications Level 7 and Level 8 full-time degree courses, as well as a number of part-time and evening courses. The college also facilitates the joint-run BSc (Hons) in Strength & Conditioning (level 8) in conjunction with online sports college Setanta College.


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Kidnapping of Writer Brian Keenan

Irish writer Brian Keenan is taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon, on April 11, 1986.

Keenan is born into a working-class family in East Belfast on September 28, 1950. He leaves Orangefield High School early and begins work as a heating engineer. However, he continues an interest in literature by attending night classes and in 1970 gains a place at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. Other writers there at the time include Gerald Dawe and Brendan Hamill. In the mid-1980s Keenan returns to the Magee College campus of the university for postgraduate study. Afterwards he accepts a teaching position at the American University of Beirut, where he works for about four months.

On the morning of April 11, 1986 Keenan is kidnapped by Islamic Jihad. After spending two months in isolation, he is moved to a cell shared with the British journalist John McCarthy. He is kept blindfolded throughout most of his ordeal, and is chained by his hands and feet when taken out of solitary.

The British and American governments at the time have a policy that they will not negotiate with terrorists and Keenan is considered by some to have been ignored. Because he is travelling on both British and Irish passports, the Irish government makes numerous diplomatic representations for his release, working closely with the Iranian government. Throughout the kidnap the government also provides support to Keenan’s two sisters, Elaine Spence and Brenda Gillham, who are spearheading the campaign for his release.

Keenan is released from captivity to Syrian military forces on August 24, 1990 and is driven to Damascus. There he is handed over by the Syrian Foreign Ministry to the care of Irish Ambassador, Declan Connolly. His sisters are flown by Irish Government executive jet to Damascus to meet him and bring him home to Northern Ireland.

An Evil Cradling is an autobiographical book by Keenan about his four years as a hostage in Beirut. The book revolves heavily around the great friendship he experiences with fellow hostage John McCarthy, and the brutality that is inflicted upon them by their captors. It is the 1991 winner of The Irish Times Literature Prize for Non-fiction and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.

Keenan returns to Beirut in 2007 for the first time since being released 17 years earlier, and describes “falling in love” with the city. He now lives in Dublin.

(Pictured: Brian Keenan arrives at Dublin Airport after his release from captivity in Beirut in August 1990)


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The Crash of Aer Lingus Flight 712

Aer Lingus Flight 712 crashes enroute from Cork to London on March 24, 1968 killing all 61 passengers and crew. The aircraft, a Vickers Viscount 803 named “St. Phelim,” crashes into the sea off Tuskar Rock, County Wexford. Although the investigation into the crash lasts two years, a cause is never determined. There has long been popular speculation that the aircraft was shot down by a British experimental missile. Aberporth in west Wales is at the time the most advanced British missile testing station.

The flight leaves Cork Airport at 10:32 AM for London. The flight proceeds normally until a call is heard with the probable contents “twelve thousand feet descending spinning rapidly.” There is no further communications with the aircraft and London ATC informs Shannon ATC that they have no radio contact with EI-AOM. London ATC requests Aer Lingus Flight EI 362, flying a Dublin to Bristol route, to search west of Strumble. This search at 500 feet in good visibility turns up nothing. At 11:25 AM a full alert is declared. By 12:36 PM there is a report of wreckage sighted at position 51°57′N, 06°10′W. Searching aircraft, however, find nothing and the report is cancelled. Aircraft and ships from the UK resume the search the following day and wreckage is sighted and bodies are recovered 6 nautical miles northeast of Tuskar Rock with more wreckage scattered an additional 6 nautical miles to the northwest.

Thirteen bodies are recovered over the next few days. Another body is recovered later. The main wreckage is located on the sea bed by trawling 1.72 nautical miles from Tuskar Rock at 39 fathoms.

In the years since the crash several witnesses have come forward with evidence to support the missile theory, including a crew member of the British ship HMS Penelope. He alleges that part of the wreckage was recovered by Penelope and removed to the UK.

An investigation report is produced in 1970, a review is undertaken between 1998 and 2000, and an independent study is commissioned in 2000.

However, in 2002 a review process conducted by the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) discloses that Aer Lingus paperwork relating to a routine maintenance inspection carried out on the aircraft in December 1967 is found to be missing in 1968. Moreover, a large body of research is done by the investigators after the accident, regarding the maintenance operating plan used for EI-AOM and defects on the aircraft found during analysis of the maintenance records. This research is not referred to in the 1970 report. A new board of investigation is set up by the Irish Government and finds that the crash is the consequence of a chain of events starting with a failure to the left tail-plane caused by metal fatigue, corrosion, flutter, or a bird strike, with the most likely cause being a flutter-induced fatigue failure of the elevator trim tab operating mechanism.

In March 2007 retired RAF Squadron Leader Eric Evers, who is previously chief flying instructor with the British military in RAF Little Rissington, makes a claim that the accident is in fact caused by a mid-air collision between the Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount and a French-built  Fouga Magister military aircraft which is training with the Irish Air Corps. Evers maintains that both the French and Irish authorities colluded in a subsequent cover-up, and the Magister wreckage may still be on the seabed. Evers claims have been largely disputed.

Aer Lingus still uses this flight number for a daily flight from Cork to London’s Heathrow Airport, contrary to airline convention of discontinuing a flight number following a crash. The route is operated with an aircraft from the Airbus A320 family.


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Mary Robinson Resigns as President of Ireland

mary-robinsonPresident Mary Robinson resigns on September 12, 1997, two months ahead of the end of her term, in order to take up appointment as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

On July 24, 1997 Robinson announces her intention to resign as President of Ireland. The Irish Government states that her announcement “was not unexpected” and wishes her “every success.” She resigns by addressing a message to the Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann and it takes effect at 1:00 PM on September 12.

Upon her resignation as President, the role of President is transferred to the Presidential Commission, which is comprised of the Chief Justice, the Ceann Comhairle, and the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad Éireann, from September 12 until November 11, 1997, when Mary McAleese is sworn in as the new President.

Media reports suggest that Robinson has been head-hunted for the post by Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan to assume an advocacy as opposed to administrative role, in other words to become a public campaigner outlining principles rather than the previous implementational and consensus-building model. The belief is that the post has ceased to be seen as the voice of general principles and has become largely bureaucratic. Robinson’s role is to set the human rights agenda within the organisation and internationally, refocusing its appeal.

Robinson is the first High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibet, making her trip in 1998. During her tenure she criticises the Irish system of permits for non-EU immigrants as similar to “bonded labour” and criticises the United States’ use of capital punishment.

In 2001, Robinson chairs the Asia Regional Preparatory Meeting for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related intolerances, which is held in Tehran, Iran. Representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish group, and the Baha’i International Community are not permitted to attend. Robinson wears a headscarf at the meeting in conformance to the Iranians edict that all women attending the conference must wear a headscarf. Women who do not wear the headscarf are criticized, which Robinson says plays into the hands of religious conservatives.

She extends her intended single four-year term by a year following an appeal by Secretary General Annan to preside over the World Conference against Racism 2001 in Durban, South Africa. The conference proves controversial, and under continuing pressure from the United States, Robinson resigns her post in September 2002.


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First Aircraft Lands at Rineanna Airfield (Shannon Airport)

rineanna-airportThe first aircraft, an Irish Air Corps Aero Anson A43, lands at the newly opened Rineanna Airfield, which is later to become known as Shannon International Airport, on May 18, 1939.

Transatlantic aviation in the Shannon Estuary first commences with a seaplane base at Foynes. In October 1935, the Irish Government makes a decision to initiate a survey to find suitable bases for the operation of seaplanes and land planes on a transatlantic service. The Department of Defence, which provides technical advice on aviation to the Civil Aviation Section of the Department of Industry, is given the task.

On November 21, 1935, a survey party sets out and surveys sites as far north as Athlone and south to Askeaton. Among the sites for a seaplane base to be considered are the Shannon just below Limerick, Lough Derg, Lough Corrib, Tralee Bay, Kenmare Bay, Lough Ree, and Valentia. Foynes, near the mouth of the Fergus River, is finally selected due to its sheltered anchorage and its proximity to long open stretches of water.

The first priority is drainage to remove surface water from the site and to construct embankments to prevent flooding of the airfield due to its proximity to the tidal River Shannon. Several hundred men are employed to dig narrow lateral drains for the approximately 135 miles of pipes which are laid in parallel lines 50 feet apart over almost the entire area of the airfield site. They also excavate catchment drains to collect water from the surface of the site.

At this time all indications are that regular aerial travel between Europe and the United States will be initially by flying boat and accordingly, the base at Rineanna is designed to cater to both land planes and flying boats.  Construction work commences to build embankments and a breakwater to provide for a seaplane base and to protect the airfield site from flooding from the River Shannon.

Developments in aviation during World War I ensure land planes and not flying boats are to be the future of aviation, therefore the mooring basin and the east breakwater which are being constructed for flying boats at Rineanna are never quite finished.  Construction of the embankments continue to protect the site from the River Shannon and to form a drainage lagoon for surface water from the western headland of the airport site.

When World War II ends, the airport is ready to be used by the many new post-war commercial airlines of Europe and North America. On September 16, 1945, the first transatlantic proving flight, a Pan Am DC-4, lands at Shannon from New York City. On October 24, the first scheduled commercial flight, an American Overseas Airlines DC-4, passes through Shannon Airport. An accident involving President Airlines on September 10, 1961 results in the loss of 83 lives. The Douglas DC-6 aircraft crashes into the River Shannon while leaving Shannon Airport for Chicago.

The number of international carriers rises sharply in succeeding years as Shannon becomes well known as the gateway between Europe and the Americas as limited aircraft range necessitates refueling stops on many journeys. Shannon becomes the most convenient stopping point before and after a trip across the Atlantic. Additionally, during the Cold War, many transatlantic flights from the Soviet Union stop here for refueling, because Shannon is the westernmost non-NATO airport.

Shannon Airport is one of Ireland’s three primary airports, along with Dublin Airport and Cork Airport, and includes the longest runway in Ireland at 10,495 feet. It is a designated emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle during the U.S. shuttle program. In 2015, 1.715 million passengers pass through the airport, making it the third busiest airport in the country after Dublin and Cork. Shannon Airport is in Shannon, County Clare, and mainly serves Limerick, Ennis, Galway, and the south-west of Ireland.