Living in the nationalist Beechmount neighbourhood of the Falls, he stands for the Falls as a candidate for the Dock Labour Party in a city council by-election in 1956, but loses to Paddy Devlin of the Irish Labour Party, who later becomes his close ally. In 1958, he is elected to Belfast City Council as a member of the Irish Labour Party.
Many sympathetic British Members of Parliament (MPs) are present at a civil rights march in Derry on October 5, 1968, when Fitt and others are beaten by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Fitt also supports the 1969 candidacy of Bernadette Devlin in the Mid Ulster by-election who runs as an anti-abstentionist ‘Unity‘ candidate. Devlin’s success greatly increases the authority of Fitt in the eyes of many British commentators, particularly as it produces a second voice on the floor of the British House of Commons who challenge the Unionist viewpoint at a time when Harold Wilson and other British ministers are beginning to take notice.
In August 1970, Fitt becomes the first leader of a coalition of civil rights and nationalist leaders who create the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). By this time Northern Ireland is charging headlong towards near-civil war and the majority of unionists remain hostile.
After the collapse of Stormont in 1972 and the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 Fitt becomes deputy chief executive of the short-lived Power-Sharing Executive created by the Sunningdale Agreement.
Fitt becomes increasingly detached from both his own party and also becomes more outspoken in his condemnation of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He becomes a target for republican sympathisers in 1976 when they attack his home. He becomes disillusioned with the handling of Northern Ireland by the British government. In 1979, he abstains from a crucial vote in the House of Commons which brings down the Labour government, citing the way that the government had failed to help the nationalist population and tried to form a deal with the Ulster Unionist Party.
In 1979, Fitt is replaced by John Hume as leader of the SDLP and he leaves the party altogether after he agrees to constitutional talks with British Secretary of StateHumphrey Atkins without any provision for an ‘Irish dimension’ and then sees his decision overturned by the SDLP party conference. Like Paddy Devlin before him, he claims the SDLP has ceased to be a socialist force.
In 1981, he opposes the hunger strikes in the Maze prison in Belfast. His seat in Westminster is targeted by Sinn Féin as well as by the SDLP. In June 1983, he loses his seat in Belfast West to Gerry Adams, in part due to competition from an SDLP candidate. The following month, on October 14, 1983, he is created a UK life peer as Baron Fitt, of Bell’s Hill in County Down. His Belfast home is firebombed a month later and he moves to London.
Gerry Fitt dies in London on August 26, 2005, at the age of 79, after a long history of heart disease.
When appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1789, FitzGibbon is granted his first peerage as Baron FitzGibbon, of Lower Connello in the County of Limerick, in the Peerage of Ireland that year. This does not entitle him to a seat in the British House of Lords, only in the Irish House of Lords. His later promotions come mostly in the Peerage of Ireland, being advanced to a Viscountcy in 1793 and the Earldom of Clare in 1795. He finally achieves a seat in the British House of Lords in 1799 when created Baron FitzGibbon, of Sidbury in the County of Devon, in the Peerage of Great Britain.
As Lord Chancellor for Ireland, FitzGibbon is a renowned champion of the Protestant Ascendancy and an opponent of Catholic emancipation. He despises the Parliament of Ireland‘s popular independent Constitution of 1782. He is also personally and politically opposed to the Irish politician Henry Grattan who urges a moderate course in the Irish Parliament and is responsible for defeating Grattan’s efforts to reform the Irish land tithe system under which Irish Catholic farmers (and all non-Anglican farmers) are forced to financially support the minority Anglican Church of Ireland. These are not fully repealed until 1869 when the Church of Ireland is finally disestablished, although Irish tithes are commuted after the Tithe War (1831–1836).
FitzGibbon opposes the Irish Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 personally but apparently recommends its acceptance in the House of Lords, being forced out of necessity when that Act had been recommended to the Irish Executive by the British Cabinet led by William Pitt the Younger. Pitt expects Ireland to follow the British Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 and allow Catholics to vote again and hold public offices. At the same time, FitzGibbon apparently denounces the policy this Act embodies, so it is probably safe to say that FitzGibbon’s own beliefs and principles conflict with his obligations as a member of the Irish executive of the time.
FitzGibbon’s role in the recall, soon after his arrival, of the popular pro-Emancipation Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl of Fitzwilliam, is debatable. Although he is probably politically opposed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Fitzwilliam is apparently recalled, because of his own independent actions. Fitzwilliam is known to be friendly to the Ponsonby family and is generally a Foxite liberal Whig. His close association with and patronage of Irish Whigs led by Grattan and Ponsonby during his short tenure, along with his alleged support of an immediate effort to secure Catholic emancipation in a manner not authorized by the British cabinet is likely what leads to his recall. Thus, if anyone is to blame in the short-lived “Fitzwilliam episode” it is Henry Grattan and the Ponsonby brothers – presumably William Ponsonby, later Lord Imokilly, and his brother George Ponsonby — not to mention Lord Fitzwilliam himself. Irish Catholics at the time and later naturally see things very differently and blame hardline Protestants such as FitzGibbon.
Irish Catholics and FitzGibbon apparently agree on one point – Irish political and economic union with Great Britain, which eventually takes place in 1801. Pitt wants Union with Ireland concomitantly with Catholic emancipation, commutation of tithes, and the endowment of the Irish Catholic priesthood. Union is opposed by most hardline Irish Protestants, as well as liberals such as Grattan. FitzGibbon is a strong supporter of the Union since 1793 but refuses to have Catholic emancipation with the Union.
In the end, FitzGibbon’s views wins out, leading to the Union of Ireland with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland without any concessions for Ireland’s Catholic majority, or for that matter, Catholics in the rest of the new United Kingdom. He later claims that he has been duped by the way in which the Act is passed and is bitterly opposed to any concessions during the short remainder of his life.
FitzGibbon’s role as Lord Chancellor of Ireland during the period of the 1798 rebellion is questionable. According to some, he supports a hardline policy which uses torture, murder and massacre to crush the rebellion, or that as Lord Chancellor, he has considerable influence on military affairs, and that martial law cannot be imposed without his consent. Others allege that as Lord Chancellor, he has no say in military affairs. His former side is displayed by sparing the lives of the captured United Irish leaders in return for their confession of complicity and provision of information relating to the planning of the rebellion. However, this willingness of the prisoners to partake of the agreement is spurred by the execution of the Sheares brothers on July 14, 1798.
In contrast to the leniency shown to the largely upper-class leadership, the full weight of military repression is inflicted upon the common people throughout the years 1797–98 with untold thousands suffering imprisonment, torture, transportation and death. Fitzgibbon ss inclined to show no mercy to unrepentant rebels and in October 1798 he expressed his disgust upon the capture of Wolfe Tone that he had been granted a trial and his belief that Tone should have been hanged as soon as he set foot on land.
FitzGibbon is quick to recognise that sectarianism is a useful ally to divide the rebels and prevent the United Irishmen from achieving their goal of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, writing in June 1798, “In the North nothing will keep the rebels quiet but the conviction that where treason has broken out the rebellion is merely popish.”
FitzGibbon is noted by some as a good, improving landlord to both his Protestant and Catholic tenants. Some claim that the tenants of his Mountshannon estate call him “Black Jack” FitzGibbon. However, there is no evidence to support this claim, although there is little to no evidence on his dealings as a landlord. Irish nationalists and others point out that while he might have been interested in the welfare of his own tenants on his own estate, he treats other Irish Catholics very differently. Without further evidence, his role as a Protestant landowner in mainly Catholic Ireland is of little importance against his known dealings as Lord Chancellor.
FitzGibbon dies at his home, 6 Ely Place near St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on January 28, 1802, and is buried in the churchyard at St. Peter’s Church, Aungier Street, Dublin. A hero to Protestant hardliners, but despised by the majority Catholic population, his funeral cortege is the cause of a riot and there is a widespread story that a number of dead cats are thrown at his coffin as it departs Ely Place.
(Pictured: “Portrait of John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare,” painting by Gilbert Stuart, 1789)
Funded by public subscription, the arch is designed by John Howard Pentland and built by Henry Laverty and Sons. Thomas Drew consults on the design and construction.
The proportions of the structure are said to be modelled on the Arch of Titus in Rome. It is approximately 8.5 m (28 ft.) wide and 10 m (33 ft.) high. The internal dimensions of the arch are 5.6 m high and approximately 3.7 m wide (18 by 12 ft.). The main structure of the arch is granite, with the inscriptions carried out in limestone and a bronze adornment on the front of the arch.
The arch is commissioned to commemorate the four battalions (two regular and two militia) of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers that served in the Second Boer War. The names of 222 dead are inscribed on the underside of the arch.
The construction of the arch coincides with a time of political and social change in Ireland, and the colonial and imperial background to the dedication are anathema to a burgeoning nationalist movement – who label the structure “Traitor’s Gate.” Though damaged in a crossfire between the Irish Citizen Army and British forces during the 1916 Easter Rising, the arch remains “one of the few colonialist monuments in Dublin not blown up” in Ireland’s post-independence history.
Engraved on the western face of the monument is the Latin text, Fortissimis suis militibus hoc monumentum Eblana dedicavit MCMVII, “To its strongest soldiers, Dublin dedicates this monument, 1907.” (Eblana is a name that appears on Ptolemy‘s 2nd century AD map of Ireland, traditionally taken as a Latin name for Dublin, although it more likely refers to a site further north, around Loughshinny.) Six battlefields are inscribed on the arch:
An earlier “Fianna” is organised “to serve as a Junior Hurling League to promote the study of the Irish Language” on June 26, 1902, at the Catholic Boys’ Hall, Falls Road, in West Belfast, the brainchild of Bulmer Hobson. Hobson, a Quaker influenced by suffragism and nationalism, joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1904 and is an early member of Sinn Féin during its monarchist-nationalist period, alongside Arthur Griffith and Constance Markievicz. Hobson later relocates to Dublin and the Fianna organisation collapses in Belfast. Markievicz, inspired by the rapid growth of Robert Baden-Powell‘s Boy Scouts, forms sometime before July 1909 the Red Branch Knights, a Dublin branch of Irish National Boy Scouts. After discussions involving Hobson, Markievicz, suffragist and labour activist Helena Molony and Seán McGarry, the Irish National Boy Scouts change their name to Na Fianna Éireann at a meeting in 34 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, on August 16, 1909, at which Hobson is elected as president, thus ensuring a strong IRB influence, Markievicz as vice-president and Pádraig Ó Riain as secretary. Seán Heuston is the leader of the Fianna on Dublin’s north side, while Cornelius “Con” Colbert is the leader on the south side. The Fianna forms as a Nationalist alternative to Powell’s Scouts with the aim to achieve the full independence of Ireland by training and teaching scouting and military exercises, Irish history, and the Irish language.
The Fianna finds its first years difficult and by 1912 has barely 1,000 members and a skeleton structure outside of the cities of Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Galway. But in the next couple of years the momentum of events carries the Fianna forward. It is involved in initiating the militarisation of the IRB, the launch of the Irish Volunteers and showing solidarity with the striking Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). It is also crucial to the success of the Howth and Kilcoole gun-running operations. Alongside these headline-grabbing activities, the Fianna continues with classes, drilling, camps and protests and reaps the benefits of an expanding membership and structure. When the fighting starts, the Fianna are not found wanting either. In 1916, Na Fianna members are present in all areas that mobilise and fight alongside all the other Republican organisations. They continue to fight throughout the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War. Seeing comrades being killed in action or executed or suffering imprisonment does not dim their enthusiasm for the fight. In Na Fianna Éireann’s March 1922 Árd Fheis, the 187 delegates representing 30,000 members vote unanimously to reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
The Fianna are declared an illegal organisation by the government of the Irish Free State in 1931. This is reversed when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932 but re-introduced in 1938. During the splits in the Republican movement of the later part of the 20th century, the Fianna and Cumann na mBan support Provisional Sinn Féin in 1969 and Republican Sinn Féin in 1986. The Fianna have been a proscribed organisation in Northern Ireland since 1920.
While the events in which the Fianna members are involved over the revolutionary years have a special place in Irish history, the specific role of the Fianna is absent from most written histories. This, allied with the failure to adequately commemorate the organisation’s centenary, marks a kind of revisionism of omission.
Hayes-McCoy is born to Thomas Hayes-McCoy and Mary Kathleen Hayes-McCoy (née Wallace). His grandfather, Thomas Hayes-McCoy, is a Dubliner who as a child came to Galway in 1834 and is later a well-known Parnellite. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Burke, is a Galway artist. He grows up on Eyre Square where his father runs a gentleman’s hairdressing business. His two older siblings are Ignatius and Marguerite. The latter receives a PhD-degree in History at University College Galway (UCG), and later teaches at the Galway Technical School.
Hayes-McCoy receives his early education from the Patrician Brothers, Galway. His earliest notebook of 1927 and a manuscript history of Poland of the same year, now at the National Library of Ireland (NLI), testify to an early interest in history and heritage. From 1928 to 1932 he is a student scholarship holder at University College Galway, graduating in 1932 with a Bachelor of Commerce, and a Bachelor of Arts, with first-class honours in both, and a specialisation in “History, Ethics, Politics” for the latter. Mary Donovan O’Sullivan is one of his professors of history, and Liam Ó Briain, professor of Romance languages, is a stimulating influence. At this time, Hayes-McCoy is a member of the Republican Club, a committee member of the Literary and Debating Society, and in 1931 he is one of the founding members of a new Irish Students’ Association.
Hayes-McCoy pursues his PhD at the University of Edinburgh, and then spends two years at the Institute of Historical Research, London, in the Tudor seminar of J. E. Neale, rewriting his PhD and eventually publishing it as Scots mercenary forces in Ireland, 1565–1603 (Dublin and London, 1937), with a foreword by Eoin MacNeill. This is characterised by meticulous archival research, and it anticipates by sixty years the much-vaunted New British History of the late twentieth century by tracing the interconnections between events in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
In the absence of an academic post, Hayes-McCoy becomes an assistant keeper in the Art and Industrial Division at the National Museum of Ireland (1939–1959), with a responsibility for the Military History, and the Irish War of Independence collections. One of his first tasks is to prepare a standing exhibition on Irish history before 1916. His research, long-standing personal interest in the military, and his curatorial experience, helps form an expert knowledge of historical Irish warfare. This leads to his role in co-founding The Military History Society of Ireland in 1949 whose journal, The Irish Sword, he edits. He describes the vagaries of setting up such a body, its reception, and the historiographical considerations attendant on it, in a paper published posthumously in The Irish Sword.
On August 19, 1941, Hayes-McCoy marries Mary Margaret “May” O’Connor, daughter of C.J. and M.B. O’Connor of New Ross/Enniscorthy. They have three daughters and two sons: Mary, Ann, Ian, Robert, Felicity. The family home is in Dublin.
Earning high reputation by continued research and by publishing leads to Hayes-McCoy’s receipt of the D.Litt. degree from the National University, and to his membership in the Royal Irish Academy in 1950. In his professional career, apart from the broad spectrum of press publications, he publishes prolifically. The works that are judged most influential, are his Scots mercenary forces in Ireland 1565–1603 (1937), the papers “The early history of guns in Ireland” (1938–1939), “Strategy and tactics in Irish warfare, 1593–1601” (1941), “The army of Ulster, 1593–1601” (1951), the controversial “Gaelic society in Ireland in the late sixteenth century” (1963), and the monographs “Irish battles” (London 1969), and “A history of Irish flags from earliest times” (Dublin 1979). A member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, his most notable contribution is the publication “Ulster and other Irish maps, c.1600” (Dublin 1964).
In 1946, Hayes-McCoy is appointed to a committee of eight historians to advise on setting up the Bureau of Military History, a body established for the creation and compilation of material on the history of the Irish movements for independence, 1913–1921, specifically from witness statements. The committee is also to further offer guidance and oversee progress of the Bureau in coordination with the Ministry of Defence. It subsequently expresses concerns about the state’s role and methods in the collection of statements.
Having begun writing for the press at an early stage, Hayes-McCoy’s public position at the Museum encourages him to go further. He has broad involvement with local history groups to whom he presents papers, and also works for newspapers and for radio and television. To the national and Galway press he usually contributes articles on military aspects of Irish history, as well as book reviews, but he also uses them as a platform to engage with what he sees are flaws in the education of history in Ireland which during his lifetime is constrained by a certain degree of political and cultural state control.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Hayes-McCoy becomes involved in a number of paratheatrical events of national significance one of which – the “Pageant of St.Patrick” for which he writes the script (An Tóstal 1954) – is realised on an immense scale. He scripts these works to begin with and is later principally engaged as historical consultant. In that capacity, he collaborates in 1955 and 1956 with Micheál Mac Liammóir and Denis Johnston on their scripts for pageants on St. Patrick and on the Táin Bó Cuailgne, at times finding it difficult to square the historical liberties taken by these artists with his own role.
On Irish radio and television Hayes-McCoy is most active in the mid-1960s, editing and contributing to Thomas Davis lectures series, writing scripts for a series of thirty children’s programmes on all aspects of Irish history, and preparing/contributing on air to the television series “Irish battles” and “The long winter.” As well as writing for RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, he contributes scripts to BBC Northern Ireland‘s schools radio programmes.
In 1959, Hayes-McCoy succeeds to the chair of his former history professor at UCG with the full remit of lecturing, administering examinations to undergraduates, and supervising postgraduate theses. Among his students who continue in the field of history are Nicholas Canny, Martin Coen, Patrick Melvin, Peter Toner, Tony Claffey, and Breandán Ó Bric. After his appointment to UCG, the family home remains in Dublin, and he commutes to Galway weekly during term time.
In the early 1960s, Hayes-McCoy becomes a spokesperson for the movement rekindled by the Old Galway Society to preserve the landmark “Lion’s Tower” in the city. The ultimate failure of the campaign informs his regret, expressed a year later, that Ireland is forgetful about its past and that “we don’t bother to find out about it or to maintain our ancient heritage,” and, on a perceived spirit of conformity, “take my own city of Galway, it is now more prosperous than it was, but it is no longer distinctive. I do not believe that it is essential for progress that we should lose our heritage.”
While at one time member and secretary of the London Sinn Féin office and informed by a pride of country and place, Hayes-McCoy’s professional and private outlook are marked by a distrust of nationalism or of any antagonising national agendas compromising genuine scholarship. In a paper drafted on tendencies in modern historical studies, he criticises the two historiographical extremes, each to be avoided, each unfortunately characteristic of the moment – extreme de-bunking and extreme “adding for effect.” “A history is a record of fact; to add pseudo-facts is as grave a sin as to leave out real facts that may change the colour of the whole.”
Hayes-McCoy’s abiding pastime is drawing. Among his papers in the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway are approximately 40 items with predominantly maritime subjects, and he has a special regard for the history of ships, and a romantic liking of the sea. He also has a lifelong interest in Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, and their works, and in the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Hayes-McCoy’s middle age is marked by intermittent ill health. He dies on November 27, 1975, in his room at the Great Southern Hotel, Eyre Square, Galway.
Hayes-McCoy’s papers are held at the James Hardiman Library, National University of Ireland, Galway.
Mannock was born on May 24, 1887, to an English father, Edward Mannock, and an Irish mother, Julia Sullivan. His father serves in the British Army and in 1893, deeply in debt and exasperated with civilian life, he re-enlists, and the family moves to Meerut, India when he is five years old. In his early years, he is sickly and develops several ailments. Soon after arriving in Asia, he contracts malaria, narrowly avoiding death. Upon his return to England, he becomes a fervent supporter of Irish nationalism and the Irish Home Rule movement but becomes a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP).
In 1914, Mannock is working as a telephone engineer in Turkey. After the Ottoman Empire‘s entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers he is interned. Poorly fed and cared for, his health rapidly declines in prison. Dysentery racks his intestines, and he is confined to a small cell. Turkish authorities repatriate him to Britain believing him to be unfit for war service. He recovers and joins the Royal Engineers (RE) and then the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He moves services again and in 1916 joins Royal Flying Corps (RFC). After completing his training, he is assigned to No. 40 Squadron RFC. He goes into combat on the Western Front, participating in three separate combat tours. After a slow start he begins to prove himself as an exceptional pilot, scoring his first victory on May 7, 1917.
By February 1918, Mannock has achieved sixteen victories and is appointed a Flight Commander in No. 74 Squadron. He amasses thirty-six more victories from April 12 — June 17, 1918. After returning from leave he is appointed commanding officer of No. 85 Squadron in July 1918, and scores nine more victories that month.
On July 26, Major Mannock offers to help a new arrival, Lt. Donald C. Inglis from New Zealand, obtain his first victory. After shooting down an enemy LVG two-seater behind the German front-line, Mannock is believed to have dived to the crash site to view the wreckage, seemingly breaking one of the unwritten rules of fellow pilots about the hazards of flying low into ground fire. In consequence, while crossing the trenches the fighters are met with a massive volley of ground fire. The engine of his aircraft is hit and immediately catches fire, and shortly thereafter the plane crashes behind German lines. His body is believed to have been found, though this is unproven, about 250 yards (250m) from the wreck of his plane, perhaps thrown, perhaps jumped. The body shows no gunshot wounds although he had vowed to shoot himself if shot down in flames.
The exact cause of Mannock’s death remains uncertain. A year later, after intensive lobbying by Ira Jones and many of his former comrades, he is awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).
Mannock’s name is listed on the Wellingborough War Memorial with the other fallen men from the town and the local Air Training Corps (ATC) unit bears his name – 378 (Mannock) Squadron. Additionally, Mannock Road, a residential street in Wellingborough, is named after him.
On June 24, 1988, a plaque is unveiled at 183 Mill Road, Wellingborough, by top scoring World War II British fighter pilot Air Vice-MarshalJohnnie Johnson. Mannock had lived at that address prior to the war after being befriended by the Eyles family.
Keating is the youngest of six surviving children of Michael Keating, baker, and his wife Johanna, a native of County Kerry. He was educated at a local school and was an active member of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), playing football and hurling. After the 1916 Easter Rising, he leaves school at the age of thirteen to join the Irish Volunteers, which later becomes the IRA, serving in the 4th Cork Brigade. He is arrested by British troops in November 1920 and badly beaten. He spends a month in the Cork jail and is then interned for a year in Ballykinlar internment camp until December 1921. While interned he participates in several hunger strikes and makes several escape attempts. Following his release, he opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty and serves in the Fianna Cork 4th Brigade on the Republican side under Seán Moylan during the Irish Civil War.
Keating emigrates to New York City in 1927 and becomes involved in Irish cultural organizations and Democratic party politics. He is a founder of American Friends of Irish Neutrality, which opposes Irish involvement in World War II, ostensibly fearing it will result in British re-occupation of Ireland.
Following World War II, Keating is chairman of the executive council of the 1947 Irish Race Convention and president of the American League for an Undivided Ireland, lobbying in support of the Fogarty Amendment, which unsuccessfully attempts to tie the release of Marshall Plan funds to British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.
Between the 1940s and 1960s, Keating serves as president of the County Corkmen Association, president of the United Irish Counties Association, and president of the Irish Institute. In 1956, he serves as Grand Marshal of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Keating serves in various positions under New York City mayors William O’Dwyer, Vincent R. Impellitteri, and Robert F. Wagner, Jr., rising to the position of Deputy Mayor, under Wagner. He is reportedly the first to publicly introduce future President Kennedy as “the next President of the United States” at an Irish Institute event in 1957. He is appointed Regional Director of the United States Postal Service by President Kennedy and serves in that position from 1961 until his retirement in 1966.
In retirement, Keating returns to Kanturk and continues to advocate for the reunification of Ireland. Keating dies at his home in Kanturk on July 2, 1976, and is buried in a local cemetery with military honors. He represents an emigrant political and social milieu which is often treated dismissively by later, more cosmopolitan Irish commentators, but his career reflects not only his own considerable talents but the ways in which this milieu sustains a generation of immigrants, and the contribution of Irish America to Irish development in the post-war decades.
Gray is the third son of John and Elizabeth Gray of Mount Street. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin and obtains the degree of M.D. and Master of Surgery at the University of Glasgow in 1839. Shortly before his marriage in the same year, he settles in Dublin and takes up a post at a hospital in North Cumberland Street. He is admitted as a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in due course.
Gray is publicly minded and contributes to periodicals and the newspaper press. In 1841, he becomes joint proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, a nationalist paper which is then published daily and weekly. He acts as political editor of the Journal for a time, before becoming sole proprietor in 1850. As owner, he increases the newspaper’s size, reduces its price and extends its circulation.
Gray enters politics at a relatively young age and attaches himself to Daniel O’Connell‘s Repeal Association. As a Protestant Nationalist, he supports the movement for the repeal of the Acts of Union with Britain. In October 1843, he is indicted with O’Connell and others in the Court of the Queen’s Bench in Dublin on a charge of sedition and “conspiracy against the queen.” The following February, he, together with O’Connell, is condemned to nine months imprisonment, but in early September 1844 the sentence is remitted on appeal. The trial has a strong element of farce, as the hot-tempered Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, challenges Gray’s counsel, Gerald Fitzgibbon, to a duel, for which he is sternly reprimanded by the judges. From then on Gray is careful to distance himself from the advocacy of violence in the national cause, though he is sympathetic to the Young Ireland movement without being involved in its 1848 rebellion. Through the growing influence of the Freeman’s Journal, he becomes a significant figure in Dublin municipal politics. He is also active in national politics during an otherwise quiet period of Irish politics up until 1860. With the resurgence of nationalism after the famine, he helps to organise the Tenant’s League founding conference in 1850, standing unsuccessfully as the League’s candidate for Monaghan in the 1852 United Kingdom general election.
Later Gray originates and organises the “courts of arbitration” which O’Connell endeavours to substitute for the existing legal tribunals of the country. Following O’Connell’s death, in 1862 he inaugurates an appeal for subscriptions to build a monument to O’Connell on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street). Independent from O’Connell, he continues to take a prominent part in Irish politics and in local affairs.
In municipal politics, Gray is elected councillor in 1852 and alderman of Dublin Corporation and takes an interest in the improvement of the city. As chairman of the committee for a new water supply to Dublin, he actively promotes what becomes the “Vartry scheme.” The Vartry Reservoir scheme involves the partial redirection and damming of the River Vartry in County Wicklow, and the building of a series of water piping and filtering systems (and related public works) to carry fresh water to the city. This work is particularly important in the improvement of conditions in the city, and to public health, as it improves sanitation and helps reduce outbreaks of cholera, typhus and other diseases associated with contaminated water. On the opening of the works on June 30, 1863, he is knighted by the Earl of Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Partially in recognition of these efforts, he is later be nominated for the position of Lord Mayor of Dublin for the years 1868–69, but he declines to serve.
In national politics, the Liberal government at the time is keen to conciliate an influential representative of the moderate nationalists to support British Liberalism and who will resume O’Connell’s constitutional agitation. In an unusual alliance with the CatholicArchbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen, a man devoted to O’Connell’s memory, Gray’s newspaper exploits this shift in government policy. It supports the archbishop’s creation, the National Association of Ireland, established in 1864 with the intention of providing a moderate alternative to the revolutionary nationalism of the Fenians. The Freeman’s Journal adopts the aims of the Association as its own: it advocates the disestablishment of the AnglicanChurch of Ireland, reform of the land laws, educational aspirations of Irish Catholicism and free denominal education.
In the 1865 United Kingdom general election Gray is elected MP for Kilkenny City as a Liberal candidate. In this capacity he campaigns successfully at Westminster and in Ireland for the reforms also advocated in his paper. His newspaper’s inquiry into the anomalous wealth of the established church amidst a predominately Catholic population contributes considerably to William Ewert Gladstone‘s Irish Church Act 1869. He helps to furnish the proof that Irish demands are not to be satisfied by anything other than by radical legislation. He fights for the provision in the new Landlord & Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 for fixity of tenure, which Gladstone eventually concedes. The Act’s other weaknesses, however, result in its failure to resolve the “land question,” the accompanying coercion, the disappointment with Gladstone’s handling of the university question and national education, causing Gray to deflect from the Liberals and become mistrusted in Britain. In the 1874 United Kingdom general election he is re-elected as a Home Rule League MP for Kilkenny, joining its Home Rule majority in the House of Commons, and holds his seat until his death the following year.
Gray dies at Bath, Somerset, England, on April 9, 1875. His remains are returned to Ireland, and he is honoured with a public funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery. Almost immediately afterwards public subscriptions are sought for the erection in O’Connell Street, of a monument to Gray. The monument is completed in 1879 and is dedicated to the “appreciation of his many services to his country, and of the splendid supply of pure water which he secured for Dublin.” His legacy also includes his contributions to the passage of the Irish Church and Land Bills, his advocacy for tenant’s rights and his support of the Home Rule movement.
(Pictured: Statue to Sir John Gray on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, designed by Thomas Farrell and unveiled on June 24, 1879. Photo credit: Graham Hickey)
Major rioting and civil disorder break out in Ardoyne, north Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 12, 2001. In some of the worst rioting in years, 113 police officers are injured in clashes which follow a July 12 parade. Police are attacked when trying clear the path for about 100 Orangemen returning from the parade to go along a main road passing the Catholic Ardoyne area.
In the seven-hour riot which involves about 250 nationalist youth, two blast bombs and 263 petrol bombs are exploded, while a dozen vehicles are hijacked, and 48 plastic bullets are shot by the police. Riot police also use water cannons. There are also incidents in east Belfast, Derry and Ballycastle, but the clashes in Ardoyne are by far the most serious.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) says the riots are orchestrated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a claim denied by Sinn Féin, who believe the RUC’s heavy response escalates tensions. The incident also intensifies a row over the use of plastic bullets. Forty-eight of them are fired by the RUC in Ardoyne, and Sinn Féin claims fifty of them hit civilians, ten of which are badly injured. Chief ConstableRonnie Flanagan strongly rejects calls from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) to halt its use in riots. Nationalist politicians see the ban on plastic bullets as a vital reform to make Catholics trust the police force more. Gerry Kelly from Sinn Féin says that the RUC “started the riot in Ardoyne. They are a sectarian force, using a very lethal weapon predominantly against nationalists and they should not be allowed to do so.”
A few days later another riot breaks out involving petrol bombs and acid being thrown by loyalists at police in north and west Belfast. Loyalists claim shots are fired at them from the Catholic Short Strand. A buffer zone is created by riot police in North Queen Street. Well-known Ulster Defence Association (UDA) members are spotted. From September 2001 the area sees fresh violence during the Holy Cross dispute and on the 23rd, with rioting also occurring in October and November.
Muriel Enid Gifford is born at 12 Cowper Road, Rathmines, on December 18, 1884. She is the fourth daughter and eighth child of twelve of Frederick and Isabella Gifford. As a child, she suffers at different times from rheumatic fever and phlebitis. She attends Alexandra College and spends a brief time in England training to as a poultry instructor. Returning to Ireland, she trains at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, Dublin, as a student nurse, but her health suffers from the work.
Along with her sisters, MacDonagh is active in the Irish Women’s Franchise League and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, a nationalist organisation. She is involved in the school meals programme of 1910 to 1911, takes part in a 1914 Women’s Franchise League fundraiser, appearing in a tableau vivant as Maeve, the Warrior Queen. Less ardently feminist than her sisters, she takes delight in inviting home activists and artists for a “proper meal.” In an outgoing family, she is shy and reserved, known for her gentle manner. In 1908, she is introduced to Thomas MacDonagh by suffragette journalist Nannie Dryhurst along with her sisters, Grace and Sidney, on a visit to St. Enda’s School. Dryhurst advises Thomas to “fall in love with one of these girls and marry her,” to which he replies laughingly, “That would be easy; the only difficulty would be to decide which one.” The Gifford sisters remain acquaintances with Thomas until the autumn of 1911, when the couple has a short and intense courtship. They meet secretly in galleries and museums and have copious correspondence. When he is appointed assistant lecturer to University College Dublin (UCD) in December 1911, they marry on January 3, 1912. They have one son, Donagh MacDonagh, and one daughter, Barbara MacDonagh Redmond. The family lives first at 32 Baggot Street, and later at 29 Oakley Road, Rathmines.
MacDonagh suffers with poor health and depression, which leads to periods of convalescence and confinement. When her husband is arrested after the Easter Rising, she is unable to see him before his execution on May 3, 1916, which heightens the intensity of her bereavement. Devastated by his death and estranged from her parents due to their disapproval of his involvement in the Rising, she briefly lives with the Plunketts at Larkfield, Kimmage, and then with relatives of her husband in Thurles, County Tipperary. She later returns to Dublin to rent rooms in a Plunkett family property, 50 Marlborough Road. With two young children to support, she is nearly destitute, but like the other widows and orphans of the executed leaders of the Rising, they are aided by the Irish Volunteers Dependents’ Fund, in her case with £250. She also serves as an officer and committee member on this aid association. Her husband had named her as his literary executor, and she prepares a collected edition of his poetry that is published in October 1916. The success of this volume, and his bestselling Literature in Ireland, published at the time he is executed, ease her financial difficulties somewhat.
MacDonagh dies while swimming in the sea during a holiday with other 1916 widows and orphans in Skerries, County Dublin, on July 9, 1917. She almost does not attend the holiday, as her son is in hospital having been injured in a fall. It is believed that she is attempting to swim to Shenick Island from Skerries, possibly to place a tricolour flag on the island’s Martello tower. Her body is found near Loughshinny Beach and, as there is no water in her lungs, it is concluded that she died of heart failure and not drowning. As there is great interest in the 1916 widows and their families, her funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery attracts a large crowd of mourners estimated at 5,000 in the funeral procession.
Following MacDonagh’s death, there is a legal custody battle between the Giffords and the MacDonaghs over Donagh and Barbara. Their aunt Mary MacDonagh, a nun known as Sister Francesca and with whom MacDonagh had grown close, wins custody. Even though several of her siblings offer to take the children, she places them in a foster home.
On the centenary of MacDonagh’s death, a festival takes place in Skerries in her memory.
seamus dubhghaill 