seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Irish Naval Service


by Leave a comment

Birth of Sean O’Callaghan, Member of the Provisional IRA

Sean O’Callaghan, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s works against the organisation from within as a mole for the Irish Government with the Garda Síochána‘s Special Detective Unit, is born in Tralee, County Kerry, on October 10, 1954.

O’Callaghan is born into a family with a Fenian paramilitary history. His paternal grandfather had taken the Anti-Treaty side during the Irish Civil War, and his father had been interned by the Irish Government at the Curragh Camp in County Kildare for IRA activity during World War II.

By the late 1960s, O’Callaghan ceases to practise his Catholic faith, adopts atheism and has become interested in the theories of Marxist revolutionary politics, which finds an outlet of practical expression in the sectarian social unrest in Northern Ireland at the time, centered on the activities of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. In 1969, communal violence breaks out in Northern Ireland and believing that British imperialism is responsible, he joins the newly founded Provisional IRA at the age of 17.

Soon afterward, O’Callaghan is arrested by local Gardaí after he accidentally detonates a small amount of explosives, which cause damage to the homes of his parents and their neighbours. After demanding, and receiving, treatment as a political prisoner, he quietly serves his sentence.

After becoming a full-time paramilitary with the IRA, in the early to mid-1970s O’Callaghan takes part in over seventy operations associated with Irish Republican political violence including bomb materials manufacture, attacks on IRA targets in Northern Ireland, and robberies to provide funding for the organisation.

In 1976, O’Callaghan ends his involvement with the IRA after becoming disillusioned with its activities. He later recalls that his disenchantment with the IRA began when one of his compatriots openly hoped that a female police officer who had been blown up by an IRA bomb had been pregnant so they could get “two for the price of one.” He is also concerned with what he perceives as an undercurrent of ethnic hatred in its rank and file toward the Ulster Scots population. He leaves Ireland and moves to London. In May 1978, he marries a Scottish woman of Protestant unionist descent. During the late 1970s, he runs a successful mobile cleaning business. However, he is unable to fully settle into his new life, later recalling, “In truth there seemed to be no escaping from Ireland. At the strangest of times I would find myself reliving the events of my years in the IRA. As the years went on, I came to believe that the Provisional IRA was the greatest enemy of democracy and decency in Ireland.”

In 1979, O’Callaghan is approached by the IRA seeking to recruit him again for its paramilitary campaign. In response, he decides to turncoat against the organisation and becomes an agent within its ranks for the Irish Government. He decides to become a double agent even though he knows that even those who hate the IRA as much as he now does have a low opinion of informers. However, he feels it is the only way to stop the IRA from luring teenagers into their ranks and training them to kill.

Soon after being approached by the IRA to re-join, O’Callaghan returns to Tralee from London, where he arranges a clandestine meeting with an officer of the Garda Special Detective Unit in a local cemetery, at which he expresses his willingness to work with it to subvert the IRA from within. At this point, he is still opposed to working with the British Government. A few weeks later, he makes contact with Kerry IRA leader Martin Ferris and attends his first IRA meeting since 1975. Immediately afterward, he telephones his Garda contact and says, “We’re in”.

During the 1981 hunger strike in the Maze Prison, O’Callaghan attempts to start his own hunger strike in support of the Maze prisoners but is told to desist by the IRA for fear it will detract focus from the prisoners. He successfully sabotages the efforts of republicans in Kerry from staging hunger strikes of their own.

In 1984, O’Callaghan notifies the Garda of an attempt to smuggle seven tons of AK-47 assault rifles from the United States to Ireland aboard a fishing trawler named Valhalla. The guns are intended for the arsenal of the Provisional IRA’s units. As a result of his warning, a combined force of the Irish Navy and Gardaí intercept the boat that received the weaponry, and the guns are seized. The seizure marks the complete end of any major attempt by the IRA to smuggle guns out of the United States.

In 1983, O’Callaghan claims to be tasked by the IRA with placing 25 lbs. of Frangex in the Dominion Theatre in London, in an attempt to kill Prince Charles and Princess Diana who are due to attend a charity pop music concert there. A warning is phoned into the Garda, and the Royal couple are hurriedly ushered from the theatre by their police bodyguard during the concert. The theatre had been searched before the concert and a second search following the warning reveals no device.

In 1985, O’Callaghan is elected as a Sinn Féin councillor for Tralee Urban District Council, and unsuccessfully contests a seat on Kerry County Council.

After becoming disillusioned with his work with the Irish Government following the murder of another of its agents within the IRA, which it had failed to prevent despite O’Callaghan’s warnings of the threat to him, and sensing a growing threat to himself from the organisation which had become suspicious of his own behaviour, he withdraws from the IRA and leaves Ireland to live in England, taking his wife and children with him. His marriage ends in a divorce in 1987, and on November 29, 1988, he walks into a police station in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, where he presents himself to the officer on duty at the desk, confesses to the murder of Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) Greenfinch (female member) Eva Martin and the murder of D.I. Peter Flanagan during the mid-1970s, and voluntarily surrenders to British prosecution.

Although the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) offers him witness protection as part of the informer policy, O’Callaghan refuses it and is prosecuted under charges of two murders and 40 other crimes, to all of which he pleads guilty, committed in British jurisdiction with the IRA. Having been found guilty, he is sentenced to a total of 539 years in prison. He serves his sentence in prisons in Northern Ireland and England. While in jail, he publishes his story in The Sunday Times. He is released after being granted the royal prerogative of mercy by Queen Elizabeth II in 1996.

In 1998, O’Callaghan publishes an autobiographical account of his experiences in Irish Republican paramilitarism, entitled The Informer: The True Life Story of One Man’s War on Terrorism (1998).

In 2002, O’Callaghan is admitted to Nightingale Hospital, Marylebone, an addiction and rehab center where he undergoes a rehabilitation program for alcohol dependency. His identity and past activities are not revealed to the other patients. He lives relatively openly in London for the rest of his life, refusing to adopt a new identity. He is befriended in the city by the Irish writer Ruth Dudley Edwards, and works as a security consultant, and also occasional advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) on how to handle Irish republicanism in general, and Sinn Féin in particular.

In 2006, O’Callaghan appears in a London court with regard to an aggravated robbery that occurs in which he is the victim.

In 2015, O’Callaghan publishes James Connolly: My Search for the Man, the Myth & his Legacy (2015), a book containing a critique of the early 20th century Irish revolutionary James Connolly, and what he considers to be his destructive legacy in Ireland’s contemporary politics.

O’Callaghan dies by drowning after suffering a heart attack at the age of 63 while in a swimming pool in Kingston, Jamaica, on August 23, 2017, while visiting his daughter. A memorial service is held in his memory on March 21, 2018, at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, a Church of England parish church at the northeast corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. The service is attended by representatives from Ulster Unionist parties and the Irish Government.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Alan Shatter, Lawyer, Author & Fine Gael Politician

Alan Joseph Shatter, Irish lawyer, author and former Fine Gael politician who serves as Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence (2011-14), is born into a Jewish family in Dublin on February 14, 1951. He also serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South constituency (1981-2002, 2007-16). He leaves Fine Gael in early 2018 and unsuccessfully contests the 2024 Irish general election as an independent candidate for Dublin Rathdown.

Shatter is the son of Reuben and Elaine Shatter, an English couple who meet by chance when they are both on holiday in Ireland in 1947. He is educated at The High School, Dublin, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the Europa Institute of the University of Amsterdam. In his late teens, he works for two months in Israel on a kibbutz. He is a partner in the Dublin law firm Gallagher Shatter (1977-2011). As a solicitor he acts as advocate in many seminal and leading cases determined both by the Irish High and Supreme Courts. He is the author of one the major academic works on Irish family law which advocates substantial constitutional and family law reform.

Shatter enters politics at the 1979 Irish local elections, winning a seat on Dublin County Council for the Rathfarnham local electoral area. He retains this seat until 1999, becoming a member of South Dublin County Council in 1994. He is first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1981 as a Fine Gael TD and is re-elected at each subsequent election until he loses his seat in the 2002 Irish general election. He is re-elected at the 2007 Irish general election.

Shatter is Fine Gael Front Bench spokesperson on Law Reform (1982, 1987–88), the Environment (1989–91), Labour (1991), Justice (1992–93), Equality and Law Reform (1993–94), Health and Children (1997–2000), Justice, Law Reform and Defence (2000–02), Children (2007–10) and Justice and Law Reform (2010–11).

On March 9, 2011, Shatter is appointed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny as both Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence.

Under Shatter’s steerage, a substantial reform agenda is implemented with nearly 30 separate pieces of legislation published, many of which are now enacted including the Personal Insolvency Act 2012, Criminal Justice Act 2011, DNA Database Act, and the Human Rights and Equality Commission Act.

Under Shatter’s guidance, major reforms are introduced in 2011 into Ireland’s citizenship laws and a new Citizenship Ceremony is created. He both devises and pilots Ireland’s first ever citizenship ceremony which takes place in June 2011 and a new inclusive citizenship oath which he includes in his reforming legislation. During his time as Minister, he clears an enormous backlog of citizenship applications, and 69,000 foreign nationals become Irish citizens. Some applications had lain dormant for 3 to 4 years. He introduces a general rule that save where there is some real complication, all properly made citizenship applications should be processed within a six-month period. He also takes steps to facilitate an increased number of political refugees being accepted into Ireland and creates a special scheme to facilitate relations of Syrian families already resident in Ireland who are either caught up in the Syrian civil war, or in refugee camps elsewhere as a result of the Syrian civil war, to join their families in Ireland.

Shatter enacts legislation before the end of July 2011 to facilitate access to financial documentation and records held by third parties in investigations into banking scandals and white-collar crime. The legislation is first used by the Gardaí in September 2011.

During Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2013, Shatter chairs the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA) meetings and, in January 2013, in Dublin Castle, the meeting of EU Defence Ministers. Under his guidance, Ireland plays a more active role than in the past in EU defence matters and in deepening Ireland’s participation in NATO’s partnership for peace. During the Irish Presidency, substantial progress is made at the European Union level in the adoption and development of new legislation and measures across a broad range of Justice and Home Affairs issues.

Shatter implements substantial reform in the Department of Defence and restructures the Irish Defence Forces. He is a strong supporter of the Irish Defence Forces participation in international peacekeeping and humanitarian engagements and is an expert on the Middle East. As a member of the Irish Parliament and as Minister on many occasions, he visits Irish troops participating in United Nations (UN) missions in the Middle East. Under his watch contracts are signed for the acquisition of two new naval vessels with an option to purchase a third. All three naval vessels are now part of the Irish Naval Service and have been actively engaged in recent years in rescuing drowning refugees in the Mediterranean Sea attempting to enter Europe.

As Minister for Defence he enacts legislation to grant a pardon and an amnesty to members of the Irish Defence Forces who deserted during World War II to fight on the allied side against Nazi Germany and gives a state apology for their post-war treatment by the Irish State.

Shatter is the minister responsible for two amendments to the Constitution of Ireland which are passed in referendums: the Twenty-ninth Amendment in 2011 to allow for the reduction of judges’ pay, and the Thirty-third Amendment in 2013 to establish a Court of Appeal. Just prior to his resignation from government, the draft legislation to create the court is published and the court is established and sitting by October 2014.

The jurisdictions of the courts are extended for the first time in 20 years and the maximum civil damages payable for the emotional distress of bereaved relations following a negligent death is increased.

As a politician, Shatter plays a lead role in effecting much of the constitutional and legislative change he advocates. He is a former chairperson of FLAC (the Free Legal Advice Centres), a former chairperson of CARE, an organisation that campaigns for childcare and children’s legislation reform in the 1970s and a former President of the Irish Council Against Blood Sports.

Shatter is a founder member of the Irish Soviet Jewry Committee in 1970 and pioneers a successful all party Dáil motion on the plight of Soviet Jewry (1984) and visits various refuseniks in Moscow in 1985. He is a former chairperson of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee (1996-97) and initiates the creation of an Ireland/Israel Parliamentary Friendship group in 1997, leading a number of visits to Israel by members of the Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann.

Shatter is the author of the satirical book Family Planning Irish Style (1979), and the novel Laura (1989). In 2017 his biography, Life is a Funny Business, is published by Poolbeg Press and in 2019 Frenzy and Betrayal: The Anatomy of a Political Assassination is published by Merrion Press. In 2023, his book Cyril’s Lottery of Life, a comedic book with an English solicitor from a small town as its protagonist, is published.


by Leave a comment

Death of Michael G. O’Brien, Catholic Priest & Hurling Manager

Michael G. O’Brien, Irish Roman Catholic priest and also noted hurling coach and manager, dies at Dromahane, County Cork, on November 14, 2014, following a long illness.

O’Brien is born in the parish of Innishannon/Knockavilla, County Cork. He enters St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and is ordained for the Diocese of Cork and Ross in the seminary chapel on June 22, 1958. He then ministers in the Irish-emigrant areas of London until 1961, when he returns to his home diocese and a curacy in the parish of Blackrock, Cork, where he helps to rebuild St. Michael’s Church which had burned to the ground.

For twelve years, from 1964 to 1976, O’Brien teaches at St. Finbarr’s Seminary, Farranferris, where he is also the hurling trainer for the school team. He is “at the helm as Farranferris wins Dr. Harty Cups in 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1974, adding All-Irelands in 1972 and 1974.”

A twelve-year stint as chaplain at the Naval Base of Haulbowline follows before O’Brien returns to parish ministry, again in Blackrock. In 1985, he starts a lengthy stay in Carrigaline where he serves as curate, administrator and finally parish priest of Carrigaline, before retiring from active ministry in 2003.

O’Brien serves as the coach of the Cork GAA senior hurling team on several occasions, guiding the team to All-Ireland titles in 1984 and 1990. At colleges’ level he also manages UCC GAA (associated with University College Cork) to Fitzgibbon Cup titles, and later manages Blackrock GAA. He also helps coaching Coláiste Chríost Rí.

O’Brien is later a resident in Nazareth House in Dromahane, County Cork. He dies there on November 14, 2014, following a long illness.

O’Brien is not to be confused with Canon Michael O’Brien of the neighbouring Roman Catholic Diocese of Cloyne.


by 1 Comment

The Great Portlaoise Escape

Nineteen republican prisoners blast their way out of Portlaoise Prison in County Laois on August 18, 1974.

The escape is a timely reminder of the determination, tenacity and ingenuity with which Irish Republican Army (IRA) Volunteers throughout the country fight against British rule in Ireland. It is also a reminder to the Fine Gael/Labour Coalition Government in Leinster House that their collaboration with the British and their attempts to defeat republicanism will not be an easy task.

The determination of republicans to escape from Portlaoise is demonstrated by the escape. In May 1974, an underground escape was planned but the 80-foot tunnel was uncovered and the prisoners’ hopes were dashed. However, almost immediately plans swung into place for a more daring escape operation.

A member of the Escape Committee spots a weakness in the jail security in the area of the prison where the laundry house is situated. The laundry leads to an outside stairway and down into the courtyard, where the Governor’s House and Warders’ Mess are located.

The prisoners discover that they can gain access to the laundry area quite easily. It is a doorway at the top of the courtyard which leads out onto the streets of Portlaoise town itself that give the prisoners hope that their plan will work. However, the Escape Committee decides that they need explosives to get through this gate and send word outside to this effect. The IRA on the outside, agreeing that the plan is “viable,” send in the materials and the plan is on.

The date for the escape is set for August 18, 1974 and planning proceeds inside the prison. The prisoners set themselves to work making prison guard uniforms. The idea is that when the escapees are running through the courtyard, the troops on the roof of the jail will not be able to distinguish between the escapees and the real guards and so will not open fire. This pre-planning proves to be a brilliant ploy as it gives those escaping vital seconds to clear the courtyard and make good their escape.

On the Friday before the plan is to proceed, a number of republicans are arrested in Portlaoise. This seems a bad omen and raises questions as to whether the authorities are suspicious that an escape is planned. However, the Escape Committee and those involved in the operation decide to press ahead with the plan anyway.

Sunday, August 18 duly arrives. According to prisoners who are in Portlaoise Prison at the time, no one can eat anything that day as the tension is unbearable. At 12:30 p.m., the designated time to put the plan into action, arrives and Liam Brown approaches the guard at the gate of the lower landing and asks to be let in. This is the signal for the first team of escapees to rush forward and get the key to the laundry. The guard is quickly overpowered and gives up the key with little resistance.

With this first stage of the plan successfully completed, the escapees open the door to the stairwell and rush through to the courtyard, followed by up to 25 other prisoners. As the prisoners race to the top of the yard to place the bomb at the outside gate, the soldiers on the roof are confused by the uniforms and cannot open fire.

The bomb then explodes, blasting the door to pieces. As the prisoners make the final dash for freedom, the soldiers fire warning shots over the heads of the fleeing republicans. Some of the prisoners drop to the ground fearing the worst but as the guards race from their mess they call on the soldiers to stop firing.

Those who are captured are brought into the Wing again and the governor demands a head count. The prisoners, however, refuse to comply, adding to the confusion and thwarting the prison authorities’ attempts to identify the escapees. It is only after the guards threaten to send in the riot squad several hours later that the prisoners allow a head count to be taken. When they realise that 19 men had escaped, the joy the prisoner experience is immense as they thought only 14 had got away.

In an attempt to capture the escapees, the Dublin Government launches a statewide search operation. Every outhouse in County Wexford is searched. The Irish Naval Service is even called in and put on the alert. The searches go on for over a week but to no avail. The nineteen men had gotten clean away.

Those who escape are Liam Brown, Paddy Devenny and Micky Nolan from Belfast; Tom McFeely and Ian Milne from County Derry; Thomas McGinty and Eddie Gallagher from County Donegal; Patrick Thornberry, Kevin McAllister and Martin McAllister from County Armagh; Francis Hughes and Kevin Mallon from County Tyrone; Oliver McKiernan from County Fermanagh; Bernard Hegarty and Sam O’Hare from County Louth; Michael Kinsella and Seán Kinsella from County Monaghan; Seán Morris from County Meath; and Tony Weldon from Dublin.

(From: “30 years on: The Great Portlaoise Escape,” An Phoblacht, http://www.anphoblacht.com, August 26, 2004)


by Leave a comment

Commissioning of the LÉ Deirdre (P20)

The LÉ Deirdre (P20), an offshore patrol vessel in the Irish Naval Service, is commissioned by Lt. Cdr. Liam Brett on June 19, 1972. The building of LÉ Deirdre marks a milestone in the development of the Naval Service, being the first ship purpose-built in Ireland to patrol in Irish waters. She is named after Deirdre, a tragic heroine from Irish mythology who committed suicide after her lover’s murder.

In 1971, a contract is signed with Verlome Cork Dockyard (VCD) to build an offshore patrol vessel for the Naval Service. Built in 1972, LÉ Deirdre is built as a replacement for the Ton-class minesweepers, and one of the first vessels custom-built for the Irish Naval Service. She has a longer range and is a more seaworthy ship for work in the Atlantic. LÉ Deirdre becomes the prototype for the later Emer-type vessels.

LÉ Deirdre undertakes a number of search and rescue operations throughout her career. For example, LÉ Deirdre is one of the vessels involved in the 1979 Fastnet race rescue operations, assisting the crews of two yachts. In 1990, during the rescue of a Spanish trawler crew in Bantry Bay, a member of LÉ Deirdre‘s crew dies and is posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and Spanish Cross of Naval Merit.

By the time of the vessel’s naval decommissioning in early 2001, LÉ Deirdre has travelled approximately 450,000 nautical miles. She is replaced by a Róisín-class patrol vessel.

LÉ Deirdre is sold at public auction for IR£190,000 to the English yacht chartering company Seastream International for conversion into the luxury charter yacht Tosca IV for the company’s owner, businessman Christopher Matthews. Speaking on the radio, a Seastream spokesman appears pleased with their bargain as they had been prepared to bid up to IR£500,000. The auction starting price had been IR£60,000.

The conversion in a Polish shipyard is not completed as the English owner is killed while piloting a Eurocopter EC130 helicopter which crashes at Sauk Prairie, Wisconsin after hitting power lines over Lake Wisconsin on August 6, 2004. In 2007 LÉ Deirdre is towed to Brazil for further refit and completion. Substantially complete, she arrives at Jacksonville, Florida in September 2012 for final outfitting as Santa Rita I. However, in August 2014, Santa Rita I is towed to Green Cove Springs, Florida, for breaking.


by Leave a comment

The 1979 Fastnet Race

fastnet-race-memorial

Nineteen people lose their lives during the 1979 Fastnet Race, which begins on August 11, 1979. The race is the 28th Royal Ocean Racing Club‘s Fastnet Race, a yachting race held generally every two years since 1925 on a 605-mile course from Cowes direct to the Fastnet Rock and then to Plymouth via south of the Isles of Scilly. In 1979, it is the climax of the five-race Admiral’s Cup competition, as it has been since 1957.

A worse-than-expected storm on the third day of the race wreaks havoc on over 303 yachts that started the biennial race resulting in 24 yachts being abandoned, of which five are lost and believed to be sunk due to high winds and severe sea conditions. The nineteen fatalities consist of fifteen yachtsmen and four spectators.

Rescue efforts begin after 6:30 AM on August 14, once the winds drop to severe gale Force 9 on the Beaufort scale. Emergency services, naval forces, and civilian vessels from around the west side of the English Channel are summoned to aid what becomes the largest ever rescue operation in peacetime. This involves some 4,000 people, including the entire Irish Naval Service‘s fleet, lifeboats, commercial boats, tugs, trawlers, tankers and helicopters.

The handicap winner is the yacht Tenacious, designed by Sparkman & Stephens, owned and skippered by Ted Turner. The winner on elapsed time in the race is the 77-foot Condor of Bermuda, skippered by Peter Blake, which gains around 90 minutes on the leader at the Fastnet rock, the Kialoa IV, by chancing a spinnaker. Jim Kilroy of the Kialoa IV has broken his ribs and there is damage to the yacht’s runners. Condor of Bermuda breaks the Fastnet record by nearly eight hours (71h 25m 23s).

The disaster results in a major rethink of racing, risks and prevention.

(Pictured: Memorial to those who died in the 1979 Fastnet Race, Lissarnona, Cape Clear Island, Cork, Ireland)


by Leave a comment

Samuel Beckett Awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature

samuel-beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett, Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on October 23, 1969. Beckett lives in Paris for most of his adult life and writes in both English and French. He is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. He is elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984.

Beckett’s work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and becomes increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin calls the “Theatre of the Absurd.” Waiting for Godot is generally regarded as his best-known play.

In October 1969 while on holiday in Tunis with his wife Suzanne, Beckett hears that he has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Anticipating that her intensely private husband would be saddled with fame from that moment on, Suzanne calls the award a “catastrophe.” In true ascetic fashion, he gives away all of the prize money. While Beckett does not devote much time to interviews, he sometimes meets the artists, scholars, and admirers who seek him out in the anonymous lobby of the Hotel PLM St. Jacques in Paris near his Montparnasse home. Although Beckett is an intensely private man, a review of the second volume of his letters by Roy Foster in the December 15, 2011 issue of The New Republic reveals Beckett to be not only unexpectedly amiable but frequently prepared to talk about his work and the process behind it.

Confined to a nursing home and suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson’s disease, Beckett dies on 22 December 22, 1989, just five months after the passing of Suzanne. The two are interred together in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris and share a simple granite gravestone that follows Beckett’s directive that it should be “any colour, so long as it’s grey.”

Of all the English-language modernists, Beckett’s work represents the most sustained attack on the realist tradition. He opens up the possibility of theatre and fiction that dispense with conventional plot and the unities of time and place in order to focus on essential components of the human condition.

On December 10, 2009, a new bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin is opened and named the Samuel Beckett Bridge in his honour. Reminiscent of a harp on its side, it is designed by the celebrated Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who also designed the James Joyce Bridge further upstream. The newest ship of the Irish Naval Service, the LÉ Samuel Beckett (P61), is named for Beckett. An Ulster History Circle blue plaque in his memory is located at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.


by Leave a comment

The Bombing of Air India Flight 182

air-india-182

Air India Flight 182, an Air India flight operating on the Montreal, Canada–London, U.K.–Delhi, India route, is destroyed by a bomb on June 23, 1985, at an altitude of 31,000 feet and crashes into the Atlantic Ocean while in Irish airspace.

It is the first bombing of a 747 jumbo jetliner. A total of 329 people are killed, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 Britons, and 24 Indians. The majority of the victims were Canadian citizens of Indian ancestry. The incident is the largest mass murder in Canadian history. It is the deadliest terrorist attack involving an airplane until the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States in 2001. The bombing of Air India 182 occurs at the same time as the Narita Airport bombing in Japan. Investigators believe that the two plots are linked, and that those responsible are aiming for a double bombing. However, the bomb at Narita explodes before it can be loaded onto a plane.

At 07:14:01 GMT, the crew of Air India 182 “squawked 2005,” a routine activation of its aviation transponder, as requested by Shannon International Airport Air Traffic Control (ATC). The plane then disappears from radar. A bomb in a Sanyo tuner in a suitcase in the forward cargo hold explodes while the plane is at 31,000 feet at 51°3.6′N 12°49′W. It causes rapid decompression and the break-up of the aircraft in mid-air. The wreckage settles in 6,700-feet deep water off the southwest coast of Ireland, 120 miles offshore of County Cork. No “mayday” call is received by Shannon ATC. ATC asks aircraft in the area to try to contact Air India, to no avail. By 07:30:00 GMT, ATC has declared an emergency and requests nearby cargo ships and the Irish Naval Service vessel LÉ Aisling to begin searching for the aircraft.

The bomb kills all 22 crew and 307 passengers. One hundred thirty-two bodies are recovered. The remaining 197 are lost at sea. Eight bodies exhibit “flail pattern” injuries, indicating that they had exited the aircraft before it hit the water. This is a sign that the aircraft had broken up in mid-air. Twenty-six bodies show signs of hypoxia (lack of oxygen). Twenty-five, mostly victims who were seated near windows, show signs of explosive decompression. Twenty-three have signs of “injuries from a vertical force.” Twenty-one passengers are found with little or no clothing.

Canadian law enforcement determines that the main suspects in the bombing are members of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa. The attack is thought to be a retaliation against India for the operation carried out by the Indian Army Operation Blue Star to flush out several hundred Sikh militants who were within the premises of the Golden temple and the surrounding structures ordered by the Indian government, headed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Though a handful of members are arrested and tried, Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Canadian national, remains the only person convicted of involvement in the bombing. Singh pleads guilty in 2003 to manslaughter. He is sentenced to 15 years in prison for building the bombs that exploded aboard Flight 182 and at Narita.

The subsequent investigation and prosecution lasts almost twenty years and is the most expensive trial in Canadian history, costing nearly CAD 130 million. The Governor General-in-Council in 2006 appoints the former Supreme Court Justice John C. Major to conduct a commission of inquiry. His report is completed and released on June 17, 2010. It concludes that a “cascading series of errors” by the government of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had allowed the terrorist attack to take place.