seamus dubhghaill

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Tag Archives: Irish War of Independence


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Death of W. T. Cosgrave, First President of the Free State Executive Council

William Thomas Cosgrave, Irish Fine Gael politician who serves as the first president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State (1922-32), dies in The Liberties, Dublin, on November 16, 1965. He also serves as Leader of the Opposition in both the Free State and Ireland (1932-44), Leader of Fine Gael (1934-44), founder and leader of Fine Gael’s predecessor, Cumann na nGaedheal (1923-33), Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State (August 1922-December 1922), the President of Dáil Éireann (September 1922-December 1922), the Minister for Finance (1922-23) and Minister for Local Government (1919-22). He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) (1921-44) and is a member of parliament (MP) for the North Kilkenny constituency (1918-22).

Cosgrave is born at 174 James’s Street, Dublin, on June 5, 1880, to Thomas Cosgrave, grocer, and Bridget Cosgrave (née Nixon). He is educated at the Christian Brothers School at Malahide Road, Marino, Dublin, before entering his father’s publican business. He first becomes politically active when he attends the first Sinn Féin convention in 1905.

At an early age, Cosgrave is attracted to the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin. He becomes a member of the Dublin Corporation in 1909 and is subsequently reelected to represent Sinn Féin interests. He joins the Irish Volunteers in 1913, although he never joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) because he does not believe in secret societies. When the group splits in 1914 upon the outbreak of World War I, he sides with a radical Sinn Féin minority against the constitutional nationalists led by John Redmond, who supports the British war effort.

Cosgrave takes part in the 1916 Easter Rising and is afterward interned by the British for a short time. In 1917, he is elected to Parliament for the city of Kilkenny. In the sweeping election victory of Sinn Féin in the 1918 United Kingdom general election, he becomes a member of the First Dáil. He is made Minister for Local Government in the first republican ministry, and during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) his task is to organize the refusal of local bodies to cooperate with the British in Dublin.

Cosgrave is a supporter of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty settlement with Great Britain, and he becomes Minister of Local Government in Ireland’s provisional government of 1922. He replaces Michael Collins as Chairman of the Provisional Government when the latter becomes commander-in-chief of the National Army in July 1922. He also replaces Arthur Griffith as president of the Dáil after Griffith’s sudden death on August 12, 1922. As the first president of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, he, who had helped found the political party Cumann na nGaedheal in April 1923 and became its leader, represents Ireland at the Imperial Conference in October 1923. A month earlier he is welcomed as Ireland’s first spokesman at the assembly of the League of Nations.

Cosgrave’s greatest achievement is to establish stable democratic government in Ireland after the Irish Civil War (1922–23). In the Dáil there is no serious opposition, since the party headed by Éamon de Valera, which refuses to take the oath prescribed in the treaty, abstains from attendance. But neither Cosgrave nor his ministry enjoy much popularity. Order requires drastic measures, and taxation is heavy and sharply collected. He seems sure of a long tenure only because there is no alternative in sight.

In July 1927, shortly after a general election, the assassination of Kevin O’Higgins, the vice president, produces a crisis. The Executive Council introduces a Public Safety Act, which legislates severely against political associations of an unconstitutional character and introduces a bill declaring that no candidature for the Dáil should be accepted unless the candidate declares willingness to take a seat in the Dáil and to take the oath of allegiance. The result of this measure is that de Valera and his party decide to attend sessions in the Dáil, and, since this greatly alters the parliamentary situation, Cosgrave obtains leave to dissolve the assembly and hold a general election. The September 1927 Irish general election leaves his party numerically the largest in the Dáil but without an overall majority. He continues in office until de Valera’s victory at the 1932 Irish general election. Cumann na nGaedheal joins with two smaller opposition parties in September 1933 to form a new party headed by Cosgrave, Fine Gael (“Irish Race”), which becomes Ireland’s main opposition party. In 1944 he resigns from the leadership of Fine Gael.

Cosgrave dies on November 16, 1965, at the age of 85. The Fianna Fáil government under Seán Lemass awards him the honour of a state funeral, which is attended by the Cabinet, the leaders of all the main Irish political parties, and Éamon de Valera, then President of Ireland. He is buried in Goldenbridge Cemetery in Inchicore, Dublin. Richard Mulcahy says, “It is in terms of the Nation and its needs and its potential that I praise God who gave us in our dangerous days the gentle but steel-like spirit of rectitude, courage and humble self-sacrifice, that was William T. Cosgrave.”

While Cosgrave never officially holds the office of Taoiseach (prime minister), Ireland considers him to be its first Taoiseach due to having been the Free State’s first head of government.

Cosgrave’s son, Liam, serves as a TD (1943-81), as leader of Fine Gael (1965-77) and Taoiseach (1973-77). His grandson, also named Liam, also serves as a TD and as Senator. His granddaughter, Louise Cosgrave, serves on the Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council (1999-2009).

In October 2014, Cosgrave’s grave is vandalised, the top of a Celtic cross on the headstone being broken off. It is again vandalised in March 2016.


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Death of Roger McCorley, Irish Republican Activist

Roger McCorley, Irish republican activist, dies on November 13, 1993.

McCorley is born into a Roman Catholic family at 67 Hillman Street in Belfast on September 6, 1901. He is one of three children born to Roger Edmund McCorley, a meat carver in a hotel, and Agnes Liggett. He has two elder brothers, Vincent and Felix. He joins the Fianna in his teens. His family has a very strong republican tradition, and he claims to be the great-grandson of the United Irishmen folk hero Roddy McCorley, who was executed for his part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

McCorley is a member of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence (1919–22). He is commandant of the Brigade’s first battalion, eventually becoming Commandant of the Belfast Brigade. In June 1920, he is involved in an attack on a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) police barracks at Crossgar, County Down. On Sunday, August 22, 1920, in Lisburn, he is involved in the assassination of RIC District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, who was held responsible by Michael Collins for the assassination of Tomás Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork.

McCorley is noted for his militancy, as he is in favour of armed attacks on British forces in Belfast. The Brigade’s leaders, by contrast, in particular, Joe McKelvey, are wary of sanctioning attacks for fear of loyalist reprisals on republicans and the Catholic population in general. In addition, McCorley is in favour of conducting an armed defense of Catholic areas, whereas McKelvey does not want the IRA to get involved in what he considers to be sectarian violence. McCorley writes later that in the end, “the issue settled itself within a very short space of time, when the Orange mob was given uniforms, paid for by the British, and called the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC).” The role of the USC, a temporary police force raised for counter-insurgency purposes, in the conflict is still debated, but republicans maintain that the organization was responsible for the indiscriminate killings of Catholics and nationalists.

On January 26, 1921, McCorley, is involved in the fatal shooting of three Auxiliary Division officers in their beds in the Railway View hotel in central Belfast. Shortly afterwards, he and another IRA man, Seamus Woods, organize an active service unit (ASU) within the first battalion of the Belfast Brigade, with the intention of carrying out attacks, with or without the approval of the Brigade leadership. The unit consists of 32 men. McCorley later writes, “I issued a general order that, where reprisal gangs [State forces] were cornered, no prisoners were to be taken.” In March 1921, he personally leads the ASU in the killing of three Black and Tans in Victoria Street in central Belfast. He is responsible for the deaths of two more Auxiliaries in Donegall Place in April. In reprisal for these shootings, members of the RIC assassinate two republican activists, the Duffin brothers in Clonard Gardens in west Belfast. On June 10, 1921, both and Woods and McCorley units are involved in the killing a RIC man who is suspected in the revenge killings of the Duffin brothers. Two RIC men and a civilian are also wounded in that attack.

Thereafter, there is what historian Robert Lynch has described as a “savage underground war” between McCorley’s ASU and RIC personnel based in Springfield Road barracks and led by an Inspector Ferris. Ferris is accused of murdering the Lord Mayor of Cork Thomas Mac Curtain and had been posted to Lisburn for his safety. Ferris himself is among the casualties, being shot in the chest and neck, but surviving. McCorley claims to have been one of the four IRA men who shot Ferris. In addition, his men bomb and burn a number of businesses including several cinemas and a Reform Club. In May 1921, however, thirteen of his best men are arrested when surrounded by British troops during an operation in County Cavan. They are held in Crumlin Road Gaol and sentenced to death.

On June 3, McCorley organizes an attack on Crumlin Road Gaol in an attempt to rescue the IRA men held there before they are executed. The operation is not a success; however, the condemned men are reprieved after a truce is agreed between the IRA and British forces in July 1921. On Bloody Sunday (July 10, 1921), he is a major leader in the defense of nationalist areas from attacks by both the police and loyalists. On that day twenty people are killed before he negotiates a truce beginning at noon on July 11. At least 100 people are wounded, about 200 houses are destroyed or badly damaged – most of them Catholic homes, leaving 1,000 people homeless.

In April 1922, McCorley becomes leader of the IRA Belfast Brigade after Joe McKelvey goes south to Dublin to join other IRA members who are against the Anglo-Irish Treaty. With McKelvey’s departure, Seamus Woods becomes Officer Commanding of the IRA’s 3rd Northern Division, which has up to 1,000 members, with McCorley designated as Vice Officer Commanding. McCorley for his part, supports the Treaty, despite the fact that it provides for the partition of Ireland and the continued British rule in Northern Ireland. The reason for this is that Michael Collins and Eoin O’Duffy have assured him that this is only a tactical move and indeed, Collins sends men, money and weapons to the IRA in the North throughout 1922.

However, McCorley’s command sees the collapse of the Belfast IRA. In May 1922, the IRA launches an offensive with attacks all across Northern Ireland. In Belfast, he carries out an assault on Musgrave Street RIC barracks. He also conducts an arson campaign on businesses in Belfast. His men also carry out a number of assassinations, including that of Ulster Unionist Party MP William J. Twaddell, which causes the internment of over 200 Belfast IRA men.

To escape from the subsequent repression, McCorley and over 900 Northern IRA men flee south, to the Irish Free State, where they are housed in the Curragh. McCorley is put in command of these men. In June 1922, the Irish Civil War breaks out between Pro and Anti-Treaty elements of the IRA. He takes the side of the Free State and Michael Collins. After Collins is killed in August 1922, his men are stood down. About 300 of them join the National Army and are sent to County Kerry to put down anti-Treaty guerrillas there. In the Spring of 1923, bitterly disillusioned by the brutal counterinsurgency against fellow republicans, he resigns his command.

McCorley later asserts that he “hated the Treaty” and only supported it because it allowed Ireland to have its own armed forces. Both he and Seamus Woods are severe critics of the Irish Free State inertia towards Northern Ireland after the death of Michael Collins. He comments that when Collins was killed “the Northern element gave up all hope.”

In 1936 McCorley is instrumental in the establishment of the All-Ireland Old IRA Men’s Organization, serving as Vice-President with President Liam Deasy (Cork No. 3 Brigade) and Secretary George Lennon (Waterford No. 2 Brigade).

In the 1940s, McCorley is a founding member of Córas na Poblachta, a political party which aspires to a United Ireland and economic independence from Britain. He dies on November 13, 1993, and is buried in the Republican Plot of Glasnevin Cemetery.


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Death of Máirín Cregan, Playwright & Novelist

Máirín Cregan, Irish nationalist who is involved in the 1916 Easter Rising and Irish War of Independence, dies in Dublin on November 9, 1975. She makes her name writing for children, as well as writing plays and novels for adults.

Mary Ellen Cregan is born in Killorglin, County Kerry, on March 27, 1891, to Morgan Cregan and Ellen O’Shea. Her father is a stonemason from Limerick. The family are strong believers in the Gaelic revival movement and Cregan herself learns the Irish language and performs songs at Gaelic League concerts. Although she goes to primary school locally, she goes away to secondary school to St. Louis Convent in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. After finishing school, she becomes a teacher, working in Goresbridge, County Kilkenny from 1911 to 1914.

In September 1914 Cregan goes to Dublin to study music in the Leinster School of Music, under Madame Coslett Heller. It is while she is in Dublin that she becomes friends with the Ryan family, who are strong nationalists as well as interested in the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin. She begins to sing for concerts which are fundraisers for the Irish Volunteers. The last concert is just two weeks before the Easter Rising.

During Easter week Cregan is sent to Tralee with “automatics and ammunition” by Seán Mac Diarmada. While she is carrying a violin case of munitions, she is also carrying details for the wireless technology needed for communicating with the SS Aud, the boat which is carrying more weapons for the rebellion. The communications with the SS Aud go wrong when the car carrying the Volunteers goes off a pier and the occupants are drowned. She is still in the area to assist with the surviving Volunteer, who unfortunately knows nothing of the details for the SS Aud. She is not easily able to get back to Dublin, because owing to the Rising the city is cut off. By the time she gets back, her friends have been arrested.

When Cregan is going to school in Dublin she is also working in a school in Rathmines. Like many of the teachers, she loses her job after the rising because of her connection to the rebels. However, she is able to get new positions over the next few years in both Ballyshannon and Portstewart until she marries. In Ballyshannon she experiences the early expressions of support and sympathy, but Portstewart is a Unionist enclave with many houses flying union flags on polling day in 1918.

Cregan is a member of Cumann na mBan and with them is active during the Irish War of Independence. She is given a medal for her participation. On July 23, 1919, she marries Dr. James Ryan in Athenry, County Galway. His entire family had been deeply involved in the Easter Rising, as well as the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. They have three children, Eoin, who becomes a Senator, Nuala (Colgan) and Seamus.

The family is initially based in Wexford during the War. The house is often raided when the British soldiers are looking for her husband and Cregan herself is arrested in February 1921 for refusing to put up martial law posters. Later the family sells the house and remains mobile while she works for the Sinn Féin government, and her husband is in prison. It is during this time that she works as a courier to the continent and to London. After the war, they purchase Kindlestown House in Delgany, County Wicklow, where they remain for the rest of their lives.

Cregan works as a journalist for The Irish Press and The Sunday Press. Her political awareness and involvement mean that her work there is on political articles.

Cregan’s first book for children is Old John and gains her considerable international success and attention. Sean Eoin is also published in Irish and is illustrated by Jack Butler Yeats. Her work is also aired on the BBC and RTÉ. Rathina wins the Downey Award in the United States in 1943. She also writes two plays: Hunger strike (1933), based on experience of her husband’s involvement in such a strike, which is broadcast on Radio Éireann on May 5, 1936, and Curlew’s call (1940).

Cregan dies on November 9, 1975, in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, and is buried in Redford cemetery near her home in County Wicklow.

(Pictured: Máirín Cregan and her husband, Dr. James Ryan)


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Death of Neil Blaney, Fianna Fáil Politician

Neil Terence Columba Blaney, Irish politician first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1948 as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) representing Donegal East, dies in Dublin of cancer at the age of 73 on November 8, 1995. He serves as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (1957), Minister for Local Government (1957–1966) and Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (1966–1970). He is Father of the Dáil from 1987 until his death.

Blaney is born on October 1, 1922, in Fanad, County Donegal, the second eldest of a family of eleven. His father, from whom he got his strong republican views and his first introduction to politics, had been a commander in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Donegal during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. He is educated locally at Tamney on the rugged Fanad Peninsula and later attends St. Eunan’s College in Letterkenny. He later works as an organiser with the Irish National Vintners and Grocers Association.

Blaney is first elected to Dáil Éireann for the Donegal East constituency in a by-election in December 1948, following the death of his father from cancer. He also becomes a member of the Donegal County Council. He remains on the backbenches for a number of years before he is one of a group of young party members handpicked by Seán Lemass to begin a re-organisation drive for the party following the defeat at the 1954 Irish general election. Within the party he gains fame by running the party’s by-election campaigns throughout the 1950s and 1960s. His dedicated bands of supporters earn the sobriquet “the Donegal Mafia,” and succeed in getting Desmond O’Malley and Gerry Collins elected to the Dáil.

Following Fianna Fáil’s victory at the 1957 Irish general election, Éamon de Valera, as Taoiseach, brings new blood into the Cabinet in the shape of Blaney, Jack Lynch, Kevin Boland and Mícheál Ó Móráin. Blaney is appointed Minister for Posts and Telegraphs however he moves to the position of Minister for Local Government at the end of 1957 following the death of Seán Moylan. He retains the post when Lemass succeeds de Valera as Taoiseach in 1959. During his tenure it becomes possible to pay rates by installment and he also introduces legislation which entitles non-nationals to vote in local elections.

In 1966 Lemass resigns as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader. The subsequent leadership election sees Cork politician Jack Lynch become party leader and Taoiseach. In the subsequent cabinet reshuffle Blaney is appointed Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

In 1969, when conflict breaks out in Northern Ireland, Blaney is one of the first to express strong Irish republican views, views which contradict the policy of the Irish Government, in support of Northern nationalists. From around late 1968 onwards, he forms and presides over an unofficial Nationalist group in Leinster House popularly known as “the Letterkenny Table.” The group is dominated by Blaney up until his death.

There is general surprise when, in an incident known as the Arms Crisis, Blaney, along with Charles Haughey, is sacked from Lynch’s cabinet amid allegations of the use of the funds to import arms for use by the IRA. Lynch asks for their resignations but both men refuse, saying they did nothing illegal. Lynch then advises President de Valera to sack Haughey and Blaney from the government. Haughey and Blaney are subsequently tried in court but are acquitted. However, many of their critics refuse to recognise the verdict of the courts. Although Blaney is cleared of wrongdoing, his ministerial career is brought to an end.

Lynch subsequently moves against Blaney so as to isolate him in the party. When Blaney and his supporters try to organise the party’s national collection independently, Lynch acts and in 1972 Blaney is expelled from Fianna Fáil for “conduct unbecoming.”

Following his expulsion from Fianna Fáil, Kevin Boland tries to persuade Blaney to join the Aontacht Éireann party he is creating but Blaney declines. Instead, he contests all subsequent elections for Independent Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party, an organisation that he built up. Throughout the 1970s there are frequent calls for his re-admittance to Fianna Fáil but the most vocal opponents of this move are Fianna Fáil delegates from County Donegal.

At the 1979 European Parliament elections Blaney tops the poll in the Connacht–Ulster constituency to the annoyance of Fianna Fáil. He narrowly loses the seat at the 1984 election but is returned to serve as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the 1989 election where he sits with the regionalist Rainbow Group. He also canvasses for IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election, in which Sands is elected to Westminster.

Blaney holds his Dáil seat until his death from cancer at the age of 73 on November 8, 1995, in Dublin.


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The Shooting Death of Eileen Quinn

Eileen Quinn, age 24 and within two months of the birth of her fourth child, is shot by Galway police on November 1, 1920, during the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), while holding her nine-month-old child in her arms and sitting on the lawn in front of her farmhouse at Kiltartan near Gort, bleeding to death later that night. She leaves three children, the eldest of whom is not yet four years old.

Afraid of ambushes, police have begun to “reconnoiter by fire,” shooting blindly into woods and possible ambush sites. Quinn is near one such site when the police open fire, and she is hit by a stray bullet.

At the time of the shooting, her husband Malachy Quinn, who is a farmer, is in Gort. Another messenger going to Ardrahan for Dr. Foley is, it is reported, wounded by a bullet. Uniformed men pass into Gort subsequently firing shots. When the lorry passes the house where the dying woman lay, the terror-stricken occupants flee by the back way.

Rev. Fr. John Considine, C.C., Gort, gives a graphic description of Quinn’s last moments.

“It is too awful, too inhuman, to contemplate.” These are Father Considine’s opening remarks concerning the tragedy. Pressed to explain what occurred, he says, “I have read of Turkish atrocities; I have read of the death of Joan of Arc; I have read of the sufferings of Nurse Cavell, and as I read those things I often felt my blood boil and I often prayed that the good God might change the minds and hearts of those cruel monsters.”

“Little did I then dream that I should witness a tragedy, an atrocity more hideous, more revolting, more frightful, more brutal, more cruel than any of those things, and here in our own little peaceful parish of Gort. My God, it is awful! About three o’clock on Tuesday, Malachy Quinn weeping bitterly, called for me. Father, says he, ‘I have just heard that my wife had been shot. Will you run down immediately?’ I procured a motor car and hurried to the scene. At the gateway there we beheld a large pool of blood. In the yard another pool, and the porch leading to the kitchen was covered with blood. I entered the room. Oh, God! what a sight. There lay the poor woman, the blood oozing out through her clothes.”

“She turned her eyes towards me and said, ‘Oh, Father John, I have been shot.’ ‘Shot!’ I exclaimed. ‘Yes,’ she replied. By whom, I asked. ‘Police’ she answered.”

Quinn then becomes weaker, Father Considine explains, and on rallying exclaims, “Father John, will you do something for me?” He tries to console her and administers the Last Sacrament.

“When I finished, she whispered to me, bring me Malachy, bring him to me, I hear him crying. I have something to tell him. I did so. What a scene. Then she became weak and fainted off. Gradually she became worse.”

“I sent word immediately to the Head Constable at Gort. He arrived with police and military. All seemed shocked at the tragedy. I asked him to go in and see the woman. He and his men felt the trial too much, as he answered, ‘I cannot.’ No trace of the bullet could be found.”

Continuing, Father Considine says Quinn is sitting on the lawn with her child when the lorry passes from which the fatal shot is fired. The bullet pierces her stomach and the child she is holding falls from her arms. She crawls over the wall into the yard, and then crawls to the porch to tell her servant that she has been shot. “Take in the little children!” she exclaims.

From 3:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. she lingers on in pain. Occasionally she clasps Father Considine’s hand and pulls him toward her, and says, “I’m done, I’m done!” At 10:30 her condition becomes worse, and they kneel by her bedside to recite the Rosary and prayers for the dying. She tries to join but is too weak.

At 10:45 p.m. the little children begin to cry, and with them the crowded house bursts into tears. As Father Considine reads the last prayer of the Ritual she looks around, then closes her eyes and dies.

Irish public opinion is outraged when a military court of inquiry subsequently returns a verdict of “death by misadventure.” Soon afterward, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Headquarters and the Chief of Police issue orders against wild firing from motor vehicles.

(From: The Galway Observer, November 1920)


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Birth of Gaelic Footballer Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan, Gaelic footballer and one-time captain of the Tipperary county football team, is born at Currasilla, Ninemilehouse, County Tipperary, on October 27, 1896. He is the only player shot dead, along with thirteen spectators, by British forces consisting of Black and Tans and Auxiliaries at Croke Park in Dublin on Bloody Sunday during the Irish War of Independence.

Hogan is one of four sons and three daughters of Patrick Hogan, farmer, and Margaret Hogan (née Galvin). His family are staunch nationalists who have been heavily involved in the land struggle. He is the brother of Major General Daniel (Dan) Hogan, who is Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces in the 1920s. On November 19, 1920, Hogan is elected company commander of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Grangemockler area, where he is working on the family farm.

Hogan’s family are close friends of the Browne family, also from Grangemockler, that include the late Cardinal Michael Browne, Monsignor Maurice Browne (aka Joseph Brady), and Monsignor Pádraig de Brún.

A dedicated footballer, Hogan is the established full back on the Tipperary county football team. During the Irish War of Independence very few championships are completed, and challenge matches are the chief attraction. Following the success of a Kildare–Dublin challenge match, a challenge is organised between Tipperary and Dublin at Croke Park, Dublin, on November 21, 1920.

The day before the match, Hogan travels on the train with the other members of the team. A number of the players, including Hogan, become involved in a fight with soldiers from the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment before throwing them from the train. On arrival at (Kingsbridge) Heuston Station, they quickly go their separate ways anticipating arrest. Michael and Thomas “Tommy” Ryan, the two IRA members on the team, decide to stay at Philip Shanahan‘s pub in Monto that night, rather than Barry’s Hotel as planned. There they learn that “there is a ‘big job coming off” the following day but are unaware of the details.

On the morning of the match, fourteen members of the British intelligence service are assassinated by the IRA. This leads to concerns about the match and the safety of spectators, and the Dublin brigade of the IRA urges that the game be cancelled. Shanahan informs the team of the shooting of the British agents. Ryan claims that Dan Breen advised them it would be better not to attend the match, but instead to return to Tipperary. Leading Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) officials Jim Nowlan, Dan MacCarthy and Luke O’Toole decide the match should proceed, arguing that a postponement would associate the IRA’s activities with the GAA.

Dublin and Tipperary are two of the best teams in the country at the time (and later contest the 1920 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final when it is eventually played in 1922), so despite the events of the morning, a large crowd of some 10,000 people are in attendance.

At 3:00 p.m., not long after the match has started, a British military plane flies over and drops a flare, signaling British forces to converge on the ground. Black and Tans enter Croke Park and open fire on the crowd.

Hogan drops to the ground and is crawling to safety when a bullet hits him in the mouth. Tom Ryan, a young spectator from Wexford, enters the pitch to pray beside the dying Hogan and is also fatally shot. Another player, Jim Egan, is wounded, but survives. In all, fourteen people are killed and dozens are wounded and injured. The events of that day come to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Hogan’s body is returned to Grangemockler for burial on November 24, 1920. A huge crowd attends the funeral. He is buried in his football colours in a coffin draped with the tricolour. The GAA commemorates him by naming the main stand at Croke Park after him and erecting a monument to his memory at Grangemockler. His football jersey is in the South Tipperary County Museum in Clonmel.


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Death of Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany FRSL, Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, dies in hospital in Dublin on October 25, 1957, following an attack of appendicitis. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appear in his lifetime, and a modest amount of material is published posthumously.

Plunkett, known to his family as “Eddie,” is born in London, England, on July 24, 1878, the first son of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany (1853–1899), and his wife, Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle-Erle-Drax, (née Burton) (1855–1916). From a historically wealthy and famous family, he is related to many well-known Irish figures. He is a kinsman of the Catholic Saint Oliver Plunkett, the martyred Archbishop of Armagh. He is also related to the prominent Anglo-Irish unionist and later nationalist Home Rule politician Sir Horace Plunkett and George Noble Plunkett, Papal Count and Republican politician, father of Joseph Plunkett, executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Death of Louise Gavan Duffy, Educator & Irish Language Enthusiast

Louise Gavan Duffy, educator, Irish language enthusiast and a Gaelic revivalist, dies in Dublin on October 12, 1969. She sets up the first Gaelscoil in Ireland. She is also a suffragist and Irish nationalist who is present in the General Post Office, the main headquarters during the 1916 Easter Rising.

Duffy is born in Nice, France, on July 17, 1884, the daughter of the Irish nationalist Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, one of the founders of The Nation and his third wife, Louise (née Hall) from Cheshire, England. Her mother dies when she is four. She is then raised in Nice by her Australian half-sisters from her father’s second marriage. It is a well-to-do and culturally vibrant home where she is exposed to political figures and ideas.

Duffy’s brother George Gavan Duffy, one of the signatories to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, is an Irish politician, barrister and judge. Her half-brother Sir Frank Gavan Duffy is the fourth Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, sitting on the bench from 1913 to 1935. Another brother works most of his life as a missionary in the French colony of Pondicherry.

Duffy’s first visit to Ireland is in 1903, at the age of 18, when her father dies and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. This is when she first hears Irish spoken. She finds a grammar book in a bookshop and becomes curious. Her father was not an Irish speaker, though her grandmother in the early 1800s was likely fluent.

Duffy spends the years between 1903 and 1907 between France and England. She takes courses through Cusack’s College in London so that she can matriculate.

Duffy decides to continue her studies in Dublin but cannot afford to move until she receives a small inheritance from her grandmother on the Hall side of the family. Once in Ireland in 1907, at the age of 23, she begins her university studies, taking arts. She lives in the Women’s College, Dominican Convent, as women are not allowed to attend lectures in the Royal University of Ireland. She goes occasionally to the Gaeltacht to learn Irish. Graduating in 1911 with a Bachelor of Arts from University College Dublin (UCD), she is one of the first women to do so.

Given the lack of teachers, even without a full qualification, Duffy then teaches in Patrick Pearse‘s St. Ita’s school for girls in Ranelagh. She studies with the Dominicans again in Eccles Street, gaining a Teaching Diploma from Cambridge University.

A supporter of women’s suffrage, Duffy speaks at a mass meeting in Dublin in 1912 in favour of having the Home Rule bill include a section to grant women the vote. She also joins the Irish republican women’s paramilitary organisation Cumann na mBan, as a founding member in April 1914, serving on the provisional committee with Mary Colum, as a co-secretary.

Duffy is aware that being a suffragist and a nationalist are not necessarily the same thing, realising her involvement in Cumann na mBan is in support of nationalism. When St. Ita’s closes due to funding problems in 1912, she takes the opportunity to complete her qualifications. After receiving her Cambridge teacher’s diploma in 1913, she returns to UCD to study for a Master of Arts degree.

Duffy is in fact working on her master’s thesis during the Easter break in 1916 when the rumour comes to her that the Rising has begun in Dublin city centre. She walks to the Rebel headquarters in the GPO where she tells Pearse, one of the leaders, that she does not agree with the violent uprising.

Duffy spends all of Easter week working in the GPO kitchens with other volunteers like Desmond FitzGerald and a couple of captured British soldiers, ensuring the volunteers are cared for. The women in the GPO are given the opportunity to leave under the protection of the Red Cross on the Thursday as the shelling of the building has caused fires, but almost all of them refuse. In the end, she is among the second group of the people to leave the GPO on the Friday, tunnelling through the walls of the buildings to avoid coming under fire.

Duffy’s group makes it to Jervis Street Hospital where they spend the night. The next day, Saturday, Pearse formally surrenders. She heads for Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, another volunteer position, on the morning after the surrender, to see what is happening. There she finds a holdout of volunteers who are unaware of the surrender or that the fighting is over.

After 1916 Duffy is elected to the Cumann na mBan’s executive and in 1918 is one of the signatories to a petition for self-determination for Ireland which is presented to President Woodrow Wilson by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. During her time in the GPO, she had collected names of the volunteers and promised to take messages to their families. This possibly influences her in being involved in the National Aid Association and Volunteers Dependants Fund. In the aftermath of the rebellion there are 64 known dead among the volunteers, while 3,430 men and 79 women are arrested. Families need support. These organisations are able to arrange funding from the United States.

In 1917, Duffy co-founds and runs Scoil Bhríde, as a secondary school for girls in Dublin through the medium of Gaelic. It is still in operation as a primary school. Her co-founder is Annie McHugh, who later marries Ernest Blythe. The end of the Rising leads to the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). During this time, she is mostly focused on the school. However, it is raided by the military and Duffy later admits it is in fact used for rebel meetings and to safeguard documents. In October 1920, the Irish leader Michael Collins meets Archbishop Patrick Clune there in secret. In an effort to support the nationwide boycott of the police, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), in 1920, she has a leaflet sent to all branches of Cumann na mBan which states in part that the RIC are the “eyes and ears of the enemy. Let those eyes and ears know no friendship.”

The war ends with the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. The result is the Irish Civil War which lasts until 1923. Duffy is a supporter of the Treaty, which her brother had signed, and as such she leaves Cumann na mBan and joins Cumann na Saoirse, in which she is instrumental in founding as an Irish republican women’s organisation which supports the Pro-Treaty side.

Once the civil war is over, Duffy leaves the political arena and returns to education. She especially needs to focus on funding in the early years of the school. She works with UCD’s Department of Education from 1926, once Scoil Bhríde is recognised as a teacher training school. She publishes educational documents like School Studies in The Appreciation of Art with Elizabeth Aughney and published by UCD in 1932.

Until her retirement, Duffy also lectures on the teaching of French. She retires as principal in 1944.

Once retired, Duffy gives much of her time to the Legion of Mary and to an association which works with French au pairs in Dublin. In 1948 she is awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by the National University of Ireland.

Recognising the importance of her first-hand experience and with a good political understanding, Duffy records her memories of the events in which she has taken part. In 1949, she gives an account of her life in relation to nationalist activities to the Bureau of Military History. She is involved in a Radio Éireann broadcast in 1956 about the women in the Rising. In 1962, she takes part in the RTÉ TV program Self Portrait broadcast on March 20, 1962. In March 1966 she gives a lecture in UCD to mark the 50th anniversary of the Rising which is published in The Easter rising, 1916, and University College Dublin (1966).

Duffy dies, unmarried, on October 12, 1969, aged 85, and is interred in the family plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.

In 2014, An Post issues a stamp to commemorate the centenary of the founding of Cumann na mBan. In 2016, for the centenary, a documentary is produced, discussing seven of the women, including Duffy, who were involved in the Easter Rising.


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Birth of Paddy Killoran, Fiddle Player & Bandleader

Patrick J. Killoran, Irish traditional fiddle player, bandleader and recording artist is born on September 21, 1903, in Emlaghgissan (also spelled “Emlagation”), a townland in the civil parish of Emlaghfad near the town of Ballymote, County Sligo. He is regarded, along with James Morrison and Michael Coleman, as one of the finest exponents of the south Sligo fiddle style in the “golden age” of the ethnic recording industry of the 1920s and 1930s.

Killoran’s father Patrick plays the flute and his mother Mary the concertina, but he is also influenced by local fiddle master Philip O’Beirne, who had earlier tutored Michael Coleman. As a teenager, he is a volunteer with the Ballymote-based 3rd Battalion of the south Sligo Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence.

In 1925, Killoran emigrates to New York City, arriving on May 19 on the Cunard liner Scythia. Within a few months, he officially declares his intention to become a citizen of the United States, listing his address as 227 East 126th Street in east Harlem and his occupation as “laborer.” He later lodges with fellow Sligo fiddler James Morrison in a Columbus Avenue apartment on Manhattan‘s Upper West Side. A 1927 newspaper ad for “Morrison’s Orchestra” offers “Irish music by P. Killoran and J. Morrison, celebrated violinists,” giving 507 West 133d Street in west Harlem as the contact address. He soon launches his own career as a soloist and bandleader. A publicity photo of his quartet c. 1928 includes button accordionist D. Casey, tenor banjo player Richard Curran and second fiddler Denis Murphy. By the next year, he is performing on a weekly radio program sponsored by the Pride of Erin Ballrooms, located at the corner of Bedford and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn. He also tries another side occupation as his 1931 naturalization petition lists his occupation as “Music store owner.”

At the Pride of Erin, and later at the Sligo Ballroom at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, Killoran’s “Irish Orchestra” provides music for Irish dancing, while Jack Healy, another Ballymote native, leads a group for “American” dancing. Healy, as a singer and tenor saxophone player, also performs and records with Killoran’s group, the membership of which over the course of the 1930s includes fiddler Paddy Sweeney, another Sligo native, fiddle and clarinet player Paul Ryan, Ryan’s brother Jim on the C Melody saxophone, pianists Eileen O’Shea, Edmund Tucker and Jim McGinn, drummer Mickey Murphy, button accordionists Tommy Flanagan and William McElligott and tenor banjo/tenor guitar player Michael “Whitey” Andrews.

Killoran’s band is variously billed as his “Pride of Erin Orchestra,” “Radio Dance Orchestra,” “Sligo Ballroom Orchestra,” “Lakes of Sligo Orchestra” and “Irish Barn Dance Boys.” The group is a popular choice for county association functions, particularly those of Sligo and Roscommon. In 1932, he leads a band that accompanies Cardinal William Henry O’Connell of Boston to the Eucharistic Congress in Ireland and briefly bills his group as the “Pride of Erin Eucharistic Congress Orchestra.” He regularly performs at Irish beach resorts on the Rockaway peninsula and in East Durham in the Catskill Mountains.

Uniquely among the major New York Irish musicians of the pre-World War II era, Killoran continues his musical career through the 1950s. He issues new recordings, including duets with flute player Mike Flynn and some fiddle-and-viola sides with Paul Ryan, and leads an active dance band. Age and illness eventually force him to retire, and in 1962 he turns over leadership of the band, a fixture at the City Center Ballroom, to button accordionist Joe Madden, father of Cherish the Ladies flute player Joanie Madden.

In 1956, Killoran is a co-founder of the Dublin Recording Company, later better known simply as Dublin Records, which is organized to record new Irish discs in New York.

Killoran is a founding member of the Emerald Irish Musicians Benevolent Society, a group that stages “Night of Shamrocks” concerts to raise money for the benefit of sick and deceased Irish musicians in New York. He is also a member of the Irish Musicians Association of America, and a New York branch of that organization, which later merges with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann, is named for him.

In addition to the 1932 trip to the Eucharistic Congress, Killoran returns to Ireland at least twice. In 1949, he plays on a Radio Éireann program hosted by piper and folklorist Séamus Ennis. Some selections from that broadcast are recorded on a private disc and are later released on CD. On a 1960 visit, he visits Sligo and Clare and performs at a concert in County Longford.

Killoran is married twice. His first wife, Anna Gorman, a native of County Roscommon, dies in 1935. His second wife is Betty (Bridget) Hayes, an immigrant from Shanaway West, County Clare, who survives him. He dies in New York City on April 24, 1965.

A “Paddy Killoran Traditional Festival” is celebrated in the third week of June in Ballymote, where a monument in Killoran’s honor is erected in 2012.


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Birth of Liam Ó Briain, Irish Language Expert & Political Activist

Liam Ó Briain, Irish language expert and political activist, is born at 10 Church Street, North Wall, Dublin, on September 16, 1888.

Christened as William O’Brien, the seventh child of Arthur O’Brien, clerk, and Mary O’Brien (née Christie), who is from County Meath, Ó Briain takes an interest in the Irish language from an early age and begins learning Irish by himself from a grammar book, as it is not encouraged by his teachers at the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School nor spoken by his parents. While still at the O’Connell School, he starts using the Irish version of his name. He also attends meetings of the Gaelic League, then attends University College Dublin (UCD) on a scholarship, where he studies French, English and Irish, receiving a BA (1909) and an MA (1910).

UCD decides to start awarding one annual scholarship for overseas travel in 1911, and Ó Briain wins the first one, using it to visit Germany and study under Kuno Meyer and Rudolf Thurneysen. After three years, he returns home, where he rejoins the Gaelic League and begins teaching French at UCD. He also joins the Irish Volunteers then, the following year, Seán T. O’Kelly convinces him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Ó Briain sees action with the Irish Citizen Army. He comes into conflict with his commander, Michael Mallin, as he wants to pursue a strategy without the Dublin brigade being “cooped up in the city.” However, Mallin overrules him and insists they should focus on taking Dublin Castle. He spends two months in Wandsworth Prison in London and six months in Frongoch internment camp in Wales before being released to discover that he has been fired from his job. However, he quickly obtains a professorship in Romance languages at University College Galway (UCG).

Around this time, Ó Briain joins Sinn Féin, and he stands unsuccessfully for the party in Mid Armagh at the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, taking 5,689 votes. His campaign leads, indirectly, to his arrest and three months in jail in Belfast. In 1920, following his release, he is appointed a judge in the then-illegal republican court system in Galway, and visits both France and Italy to try to source weapons for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In November 1920, he is arrested in the UCG dining room by Black and Tans, and is imprisoned for thirteen months, first in Galway and then in the Curragh camp in County Kildare, thereby missing the conclusion of the Irish War of Independence. By the time he is released, the Anglo-Irish Treaty has been signed. He supports the treaty and takes no further part in militant activity.

In the newly independent Ireland, Ó Briain remains a professor at Galway. He also stands in the 1925 Seanad election, although he is not successful. He is the founding secretary of the Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe theatre, also acting in many of its productions, and spends much time translating works from English and the Romance languages into Irish. He stands to become president of UCG in 1945, but is not elected, and in the 1940s and 1950s is best known for his many appearances on television and radio.

From his retirement in 1959, Ó Briain lives in Dublin. In 1974, the National University of Ireland (NUI) confers an honorary doctorate on him. He dies on August 12, 1974, at St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Cabinteely, County Dublin. His funeral to Glasnevin Cemetery is almost a state occasion, with a huge attendance of public figures, and a military firing party at the graveside, where the oration is given by Micheál Mac Líammóir and a lesson is read by Siobhán McKenna. For days after his death, the newspapers carry tributes to his many-sided career and personality. On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and Art Ó Beoláin write commemorative articles in Feasta.

On September 1, 1921, Ó Briain marries Helen Lawlor, of Dublin, who dies two years before him. The couple’s only child is Eibhlín Ní Bhriain, who is a journalist for The Irish Times and other periodicals.