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Death of William Conway, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

William John Cardinal Conway, Irish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who serves as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland from 1963 until his death, dies in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, on April 17, 1977, after a short illness.

Conway is born on January 22, 1913, in Belfast, the eldest of four sons and five daughters of Patrick Joseph Conway and Annie Conway (née Donnelly). His father, a self-employed housepainter, also has a paint shop in Kent Street off Royal Avenue. His mother, who survives her son, is born in Carlingford, County Louth. He attends Boundary Street Primary School, St. Mary’s CBS (now St. Mary’s CBGS Belfast). His academic successes are crowned by a scholarship to Queen’s University Belfast. He decides to study for the diocesan priesthood. In 1933 he is conferred with an honours BA in English literature and goes on to read a distinguished course in theology at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

Conway is ordained on June 20, 1937, and awarded a DD (1938). On November 12, 1938, he enters the Pontifical Irish College in Rome, and in 1941 he receives the DCL degree at the Pontifical Gregorian University. When Italy enters World War II in June 1940, he returns to Belfast to take up duty in the Diocese of Down and Connor. He is appointed to teach English and Latin in St. Malachy’s College in Belfast, but after one year he is named professor of moral theology and canon law in Maynooth. He contributes regular ‘Canon law replies’ to the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, which are later collected as Problems in canon law (1950), the only book published by him.

In 1957 Conway becomes vice-president of Maynooth, and in 1958, he is named Ireland’s youngest bishop, Titular Bishop of Neve, and auxiliary bishop to Cardinal John D’Alton, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. He is consecrated in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh on July 27, 1958. He serves as administrator of St. Patrick’s Church, Dundalk, for the next five years, gaining valuable pastoral experience, and also uses these years to familiarise himself with his new diocese, especially its geography. On the death of D’Alton, he is chosen to succeed him in September 1963, and is enthroned on September 25 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh by the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Sensi. At the end of 1964, Pope Paul VI chooses him as Ireland’s seventh residential cardinal, and he receives the red hat in the public consistory of February 22, 1965.

The thirteen-odd years of Conway’s ministry as primate are dominated firstly by the Second Vatican Council and secondly by the Troubles in Northern Ireland. His primary concern is the church, to steer it through testing times. He is a very active bishop in a diocese of 160,000 Catholics, with fifty-seven parishes and some 167 priests. He carries the burden alone until 1974 when he is given an auxiliary in the person of his secretary, Fr. Francis Lenny (1928–78). Two new parishes are created, five new churches are built, and many others are renovated to meet the requirements of liturgical reform. Twenty new schools are also provided. He attends all four sessions of the Vatican council (1962–65), as auxiliary bishop and as primate. On October 9, 1963, he addresses the assembly, making a plea that the council might not be so concerned with weightier matters as to neglect to speak about priests. He also makes contributions on the topics of mixed marriages, Catholic schools, and the laity. On the topic of education, he is convinced that integrated schools will not solve Northern Ireland’s problems.

Conway represents the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference at each assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome, at first with Bishop Michael Browne of the Diocese of Galway and Kilmacduagh, his former professor in Maynooth, and later with the Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Ryan. With Cardinals Jean-Marie Villot and Pericle Felici, he is chairman of the first synod in 1969, a signal honour conferred on him by Pope Paul VI. He addresses the assembly, opposing the ordination of married men as a move that would release a flood of applications from around the world for dispensations from priestly celibacy. His experience of violence in Northern Ireland is reflected in contributions he makes to later synod assemblies, especially in 1971 and 1974.

Apart from the synod, Conway travels a few times each year to Rome for meetings of the three Roman congregations on which he is called to serve (those of bishops, catholic education, and the evangelisation of peoples) and the commission for the revision of the code of canon law. He also travels further afield in a representative capacity to the International Eucharistic Congress at Bogotá, also attended by Pope Paul VI, and to Madras (1972), where he acts as papal legate for the centenary celebrations in honour of St. Thomas. In 1966 he is invited by the bishops of Poland to join in celebrations for the millennium of Catholicism in that country but is refused an entry visa by the Polish government. In January 1973 he feels obliged to forgo participation in the Melbourne eucharistic congress because of the troubled situation at home. Within Ireland he accepts invitations to become a freeman of Cork and Galway (1965) and of Wexford (1966). In 1976 the National University of Ireland (NUI) confers on him an honorary LL.D.

Conway is acknowledged as an able and diligent chairman of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The core problem in the early years is how to lead the Irish church into the difficult new era that follows the council. He shows exceptional leadership qualities in the manner in which he promotes firm but gentle progress, avoiding sudden trauma and divisions. A major event in his term as Archbishop of Armagh, and one that gives him much satisfaction, is the canonization of Oliver Plunkett, his martyred predecessor, in the holy year 1975. He follows with great interest the final stages of the cause from 1968 and is greatly disappointed when grounded by his doctors six weeks before the event. He does however take part, concelebrating with Pope Paul VI at the ceremony on October 12, 1975. He also presides the following evening at the first mass of thanksgiving in the Lateran Basilica, receiving a tumultuous applause from the thousands of Irish present.

More than anything else, the Troubles in Northern Ireland occupy Conway during the second half of his term as archbishop and primate. He is the leading spokesman of the Catholic cause but never fails to condemn atrocities wherever the responsibility lay. He brands as ‘monsters’ the terrorist bombers on both sides. In 1971 he denounces internment without trial, and the following year he is mainly responsible for highlighting the ill-treatment and even torture of prisoners in Northern Ireland. He repudiates the idea that the conflict is religious in nature, emphasising its social and political dimensions, and is openly critical of the British government over conditions in Long Kesh Detention Centre, and of ‘the cloak of almost total silence’ surrounding violence against the Catholic community.

In January 1977 Conway undergoes surgery in a Dublin hospital, and almost immediately comes to know that he is terminally ill. It is the best-kept secret in Ireland until close to the end. On March 29, he writes to his fellow bishops informing them that the prognosis regarding his health is ‘not good, in fact . . . very bad,’ and that he is perfectly reconciled to God’s will. He is still able to work at his desk until Good Friday, April 8, 1977.

Conway dies in Armagh on Low Sunday night, April 17, 1977. Seven countries are represented at his funeral by six cardinals and many bishops. The apostolic nuncio, the bishops of Ireland, the president and Taoiseach, six Irish government ministers, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland are also among the mourners. The cardinal is laid to rest in St. Patrick’s Cathedral Cemetery, Armagh. The red hat received from Pope Paul VI is suspended from the ceiling of the Lady chapel, joining those of his four immediate predecessors.

(From: “Conway, John William,” Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, contributed by J. J. Hanley)


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Birth of Linda Martin, Singer & Television Presenter

Linda Martin, Northern Irish singer and television presenter, is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on March 27, 1952. She is best known as the winner of the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest during which she represents Ireland with the song “Why Me?,” the first of a record three consecutive wins by Ireland. She is also known within Ireland as a member of the band Chips.

Martin is of Irish, Scottish and Italian ancestry. Her father’s family’s surname is originally Martini. Her paternal great-grandfather, Francis Martini, is born in Dublin to immigrants from Saronno, north of Milan, Italy. Two of her maternal great-grandparents, William Green and Elizabeth Nangle, have a coal-mining background and transferred to Belfast from Larkhall, Scotland.

Martin begins her musical career when she joins the band Chips in Omagh in 1969. They quickly become one of the top bands in Ireland on the live circuit, and release hit singles “Love Matters,” “Twice a Week” and “Goodbye Goodbye” during the mid-to-late 1970s. In 1972, she leaves Chips to be a vocalist with the new group Lyttle People but rejoins her former bandmates the following year.

The group appears on Opportunity Knocks in 1974 and appears a number of times on British television promoting their singles, but never scores a UK hit. With multiple entries to the Irish National finals of the Eurovision Song Contest, the band carries on into the 1980s. They score a final Irish hit in 1982 with “David’s Song (Who’ll Come With Me),” after which Martin leaves when she wins the Castlebar Song Contest with “Edge of the Universe” in 1983. From this point, she concentrates on a solo career as well as occasional live appearances with Chips until they recruit a new lead singer, Valerie Roe, in the late 1980s.

Martin participates in the National Song Contest four times as a member of Chips; however, they do not score successfully. She participates another four times in the contest as a soloist and once more as part of the group “Linda Martin and Friends.” With nine participations, she has been the most frequent entrant in the National Song Contest’s history. She wins the contest twice, going on to represent Ireland twice at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The first of these victories is in 1984 with the song “Terminal 3,” written by Johnny Logan. The song comes in second in the final, being beaten by eight points. “Terminal 3” reaches No. 7 in the Irish charts. The second victory is in 1992 when her song “Why Me?,” also written by Logan, goes on to win the final in Sweden. This becomes Ireland’s fourth victory in the Eurovision Song Contest, and the song reaches No. 1 in the Irish chart as well as becoming a hit in many European countries.

Martin is, at the time, one of only three artists to finish both first and second at Eurovision, behind Lys Assia and Gigliola Cinquetti. Since then, only Elisabeth Andreassen and Dima Bilan have achieved this, raising the number to five.

Martin is one of the hosts on the RTÉ quiz show The Lyrics Board and also serves as one of Louis Walsh‘s behind-the-scenes team on the first series of ITV‘s The X Factor. She also serves as a judge on the first, second and fourth seasons of RTÉ’s You’re a Star and on Charity You’re a Star in 2005 and 2006. While she is dismissed from later seasons, speaking on Saturday Night with Miriam on RTÉ television on July 28, 2007, she says that she is “open” to being invited back to the show. She does not rule out a return to Eurovision following Ireland’s dismal performance in the 2007 contest, finishing last with only five points.

Martin is a guest performer at Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, in October 2005. She is also the Irish spokesperson for Eurovision Song Contest 2007 and is one of the five judges for Eurosong 2009. In 2012, she is the mentor for Jedward in the Irish Eurovision final Eurosong 2012.

During the interval of Eurovision 2013, the host Petra Mede presents a light-hearted history of the contest, during which she explains to viewers that Johnny Logan had won the competition three times, in 1980, 1987 and 1992. Appearing alongside Linda Martin in some vintage footage she jokes that he had won the third time disguised as a woman, saying, “I recognise a drag queen when I see one.” The joke proves controversial, particularly in the Irish media. However, on June 1, 2013, during an appearance on RTÉ’s The Saturday Night Show Martin says that she has actually benefited from all the publicity. On the same show she performs a cover of the song “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk.

Martin also appears in pantomime, in Dublin. She stars in Cinderella as the Wicked Stepmother, Snow White as the Evil Queen and Robin Hood as herself, at the Olympia Theatre. She tours Menopause The Musical with Irish entertainer Twink. While on tour, Twink describes Martin as a “cunt” during a tirade in May 2010. The two had been friends for 30 years but both say afterwards that they have no plans to speak to each other again.


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Birth of Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount Galmoye

Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount Galmoye, otherwise Viscount Galmoy, an Anglo-Irish nobleman, is born on March 21, 1652. He is descended from Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, and is the son of Edward Butler, 2nd Viscount Galmoye, and Eleanor (née Whyte), daughter of Sir Nicholas Whyte of Leixlip, County Kildare.

Butler succeeds to the title at the age of fifteen and was educated at the University of Oxford, taking the degree of LL.D. in 1677. In 1678, he is commissioned as a captain in Colonel Thomas Dongan‘s regiment, which is disbanded before he takes up his post.

Under James II of England Butler is Privy Councillor of Ireland, Lieutenant of the County of Kilkenny, and Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Irish Horse. Serving as part of the Jacobite Irish Army, he commands a regiment at the Battle of the Boyne and serves with distinction in the Battle of Aughrim. He is one of the signatories of the Treaty of Limerick. At the Glorious Revolution, he might have been able to secure his old estates of 10,000 acres in Kilkenny and 5,000 in Wexford, had he consented to give his allegiance to William III of England rather than following Patrick Sarsfield and James II into exile in France. Instead, the English Parliament attaints him and declares his titles forfeited in 1697 by the statute 9 Will. 3. c. 4.

In 1692, Butler is created Earl of Newcastle in County Limerick in the Jacobite peerage of Ireland. In France he is named Colonel of the 2nd Queen’s Regiment of Irish Horse in the service of that country and serves with distinction in various battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, also becoming a Lieutenant-General in the Spanish army. He is at the Siege of Roses in 1693, and in 1694 is a Brigadier attached to the army of Germany. He serves in Italy and other parts of Continental Europe from 1701 to 1703, sharing all the fortunes of the Irish Brigade. He later serves in the French army as a Lieutenant-General. He is created Brigadier of Cavalry in 1694.

Butler marries Anne Mathew and with her has one son, Colonel Edward Butler, who is killed at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. After the death of his first wife, he marries Henrietta FitzJames, the illegitimate daughter of King James II and Arabella Churchill and the widow of Henry Waldegrave, 1st Baron Waldegrave, on April 3, 1695. She deserts him and returns to England.

Butler dies at the age of eighty-eight in Paris on June 18, 1740, and is buried at St. Paul’s there. John C. O’Callaghan writes in Irish Brigades in the Service of France (Glasgow, 1870): “The successive claimants of the title of Galmoy were officers in France down to the Revolution; in whose armies, as well as in others, various gentlemen have honourably represented a name, of which the illustrious General Lafayette is related to have said, in the war for the independence of the United States of America, that ‘whenever he wanted anything well done, he got a Butler to do it.'”

Notwithstanding the attainder, the viscountcy is assumed by his nephew, James Butler of the Irish Brigade in France, the son of the Viscount’s brother, Richard Butler of Galmoye.


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Death of Richard Robert Madden, Abolitionist & United Irishmen Historian

Richard Robert Madden, Irish doctor, writer, abolitionist and historian of the United Irishmen, dies at his home in Booterstown, a coastal suburb of Dublin, on February 5, 1886. He takes an active role in trying to impose anti-slavery rules in Jamaica on behalf of the British government.

Madden is born at Wormwood Gate, Dublin, on August 22, 1798, to Edward Madden, a silk manufacturer, and his wife Elizabeth (née Corey). His father marries twice and fathers twenty-one children.

Madden attends private schools and is found a medical apprenticeship in Athboy, County Meath. He studies medicine in Paris, Italy, and St. George’s Hospital, London. While in Naples he becomes acquainted with Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, and her circle. From 1824 to 1827 he is in the Levant as a journalist and later publishes accounts of his travels.

In 1828, Madden marries Harriet Elmslie, daughter of John Elmslie of Jamaica, a slave-owner. He then practises medicine in Mayfair, London, for the next five years.

Madden becomes a recruit to the abolitionist cause. The transatlantic slave trade has been illegal in the British Empire since 1807, but slavery itself remains legal.

From 1833, Madden is employed in the British civil service, first as a justice of the peace in Jamaica, where he is one of six Special Magistrates sent to oversee the eventual liberation of Jamaica’s slave population, according to the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. From 1835 he is Superintendent of the freed Africans in Havana, Cuba. In 1839 he leaves Cuba for New York, where he provides important evidence for the defense of the former slaves who had taken over the slave ship La Amistad.

In 1840 Madden becomes Her Majesty’s Special Commissioner of Inquiry into the British Settlements on the West Coast of Africa. His task is to investigate how the slave trade is continuing to operate on the west coast of Africa, despite the shipping of African slaves across the Atlantic Ocean now being illegal. He finds that London-based merchants (including Whig MP Matthew Forster) are actively helping the slave traders, and that crudely disguised forms of slavery exist in all the coast settlements. He particularly condemns the actions of George Maclean, the Governor of Gold Coast.

In 1847 Madden becomes the Colonial Secretary of Western Australia and arrives in the colony in 1848. After receiving news of their oldest son’s death back in Ireland, he and Harriet return to Dublin in 1849. In 1850 he is named secretary of the Office for Loan Funds in Dublin.

Madden also campaigns against slavery in Cuba, speaking to the General Anti-Slavery Convention in London on the topic of slavery in Cuba.

Madden dies at his home in Booterstown, just south of Dublin, on February 5, 1886, and is interred in Donnybrook Cemetery.

Besides several travel diaries (Travels in Turkey, Egypt etc. in 1824–27, 1829, and others (1833)), his works include the historically significant book The United Irishmen, their lives and times (1842-1860, 11 Vols.), which contains numerous details on the Irish Rebellion of 1798, including testimonies collected from veteran rebels and from family members of deceased United Irishmen.


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Birth of Mildred Anne Butler, Animal & Genre Painter

Mildred Anne Butler, Irish artist who works in watercolour and oil of landscape, genre and animal subjects, is born on January 11, 1858, in Kilmurry, a Georgian house near Thomastown, County Kilkenny.

The youngest daughter of Captain Henry Butler, a grandson of the Edmund Butler, 11th Viscount Mountgarret, and Clara Butler (née Taylor) of the Newarke, Leicester, England. Her father is himself an enthusiastic painter, known for his publication South African sketches: illustrative of the wildlife of a hunter on the frontier of Cape Colony (1841). Her early artistic efforts are mainly copies of romantic subjects, but the influence of the London artist Paul Jacob Naftel, with whom she begins corresponding in the early 1880s, proves to be crucial to her artistic development. Studies with William Frank Calderon, an expert in animal painting, are also significant. She subsequently spends the summers of 1894 and 1895 in Newlyn, Cornwall, England, with the Irish artist Norman Garstin, who introduces her to contemporary French painting.

In 1885, Butler makes her first visit to the continent, traveling through France, Switzerland, and Italy. From 1905 to 1914 she travels regularly to Europe, most particularly Aix-les-Bains and Wiesbaden, during which time she produces genre views of French and German villages. After 1914 her life at the family home is interrupted only by visits to London exhibitions. She is best known for her paintings of Kilmurry and its environs, many of which display an interest in botany. Much of her work is dominated by detailed representations of animals and birds, often drawn from photographs and stuffed specimens.

Butler’s career as an exhibitor begins in 1882 with the Irish Fine Arts Society, later known as the Water Colour Society of Ireland (WCSI), with which she has a long association. She exhibits regularly with the society from 1892 onward and is a member of its committee for many years. She is also closely associated with the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery in London. Her work is first shown there in 1888, and on this evidence, she is elected to their society. The purchase by the Chantrey bequest for the Tate Gallery of The Morning Bath for £50 in 1896 is a high point in her career. The first painting by a woman to be selected by the council, its purchase is followed by almost consistently good press reviews for her work. The Athenaeum of May 5, 1897, writes: “The young lady knows how to look at her subjects with the eyes of a well-trained artist.”

Butler also comes to the attention of the American artistic press. She contributes to the portfolio of drawings given by the Society of Lady Artists to Princess May on her marriage to the Duke of York in 1893, while in 1922 her work is included in the portfolio presented to Princess Mary on her marriage. Her patrons include Queen Alexandra, and the grand duke of Hesse, who purchases two of her paintings after she is invited to exhibit in Hesse Darmstadt in 1911. In 1914 she is made a member of the Union Internationale des Beaux Arts, and in 1921 her paintings are shown in Japan. She regularly exhibits with the Belfast Ramblers, the Royal Ulster Academy, the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), the Society of Lady Artists, and the Royal Watercolour Society, of which she is made an associate member in 1896, and a full member in 1937.

In her later years, severe rheumatism prevents Butler from painting. She has a keen interest in music. She survives all five of her siblings, and inherits Kilmurry, where she dies on October 11, 1941. She is buried at Thomastown, County Kilkenny. Her paintings are represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, the Ulster Museum, and the Tate, London.

(From: “Butler, Mildred Anne” by Frances Clarke, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Birth of William Thompson, Naturalist

William Thompson, Irish naturalist celebrated for his founding studies of the natural history of Ireland, especially in ornithology and marine biology, is born on December 2, 1805, in the booming maritime city of Belfast.

Thompson is the eldest son of William Thompson, a prosperous linen merchant, and Elizabeth Thompson (née Callwell). He has at least two older sisters and several younger brothers. His mother’s father is Robert Callwell, a printer, book-collector, partner in the Commercial Bank, Belfast, and one of the owners of the Northern Star newspaper.

After attending the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI) from 1818, Thompson is apprenticed in the linen business of William Sinclair in 1821. When his apprenticeship ends, he goes with his cousin George Langtry, later a wealthy shipowner, on a four-month tour (May–September 1826) of the Low Countries, the Rhine, Switzerland, and Italy. On his return to Belfast, he sets up his own business in linen bleaching. Despite early success, losses are incurred. As family and economic circumstances change, he increasingly concentrates on his natural history studies. By 1831 he has given up business. A self-taught naturalist, related by ties of kinship or friendship to most of the liberal and cultivated families of the “northern Athens,” he is shy and fastidious, but is persuaded in 1826 to join the Belfast Natural History Society by its founder, his friend James Lawson Drummond. He reads his first scientific paper, The Birds of the Copeland Islands, to the society on August 13, 1827. In that year he becomes a member of the Belfast Natural History Society’s council, and in 1833 he is chosen as one of the society’s vice-presidents. He is president from 1843 until his death.

Thompson becomes the most important naturalist in mid nineteenth-century Ireland. From 1827 to 1852 he contributes almost eighty papers on Irish natural history to the Magazine of Zoology and Botany and the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. From 1836 to 1851 he contributes to The Magazine of Natural History. Invited to travel to the Levant and the Aegean Sea in April–July 1841 with Edward Forbes, professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh, on HMS Beacon, he observes twenty-three species of birds on migratory flights and publishes “Notice of migratory birds” in The Annals of Natural History. His authoritative observations add considerably to knowledge of the still-to-be-ascertained details of migratory patterns. Indeed, some people refuse to believe, even at that date, that birds do migrate. He publishes other papers in the same journal during 1841–43. At a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Glasgow in 1840 his Report on the fauna of Ireland (Vertebrata) attracts favourable notice. He presents and publishes a second and final part enumerating the invertebrates at the Cork meeting of the British Association in August 1843. The two reports form the most complete catalogue of Irish fauna yet published. Thanks to an assiduous correspondence with a network of informants, as well as his own extensive observations, he adds perhaps more than 800 species to Irish fauna lists.

Thompson’s chief work, The Natural History of Ireland, becomes the standard text in Irish zoology in the nineteenth century. The first three volumes, published between 1849 and 1851, deal with birds, particularly their habits and habitats rather than physical descriptions. He is one of the first naturalists to note the effects of industrialisation and other human activities on birdlife. He leaves instructions for his manuscripts on the remaining vertebrates and all the invertebrates to be prepared for publication by Robert Patterson and James Ramsey Garrett. Robert Ball and George Dickie also assist. His notes, though detailed and comprehensive, all require checking, and are found on tiny scraps of paper, even scribbled on the flaps of old envelopes. James Thompson of Macedon, Belfast, painstakingly gums them all into blank notebooks to facilitate the work of his brother’s literary executors, who preface the posthumous publication in 1856 with a lengthy memoir of their friend.

From about 1820 to 1852 Thompson lives with his mother at 1 Donegall Square West, Belfast, commuting from Holywood House, Holywood, County Down, during the summer. His daily routine begins with research, correspondence, or writing for publications for four hours after breakfast. After a two- or three-hour exercise period and dinner, he returns to work for a further two to three hours. He is president of the Belfast Literary Society (1837–39) and also an enthusiastic patron of the visual arts in the city. He enjoys hunting, wildfowling, shooting in Scotland, and gardening, though his health deteriorates from the 1840s.

Early in 1852 Thompson travels to London to make arrangements for that year’s Belfast meeting of the British Association. On February 15 he becomes ill, having suffered a minor stroke. He dies, unmarried, at his Jermyn Street lodgings on the day he is due to return home, February 17, 1852. He is buried in Clifton Street Cemetery, Belfast. He bequeaths his collection to the Belfast Natural History Society, and in March 1852 the Society adds a memorial Thompson Room to its museum, paid for by subscription.

Thompson is a corresponding member of natural history societies in Boston and Philadelphia and has many friends. He is known to assist many other researchers in Ireland, Britain, and the Continent. One of those who thinks highly of his work is Charles Darwin, with whom he corresponds. He also helps many local people, including the poet Francis Davis, with money and practical assistance. He is much loved, and his friends are deeply saddened by his death. His niece, Sydney Mary Thompson, later known by her married surname, Christen, who is born in Belfast, is an amateur naturalist, geologist, and artist, one of the first women to achieve distinction in geology.

(From: “Thompson, William” by Andrew O’Brien and Linde Lunney, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Death of Michele Esposito, Composer, Conductor & Pianist

Michele Esposito, Italian composer, conductor and pianist who spends most of his professional life in Dublin, dies on November 19, 1929.

Esposito is born at Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples, Italy, on September 29, 1855. In 1865, he wins a scholarship to the Naples Conservatory as a piano pupil of Beniamino Cesi, himself a favourite pupil of Sigismond Thalberg, and studies composition there for eight years under Paolo Serrao, teacher of Francesco Cilea and others. He is a near-contemporary of Giuseppe Martucci, and a few years the senior of Alessandro Longo, both taught by these teachers. In 1878, he goes to Paris for several years where he establishes a growing reputation.

In 1879, Esposito marries Natalia Klebnikoff, the only daughter of Pierre Klebnikoff, professor of chemistry and physics at Saint Petersburg University. They have four children, including the noted scholar, Mario Esposito.

On December 24, 1881, Esposito is visited by an old friend, Caracciolo, who is principal professor of singing at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) in Dublin. Upon his recommendation, Esposito is offered the position of chief pianoforte professor of piano at the RIAM at Easter 1882.

Esposito remains in Dublin for more than forty years, devoting himself to the encouragement of classical music in Dublin. He inaugurates the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) chamber music recitals, with great success, and gives piano recitals for the Society every year. He establishes the Dublin Orchestral Society in 1898 and is its conductor until its disbandment in 1914. He is also the conductor of the Sunday Orchestral Concerts until they are discontinued in 1914. He conducts concerts of the London Symphony Orchestra at Woodbrook in 1913 and 1914, and also performs his piano concerto with them under the baton of Hamilton Harty. Together with Sir Stanley Cochrane, he founds the music publishing company C. E. Edition.

Esposito receives awards from the Feis Ceoil for his cantata Deirdre, his Irish Symphony and his String Quartet in D major. His Cello Sonata wins a prize from the London Incorporated Society of Musicians in 1899. His Violin Sonata in E minor gains a prize offered by La Société Nouvelle, Paris, in 1907, and his String Quartet in C minor wins another offered by the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna.

In 1923, King Victor Emmanuel III awards Esposito the Order of the Crown of Italy, with the title “Commendatore,” to mark his contribution to Irish music.

Esposito retires in 1928 and returns to Italy after failing to revive the Dublin Orchestral Society the previous year. He dies on November 19, 1929, in Florence. He is buried at the Cimitero di Trespiano where his gravestone is inscribed with three bars of music by “H. H.” Of his four children, Vera Esposito is involved in Irish theatre, and Mario Esposito becomes a scholar of Latin learning in medieval Ireland.


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Birth of Peter Lacy, Irish-born Officer in the Imperial Russian Army

Peter Lacy, Irish-born soldier who later serves in the Imperial Russian Army, is born Pierce Edmond de Lacy into a noble Irish family on September 26, 1678, in Killeedy near Limerick, County Limerick. Considered one of the most successful Russian Imperial commanders before Pyotr Rumyantsev and Alexander Suvorov, in a military career that spans half a century, he claims to have participated in 31 campaigns, 18 battles, and 18 sieges.

At the age of 13, during the Williamite War in Ireland, Lacy is attached to the Jacobite defence of Limerick against the Williamites with the rank of Lieutenant. The Flight of the Wild Geese follows, with him, his father and his brother joining the Irish Brigade in France. After his relatives lose their lives fighting for Louis XIV in Italy, he is induced to seek his fortune elsewhere. After two years of service in the Austrian army, he follows his commander, Charles Eugène de Croÿ, into the Russian service.

Lacy’s first taste of land battle in Russia is the disastrous defeat at Narva, in which he commands a unit of musketeers, holding the rank of poruchik. During the Great Northern War he is seriously wounded on two occasions, also gaining the rank of colonel in 1706. In the same year, Peter the Great gives him command of the Polotskii regiment and three new regiments raising him to colonel status. The following year he leads his brigade at Poltava and in the ensuing battle he greatly distinguishes himself. In the 1708 battle of Rumna, he attacks and captures the headquarters of Charles XII of Sweden. He gains fame at this stage by advising the Czar that musketeers should wait until they were within a few yards of the enemy before opening fire. Prior to this, the Russians were known for uncoordinated fire. From this point begins his fame as a soldier. His next active service, still under Prince Anikita Repnin, is the siege of Riga. He is reputedly the first Russian officer to enter the capital of Livland and he is appointed the first Russian chatelain of Riga Castle in the aftermath.

In 1719, Major General Fyodor Apraksin‘s fleet lands Lacy with 5,000 infantry and 370 cavalry near Umeå in Sweden, where they proceed to devastate a dozen iron foundries and a number of mills. Two years later he leads a similar action against Sundsvall. Soon promoted to General, he enters the Military Collegium, as the Russian Ministry of Defense was then known, in 1723. Three years later, he succeeds Repnin in command of the Russian forces quartered in Livland, and in 1729 he is appointed Governor of Riga. These positions bring him in contact with the Duchess of Courland, who before long ascends the Russian throne as Empress Anna. During her reign, Lacy’s capacity for supreme command is never doubted.

Lacy is one of the first recipients of the Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky when it is established, furthermore, he is given command of all infantries in Saint Petersburg, Ingria and Novgorod. By 1728 he is ranked third of only six full generals in the Russian Army and the only foreigner. As a foreigner, his salary is 3,600 Roubles a year, 15% higher than Russian generals. Higher salaries for foreign-born generals are seen in other ranks too. His signature, even on documents in Cyrillic script, always appear in English and Latin script which suggests he never gains proficiency in the Russian language.

When Catherine is Empress, Lacy is given responsibility for removing Maurice de Saxe from Courland. Saxe had managed to gain support and was even mentioned as marrying Anna, Duchess of Courland.

Having saved her from marriage to Saxe, Anna is very familiar with Lacy, and he becomes one of her most trusted generals. The War of the Polish Succession again calls him into the field. In 1733, he and Burkhard Christoph von Münnich expel the Polish king, Stanisław I, from Warsaw to Danzig, which is besieged by them in 1734. Thereupon the Irishman is commanded to march toward the Rhine and join his 13,500-strong contingent with the forces of Eugene of Savoy. To that end, his corps advances into Germany and, meeting the Austrians on August 16, returns to winter quarters in Moravia with exemplary discipline. In 1734, he commands Russian forces at the Siege of Danzig in which French and Polish forces are defeated. Lacy leads the Russians in two other decisive battles of the conflict, Wisiczin and Busawitza. In the latter battle, he is outnumbered ten to one but nevertheless prevails. For this victory, he is awarded Order of the White Eagle. After Busawitza Lacy is ordered to reinforce the Austrians at Mannheim. however, when he reaches Mannheim peace has been declared. He is received by Emperor Charles and Viennese society. On his return from Vienna, he is met by a courier from Saint Petersburg who delivers to him his patent honouring him as Field Marshal.

With the patent of Field Marshal is the news that Russia is at war with Turkey and Lacy is ordered at once to capture Azov Fortress. This he does despite being wounded in the fray. His rival, Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, had been campaigning in the Crimea with little success. Thus, after taking Azov, Lacy is ordered to capture Crimea. He bridges the Sea of Azov at a narrow point near Perekop. Within four days, aided by favourable winds and tides, his entire army crosses it and begins marching on Arabat. The Russians meet the Khan’s much larger Crimean army and rout them in two battles, on June 12 and 14. In 1738, his corps again land in Crimea and take the fortress of Chufut-Kale near the Khan’s capital, Bakhchisaray. For his success in Poland and Crimea he is awarded the Order of St. Andrew.

As soon as peace has been restored, Lacy is reinstated as the Governor of Livland, while Emperor Charles VI confers on him the title of an imperial count. His indifference to politics prevents his downfall following Anna’s death, when other foreign commanders, most notably von Münnich, fall into disgrace and are expelled from active service.

In December 1741, Elizabeth seizes power. Lacy is roused from bed in the early hours of the morning in a test of his loyalty. He is not aware if the men sent to him are from Elizabeth or Grand Duchess Anna. He is asked what party he is of, Anne or Elizabeth, and he answers, “Of the party of the reigning Empress.” A period of unrest follows, and he is called upon to restore order. Most of what is known as the German Faction falls out of favour at this stage. The restoration of order in Saint Petersburg is largely down to the prompt actions of Lacy.

When the Russo-Swedish War breaks out in 1741, the government of Anna Leopoldovna appoints Lacy Commander-in-Chief as the most experienced among Russian generals. He quickly strikes against Finland and wins his last brilliant victory at Lappeenranta in August 1741. His force, however, is poorly supplied and he is forced to withdraw to Saint Petersburg. The following year he rallies his forces and proceeds to capture Hamina, Porvoo and Hämeenlinna, by August encircling more than 17,000 Swedes near Helsinki and effectively bringing the hostilities to an end.

The war over, Lacy withdraws to Riga and resumes the command of the Russian forces stationed in Livland. He administers what is now northern Latvia and southern Estonia until his death on his private estate in Riga on April 30, 1751. His son, Franz Moritz von Lacy, enters the Austrian service in 1743 and becomes one of the most successful imperial commanders of the 18th century and also a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. His nephew, George Browne, is also a general in the Russian army.


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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.


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The Flight of the Earls

On September 4, 1607, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O’Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, and about ninety followers depart from Lough Swilly for the European continent. It is known in Irish history as the “Flight of the Earls.” Their permanent exile is a watershed event in Irish history, symbolizing the end of the old Gaelic order.

After the defeat at the Siege of Kinsale in 1601, Hugh Roe O’Donnell of Tyrconnell travels to Spain to seek support from Philip III. Unsuccessful, he dies in Spain and is succeeded by his younger brother Rory O’Donnell.

The O’Neills and O’Donnells retain their lands and titles, although with much-diminished extent and authority. However, the countryside is laid bare in a campaign of destruction in 1602, which induces famine in 1603. Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, is pardoned under the terms of the Treaty of Mellifont in March 1603 and submits to the crown.

When King James VI and I takes the English throne in 1603, he quickly proceeds to issue pardons for the Irish lords and their rebel forces. Already reigning as king of Scotland, he has a better understanding of the advantages from working with local chiefs in the Scottish Highlands. However, as in other Irish lordships, the 1603 peace involves O’Neill losing substantial areas of land to his cousins and neighbors, who would be granted freeholds under the English system, instead of the looser arrangements under the former Brehon law system. This is not a new policy but is a well-understood and longstanding practice in the Tudor conquest of Ireland.

On September 10, 1602, the Prince of Tyrconnell has already died, allegedly assassinated, in Spain, and his brother succeeds him as 25th Chieftain of the O’Donnell clan. He is later granted the Earldom of Tyrconnell by King James I on September 4, 1603, and restored to a somewhat diminished scale of territories in Tyrconnell on February 10, 1604.

In 1605, the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, begins to encroach on the former freedoms of the two Earls and The Maguire, enforcing the new freeholds, especially that granted in North Ulster to the O’Cahan chief. The O’Cahan had formerly been important subjects of the O’Neills and required protection; in turn, Chichester wants to reduce O’Neill’s authority. O’Cahan has also wanted to remove himself from O’Neill’s overlordship. An option is to charge O’Neill with treason if he does not comply with the new arrangements. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in the same year makes it harder for Catholics to appear loyal to both the crown and the papacy. A lengthy legal battle however finds in O’Neill’s favor.

By 1607, O’Neill’s allies the Maguires and the Earl of Tyrconnell are finding it hard to maintain their prestige on lower incomes. They plan to seek Spanish support before news of the Battle of Gibraltar arrives. When their ship drops anchor, O’Neill seems to have joined them on impulse. He had three options:

  • Flee with his friends and hope for a reinvasion by Spain
  • Go to London and stay at court until his grievances are redressed
  • Do nothing and live on a reduced income as a large landowner in Ulster

Fearing arrest, they choose to flee to Continental Europe, where they hope to recruit an army for the invasion of Ireland with Spanish help. However, earlier in 1607 the main Spanish fleet in Europe had been defeated by the Dutch in the Battle of Gibraltar. But the oft-repeated theory that they are all about to be arrested contradicts writer Tadhg Ó Cianáin, the main historical source on the Flight, who says at the start of his account that O’Neill heard news of the ship anchored at Rathmullen on Thursday September 6, and “took his leave of the Lord Justice (Chichester) the following Saturday.” They had been meeting at Slane for several days, and there is no proof that warrants for his arrest have been drawn up, nor is it a hurried departure.

Also, as the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) has been ended by the Treaty of London in 1604, King Philip III of Spain wants to remain at peace with England under its new Stuart dynasty. As a part of the peace proposals, a Spanish princess is to marry James’ son, Henry, though this never happens. Spain had also gone bankrupt in 1598. Tyrone ignores all these realities, remains in Italy, and persists with his invasion plan until his death in exile in 1616.

The earls set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, with some of the leading Gaelic families in Ulster. Several leave their wives behind, hoping either to return or retrieve them later. They travel down Lough Swilly on a French ship. Their departure is the end of the old Gaelic order, in that the earls are descended from Gaelic clan dynasties that had ruled their parts of Ulster for centuries. They finally reach the Continent on October 4, 1607.

Their destination is Spain, but they disembark in France. The party proceeds overland to Spanish Flanders, some remaining in Leuven, while the main party continues to Italy. Tadhg Ó Cianáin subsequently describes the journey in great detail. While the party is welcomed by many important officials in the Spanish Netherlands, he makes no mention of any negotiations or planning between the earls and the Spanish to start a new war to regain the earls’ properties.

James I soon plants the O’Neill and O’Donnell lands with Protestant settlers, helping to sow the seeds of the present “Troubles.” O’Donnell dies in Rome in 1608 and O’Neill dies there also in 1616.

Ó Cianáin’s diary is important as the only continuous and contemporaneous account of the Flight. Its original title, Turas na dTaoiseach nUltach as Éirinn – the departure of the Chiefs of Ulster from Ireland – has been changed since the creation of the more dramatic phrase “Flight of the Earls” to the latter’s modern literal translation, Imeacht na nIarlaí.

The Flight of the Earls is a watershed event in Irish history, as the ancient Gaelic aristocracy of Ulster goes into permanent exile. Despite their attachment to and importance in the Gaelic system, the Earls’ ancestors had accepted their Earldoms from the English-run Kingdom of Ireland in the 1540s, under the policy of surrender and regrant. Some historians argue that their flight is forced upon them by the fallout from the Tudor conquest of Ireland, while others that it is an enormous strategic mistake that clears the way for the Plantation of Ulster.

From 1616, a number of bards outside Ulster have a poetic debate in the “Contention of the bards” and one of the arguments celebrates King James’s Gaelic-Irish Milesian ancestry through Malcolm III of Scotland. So, it is debatable whether the Gaelic order has ended or is evolving.

(Pictured: A bronze sculpture commemorating the Flight in Rathmullan, County Donegal)