The Jack Lynch Tunnel, described as the most challenging civil engineering project in the history of the state, is unveiled on May 21, 1999 by TaoiseachBertie Ahern at the entrance of the tunnel in Mahon, County Cork.
The Jack Lynch Tunnel is an immersed tube tunnel and an integral part of the N40 southern ring road of Cork. It is named after former Taoiseach Jack Lynch, a native of Cork. Construction involves the excavation of a large casting basin where the tunnel elements or pieces are constructed. After construction of elements is complete, the casting basin is filled with water and joined to the adjacent River Lee, each element is floated out and sunk into position into a carefully dredged river bed.
The tunnel takes the road under the River Lee. North of the tunnel, the ring-road joins the M8 motorway to Dublin and N8 road to the city centre, with the N25 road commencing east to Waterford. The tunnel is completed in May 1999, and carries nearly 40,000 vehicles per day as of 2005. This number rises further as the N40 ring-road’s upgrades progress, with the opening of the Kinsale Road Roundabout flyover in 2006 and subsequent upgrades to the Sarsfield Road and Bandon Road Roundabouts. Traffic in 2015 is 63,000 vehicles a day up from 59,000 in 2013.
The tunnel has two cells, each with two traffic lanes and two footpaths, and a central bore for use in an emergency only. Pedestrians and cyclists are expressly forbidden from using the tunnel. The exclusion of cyclists has been somewhat controversial as the feeder road is a dual-carriageway and so is open to cyclists, but the by-law is applied because of space limitations and the obvious danger of cyclists in an enclosed tunnel.
MacSharry is educated at the local national school before later briefly attending Summerhill College. After leaving school he works as a livestock dealer throughout Sligo and Mayo before becoming involved in the Meat Exporters Factory in his native town. MacSharry also owns his own haulage firm.
Although MacSharry comes from a non-political family, he himself becomes an active member of Fianna Fáil in Sligo. In 1967 he makes his first move into politics when he secures election to both Sligo Borough Council and Sligo County Council. It was from this local base that he launches his national election campaign.
Following the 1977 general election, Fianna Fáil returns to government with a massive twenty-seat Dáil majority. With the introduction of the new Minister of State positions in 1978, MacSharry finally secures a junior ministerial post, as Minister of State at the Department of the Public Service.
Charles Haughey succeeds in becoming party leader after Jack Lynch’s resignation in 1979, albeit by a narrow margin of just six votes, and is later elected Taoiseach by the Dáil. MacSharry’s loyalty is subsequently rewarded when he is appointed Minister for Agriculture in the new government.
Fianna Fáil falls out of power in 1981 but returns to power following the February 1982 general election. MacSharry is promoted to the positions of Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, however, the government falls after just nine months in office and a new coalition government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party take office.
In 1983 MacSharry resigns from the Fianna Fáil front bench due to a telephone tapping controversy, when it is revealed that as Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, he had borrowed police tape recorders to secretly record conversations with a cabinet colleague. He spends a number of years in the political wilderness following the phone-tapping scandal. He is elected to the European Parliament as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Connacht–Ulster in 1984.
Following the 1987 general election MacSharry is returned to the Dáil once again. He resigns his European Parliament seat when he is appointed Minister for Finance in Haughey’s new government. In 1988 his loyalty to Haughey is rewarded when he is appointed European Commissioner. As a result of this he resigns his Dáil seat and ends his domestic political career.
Following the completion of his term as Commissioner, MacSharry retires from politics to pursue business interests. He is currently a director on the boards of a variety of companies including Bank of Ireland and Ryanair Holdings. In 1999 he is appointed chairman of Eircom plc. He is also a member of the Comite d’Honneur of the Institute of International and European Affairs.
Kelly is a central figure in the Arms Crisis, having traveled to Hamburg to arrange the purchase of arms. It emerges later that Neil Blaney had ordered him to do so outside normal legal channels, but before the weapons arrive the Gards Special Detective Unit hears of the plan and informs the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, aborting the importation and resulting in criminal charges for the plotters. Although in his summation the judge says it is no defence for Kelly to say that he believes that the government authorised the importation of arms, Kelly is acquitted.
Despite his acquittal, Kelly suffers financially because he had felt compelled to resign from the Army even before the prosecution was brought. He prints and publishes a personal memoir in paperback format called Orders for the Captain? in 1971.
Kelly never denies his involvement in extra-legal arms purchase talks, but contends that he had been ordered to do so by some ministers. A typical version of the events is found in a 1993 hostile biography of Charles Haughey, claiming: “As early as October 1969, to the certain knowledge of Charles Haughey, James Gibbons, the Department of Justice, the Special Branch and Army Intelligence, there were meetings with leading members of the IRA, when they were promised money and arms. The critical encounter took place in Bailieborough, County Cavan, on Saturday, 4 October 1969. It had been arranged by Captain James Kelly, an army intelligence officer, and Cathal Goulding. Kelly, at that stage, was already the subject of several security reports to the Secretary of the Department of Justice, Peter Berry, from the Special Branch, implicating Kelly with subversives and with promises of money and of arms.” Kelly never objected to such versions of the events of 1969.
Kelly is elected vice-chairman of Aontacht Éireann. Aontacht Éireann meets with little success at the polls and by 1980 he has joined Fianna Fáil, becoming a member of its national executive. Following the first applications of the 1987 Extradition (European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism) Act, he resigns from the party in 1989 in opposition to the extradition of Provisional IRA prisoners to the United Kingdom. He also serves twice as President of the 1916-1921 Club. He launches a successful defamation case against Garret FitzGerald over an article in The Irish Times.
James Kelly dies on July 16, 2003 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. The epitaph on his grave is “Put not your trust in princes,” a quote from Psalm 146.
In 1990 Wilson challenges Brian Lenihan for the Fianna Fáil nomination for the 1990 presidential election. Lenihan wins the nomination but fails to be elected President and is also sacked from the government. Wilson is then appointed Tánaiste. He remains in the cabinet until retirement in 1993. Although the 26th Dáil Éireann is dissolved in December 1992, he serves in Government until the new government takes office.
John Wilson dies at St. James Hospital, Dublin on July 9, 2007, one day after his 84th birthday. His funeral takes place at the Good Shepherd Church at Churchtown, Dublin. President Mary McAleese is one of a number of prominent figures among the mourners, while Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is represented by his Aide-de-Camp.
After finishing his education, Childers works for a period in a tourism board in Paris. In 1931, Éamon de Valera invites him to work for his recently founded newspaper, The Irish Press, where Childers becomes advertising manager. He becomes a naturalised Irish citizen in 1938. That same year, he is first elected as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) for Athlone–Longford. He remains in the Dáil Éireann until 1973, when he resigns to become President.
Childers joins the cabinet in 1951 as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the de Valera government. He then serves as Minister for Lands in de Valera’s 1957–59 cabinet, as Minister for Transport and Power under Seán Lemass, and, successively, as Transport Minister, Posts and Telegraphs Minister, and Health Minister under Jack Lynch. He becomes Tánaiste in 1969.
Fine Gael TD Tom O’Higgins, who had almost won the 1966 presidential election, is widely expected to win the 1973 election when he is again the Fine Gael nominee. Childers is nominated by Fianna Fáil at the behest of de Valera, who pressures Jack Lynch in the selection of the presidential candidate. He is a controversial nominee, owing not only to his British birth and upbringing but to his Protestantism. However, on the campaign trail his personal popularity proves enormous, and in a political upset, Childers is elected the fourth President of Ireland on May 30, 1973, defeating O’Higgins by 635,867 votes to 578,771.
Childers quickly gains a reputation as a vibrant, extremely hard-working president, and becomes highly popular and respected. However, he has a strained relationship with the incumbent government, led by TaoiseachLiam Cosgrave of Fine Gael. Childers had campaigned on a platform of making the presidency more open and hands-on, which Cosgrave views as a threat to his own agenda as head of government. Childers considers resigning from the presidency, but is convinced to remain by Cosgrave’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Garret FitzGerald.
The Garda Special Branch informs the Minister for JusticeMicheál Ó Móráin and TaoiseachJack Lynch that a plot to import arms exists and includes government members, however Lynch takes no action until the Special Branch makes opposition leader Liam Cosgrave aware of the plot. Cosgrave tells Lynch he is aware of the plot and will announce it in the Dáil the next day if he does not act. Lynch subsequently requests that Haughey and Blaney resign from the Cabinet. Both men refuse, saying they had done nothing illegal. Lynch then asks PresidentÉamon de Valera to terminate their appointments as members of the government, a request that de Valera is required to grant by convention. Haughey and Blaney are subsequently tried in court along with Captain James Kelly, a former intelligence captain in the Irish Army, and Albert Luykx, a former Flemish Nationalist and businessman, who allegedly used his contacts to buy the arms.
The verdict, reached by jury after two hours and 10 minutes of deliberation, leads to political repercussions for the Government of Taoiseach Jack Lynch. Lynch had dismissed the Haughey from his Cabinet post the previous May on the allegation of illegal gun‐running.
Witnesses declare during the 14‐day trial that the arms, imported from the Continental Europe, were ultimately destined for the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. However, the defense contends that the arms had been brought in with the knowledge and approval of the current Minister for Agriculture, Jim Gibbons, who was serving as Minister for Defence at the time.
The jury rules that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. Haughey is carried from the High Court after the acquittal, as are the three other defendants.
Although cleared of wrongdoing, it appears as if Haughey’s political career is finished. Blaney eventually resigns from Fianna Fáil but Haughey remains. He spends his years on the backbenches building support within the grassroots of the party. During this time he remains loyal to the party and serves the leader but after the debacle of the Arms Crisis neither man trusts the other.
(Pictured: Charles Haughey with Neil Blaney at the 1970 at the Arms Trial)
The amendment deletes the entirety of Article 44.1.2 which allowed the State to recognise the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens.
In drafting the Irish constitution in 1936 and 1937, Éamon de Valera and his advisers choose to reflect what has been a contemporary willingness by constitution drafters and lawmakers in Europe to mention and in some ways recognise religion in explicit detail. This contrasts with many 1920s constitutions, notably the Constitution of the Irish Free State of 1922, which, following the secularism of the initial period following World War I, simply prohibits any discrimination based on religion or avoids religious issues entirely.
De Valera, his advisers, and the men who put words to de Valera’s concepts for the constitution face conflicting demands in his drafting of the article on religion. In contemporary terms, the Amendment marks a defeat for conservative Catholics and Pope Pius XI explicitly withholds his approval from it.
Though perceived in retrospect as a sectarian article, Article 44 is praised in 1937 by leaders of Irish Protestant churches, notably the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, and by Jewish groups. Conservative Catholics condemn it as “liberal.”
When the contents of Article 44 are put to Pope Pius XI by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, then Cardinal Secretary of State, later Pope Pius XII, the pope states in diplomatic language, “We do not approve, nor do we not disapprove – we will remain silent.” It is said that the Vatican is privately more appreciative of the constitution, and Pius XII later praises it.
The Fifth Amendment is introduced by the Fianna Fáil government of Jack Lynch and supported by every other major political party. The Catholic Church does not voice any objection to the amendment, but it is opposed by some conservative Catholics. Some leading members of the Church of Ireland and the Jewish Community say during the campaign that while they appreciate the Article’s recognition of their existence in 1937, it is no longer needed in the 1970s and has lost its usefulness.
The referendum on the amendment occurs on the same day as the referendum on the Fourth Amendment which lowers the voting age to eighteen. The Fifth Amendment is approved by 721,003 (84.4%) in favour and 133,430 (15.6%) against.
Having completed its passage through the Oireachtas and been adopted by the people, it is enacted by being signed into constitutional law by the President of Ireland, the man who had drafted the original article, Éamon de Valera.
The Jack Lynch Tunnel, described as the most challenging civil engineering project in the history of the state, is unveiled on May 21, 1999 by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the entrance of the tunnel in Mahon, County Cork.
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