seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: John O’Connell (Dublin politician)


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Birth of Eric Byrne, Former TD and Labour Party Politician

Eric Joseph Byrne, former Labour Party politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South-Central constituency from 1989 to 1992, 1994 to 1997 and 2011 to 2016, is born in Dublin on April 21, 1947. He is formerly a member of Official Sinn Féin, the Workers’ Party and Democratic Left.

Byrne is educated at Synge Street CBS and the Bolton Street College of Technology. A carpenter before entering politics, he stands unsuccessfully for election to Dáil Éireann as a Workers’ Party candidate for Dublin Rathmines West at the 1977 Irish general election and Dublin South-Central at the 1981, February 1982, November 1982 and 1987 Irish general elections.

He is elected in 1985 as a Workers’ Party member of Dublin City Council for Crumlin–Kimmage area, and is re-elected at subsequent local elections until 2011, when he is forced to resign his seat due to dual mandate. He is finally elected at the 1989 Irish general election. He joins with Workers’ Party members who form Democratic Left in 1992. He unexpectedly loses his seat at the 1992 Irish general election. Labour’s Pat Upton is unexpectedly returned on the first count, with Byrne finally losing the last seat to Fianna Fáil‘s Ben Briscoe by five votes after a marathon 10-day count.

Byrne is elected to the 27th Dáil at a by-election on June 9, 1994, following the resignation of long-serving Fianna Fáil TD John O’Connell, who had previously been a Labour TD for the same constituency. He is a backbench supporter of the Rainbow government led by Fine Gael‘s John Bruton.

He loses his seat again at the 1997 Irish general election. Although the Labour Party and the Democratic Left merge in 1999, he is not selected to contest the Dublin South-Central by-election which follows Pat Upton‘s death later that year. Upton’s sister Mary is elected for the Labour Party.

Byrne contests the 2002 Irish general election on the Labour Party ticket as Mary Upton’s running-mate but is unsuccessful. Along with Upton, he contests the Dublin South-Central constituency at the 2007 Irish general election advocating a Labour Party/Fine Gael government but misses the final seat by 69 votes. He is nominated by the Labour Party to contest the Seanad election in the Labour panel but is not elected. In 2009, he is re-elected to Dublin City Council. At the 2011 Irish general election he is re-elected to the Dáil, after a fourteen-year absence.

In January 2015, Byrne becomes involved in an altercation with Sinn Féin TD, Jonathan O’Brien. During ministers’ questions, O’Brien criticises Tánaiste Joan Burton over homelessness in Ireland, citing the experiences of his brother, a recovering heroin addict. Byrne asks of O’Brien, “Why doesn’t his good family give him a home?” This infuriates O’Brien. The Irish Times journalist Miriam Lord criticizes Byrne, remarking that “You sense the relief rising in the chamber. They don’t like it when the real world intrudes. These sort of things don’t really happen to TDs.”

Byrne loses his seat at the 2016 Irish general election.


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Birth of David Thornley, Irish Labour Party Politician

David Andrew Thornley, Irish Labour Party politician and university professor at Trinity College Dublin, is born in Surrey, England, on July 31, 1935.

Thornley is the youngest child of Welshman Frederick Edward Thornley and Dublin-born Maud Helen Thornley (née Browne). His parents, both civil servants, meet while working in Inland Revenue in Dublin in the 1910s.

Thornley receives a BA and PhD at Trinity College Dublin. His PhD is entitled “Isaac Butt and the creation of an Irish Parliamentary Party (1868–1879)” and is written under the supervision of Theodore William Moody. Working as a presenter on 7 Days since 1963, he is appointed Associate professor of Trinity in 1968. In 1964, he publishes the book Isaac Butt and Home Rule.

After joining Labour in 1969, Thornley is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency at the 1969 Irish general election. He confronts the party leader Brendan Corish, who at the time of the Arms Crisis reportedly rejects out of hand any suggestion of military aid or use of force after the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland.

Thornley considers himself to be “in the mould of James Connolly,” being a practising Catholic, Marxist and republican.

In December 1972, Thornley calls for the immediate release of Seán Mac Stíofáin, then leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He is re-elected at the 1973 Irish general election. In April 1976, he loses the Labour Party whip after appearing on a Sinn Féin platform during Easter Rising commemorations. In September 1976, he votes for the Criminal Justice (Jurisdiction) Bill despite misgivings. He tells The Irish Times, “When I get very depressed, I drink too much. When I voted for the Criminal Justice (Jurisdiction Bill) I went on the batter for a forthnight [sic].” In February 1977, he is re-admitted to the Labour Parliamentary Party. He loses his seat at the 1977 Irish general election.

In 1978, Thornley joins the newly formed Socialist Labour Party (SLP) stating that he has done so because “There is no man in politics that I respect more than Noël Browne, despite our occasional differences. If the SLP is good for him, it’s good enough for me.”

Overweight, afflicted with undiagnosed diabetes, his judgement increasingly erratic, from the early 1970s Thornley suffers a steady deterioration of health, compounded by his heavy drinking, on which he relies to cope with stress and emotional depression. On one occasion he collapses in the Dáil and is attended by party colleague Dr. John O’Connell. He dies at the age of 42 on June 18, 1978, one week after admission into Jervis Street private nursing home. After a sung Latin Requiem Mass in St. Andrew’s Church, Westland Row, Dublin, he is buried in Bohernabreena Cemetery, County Dublin.

The Trinity College Labour Branch is formerly named the David Thornley Branch in his honour.