Catherine O’Leary (née Donegan), was an Irish immigrant living in Chicago, Illinois, dies in Chicago on July 3, 1895. She becomes associated with the origin of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. She is widely accused of starting the fire when a cow in her barn allegedly kicks over a lantern, though the story is later shown to be unfounded.
Donegan is born in Ireland in March 1827, with more specific accounts placing her birth near Cork, in the Munster province, later emigrating to the United States. She marries Patrick O’Leary, and the couple has three children. Their son, James Patrick O’Leary, later operates a saloon and gambling establishment in Chicago.
On the evening of October 8, 1871, a fire begins in the O’Leary family’s barn on DeKoven Street. Fueled by dry conditions and strong winds, the fire spreads rapidly and destroys a large portion of Chicago.
Shortly after the fire, journalist Michael Ahern publishes a story claiming that the fire had started when a cow kicked over a lantern while it was being milked. Although he does not initially name Catherine O’Leary, she soon becomes associated with the incident because the fire began on her property. The story gains widespread attention and is reinforced by illustrations and caricatures.
In 1893, Ahern admits that he had fabricated the story. The official investigation into the fire concludes that its exact cause could not be determined. Anti-Irish sentiment at the time contributes to the O’Leary family being treated as scapegoats, and various unverified claims circulate about the circumstances of the fire.
O’Leary continues to live in Chicago after the fire. She dies of pneumonia on July 3, 1895, and is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery.
The story of O’Leary’s cow becomes a widely repeated explanation for the Great Chicago Fire, despite its lack of evidence. In 1997, the Chicago City Council formally exonerates O’Leary of any responsibility for the fire, following research by historian Richard Bales.
The Battle of St. Matthew’s, also known as the Battle of Short Strand, is a gun battle that takes place on the night of June 27-28, 1970, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is fought between the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Ulster loyalists in the area around St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic church. This lies at the edge of the Short Strand, a Catholic enclave in a mainly-Protestant part of the city. Violence erupts there, and in other parts of Belfast, following marches by the Orange Order. The battle lasts about five hours and ends at dawn when loyalists withdraw. The British Army and police are deployed nearby but do not intervene. Three people are killed and at least 26 wounded in the fighting, while another three are killed in north Belfast.
The battle is the Provisional IRA’s first major action during the Troubles, and a propaganda victory for the Irish nationalist organization. It presents itself as successfully defending a vulnerable Catholic enclave from armed loyalist mobs. Loyalists, however, argue that the IRA lured them into a carefully prepared trap.
During the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 in Belfast, Catholic Irish republicans clash with Protestant Ulster loyalists and the mainly-Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Northern Ireland’s police force. Catholics believe that they are about to become “victims of a Protestant pogrom” and Protestants believe they are on the “eve of an IRA insurrection.” Hundreds of Catholic homes and businesses are burned out and more than 1,000 families, mostly Catholic, are forced to flee. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) has few weapons or members and is unable to adequately defend the Catholic areas. The rioting ends with the deployment of British troops. In December 1969, the IRA splits into the Official Irish Republican Army and the Provisional Irish Republican Army—with the Provisionals vowing to defend Catholic areas in future.
The Short Strand is a Catholic/nationalist enclave in East Belfast, a mainly Protestant/Ulster unionist part of the city. In the early years of the Troubles, Catholics in Short Strand number about 6,000, while their Protestant neighbours total about 60,000.
On Saturday, June 27, 1970, a large march by the Orange Order takes place in west Belfast, which is joined by loyalist bands from other parts of the city. Violence breaks out as the march enters the Catholic Springfield Road area on its way to Whiterock Orange Hall. Missiles are thrown by both sides, a bakery is set ablaze, and the British Army fires CS gas to disperse crowds. The riot sparks violence in other parts of Belfast.
In north Belfast, another Orange march proceeds along the Crumlin Road, the boundary between the Catholic Ardoyne and the Protestant Shankill areas. According to Crown prosecutors, a crowd emerges from Ardoyne throwing bottles and stones. As the riot descends into a gun battle, the IRA—who according to Gerry Adams were “ready and waiting”—kill three Protestants: William Kincaid (28), Daniel Loughins (32) and Alexander Gould (18). Others are wounded, including a Royal Navypetty officer who is shot in the jaw while driving a field ambulance. Earlier in the month, British troops divert an Orange march away from Ardoyne, leading to serious rioting by Protestants in the Shankill.
In the predominantly Protestant east of the city, an Orange parade also takes place along the Newtownards Road. At the bottom of the road is the Catholic enclave of the Short Strand, and here a gun battle breaks out between the IRA and Protestants, though the cause of it is disputed by both sides.
Violence erupts at St. Matthew’s Catholic church on the evening of June 27. It begins after a loyalist band and supporters march through the area on their return from the main parade. Rival groups gather, taunting leads to stone-throwing, and eventually, shots are fired.
As the situation worsens, Catholic residents fear that the gathering crowds of loyalists will attempt to invade the Short Strand and burn them from their homes. Local IRA members retrieve weapons from arms dumps. A young resident, Jim Gibney, recalls, “I saw neighbours, people I knew, coming down the street carrying rifles. I was just dumbstruck by this experience. I’d never seen such a thing before.”
The battle begins at about 10:00 p.m. and continues for the next five hours. Loyalists begin attacking the church and surrounding property with petrol bombs. A small house on the church grounds, where the sexton lives with his family, is set ablaze. A nearby Catholic pub is also looted and burned.
A small group of IRA members and members of the Citizens’ Defence Committee take up positions in the church grounds and in adjoining streets. The IRA members are armed with M1 carbines and are led by Billy McKee, commander of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade. Also present is Billy Kelly, commander of the Belfast Brigade’s 3rd Battalion. The IRA members fire at the loyalists, some of whom are positioned on the roofs opposite. Jim Magee, a local loyalist, sees wounded people lying on the road and asks the police (RUC) for help. According to Magee, “[they] said ‘if you have anything, get it out and protect your people.’ So we got an old rifle and went into Frazer Street and started firing back.”
The security forces are deployed in the area at the time but do not intervene to end the fighting. Shortly after the shooting begins, StormontMPPaddy Kennedy goes with Short Strand residents to the local RUC base and demands protection for their homes. Across the River Lagan, in the Markets area, other IRA members assemble and prepare to reinforce the Short Strand should it be invaded. British soldiers eventually arrive in armoured vehicles and cordon off the roads around the Short Strand, which denies the IRA “any hope of reinforcement.” At the time, the British Army says that its soldiers fired no shots because “owing to the confused situation, it was impossible to identify targets.” British Army Colonel Mike Dewar later says, “The whole incident had taken its course because the Army was so chronically overstretched that night in Belfast. The one spare platoon in the whole of west Belfast was not able to get through rioting Protestants to the Short Strand.” JournalistTony Geraghty writes that sometimes “The gunfire eased long enough to allow an occasional British Army personnel carrier (a ‘Pig‘) to whine past, illuminated by the flames in a token gesture of law-and-order.”
Another journalist who witnesses the battle, Peter Taylor, later says, “The shooting intensified but the soldiers still declined to intervene and separate the two sides – either because they felt they were not numerically strong enough or because they did not wish to get caught up in the middle of a sectarian fight, in the darkness, with shots being fired by both sides.”
Liz Maskey, who is a volunteer nurse that night, says that the Short Strand is surrounded by loyalists and claim they attacked her ambulance as it tried to leave the area.
The loyalists withdraw after about five hours, as dawn breaks. IRA leader Billy McKee claims that his unit had fired 800 rounds during the battle.
Three people are killed in the fighting. At least 26 are wounded, including Billy McKee, who is shot five times.
Robert Neill, a 38-year-old Protestant, died instantly when a shot fired from the church bounced off the pavement and hit him in the spine.
James McCurrie, a 34-year-old Protestant, is shot dead on Beechfield Street.
Henry McIlhone, a 33-year-old Catholic, is helping to defend Short Strand when he is accidentally shot from the republican side. He dies on June 29. However, McKee maintains that McIlhone is shot by loyalists. Tírghrá, the IRA’s official list of its fallen, lists McIlhone as a “volunteer” but adds “although not a member of the IRA, Henry McIlhone was included in the republican roll of honour as a mark of respect for this great Irishman by republican comrades he fought alongside.”
Republicans and loyalists disagree over who started the violence and fired the first shots. Republicans claim that the violence was started by a mob of loyalists returning from an Orange march. They say that the loyalists tried to set the church alight and invade Short Strand, with the intention of burning the residents from their homes. Hence, republicans argue that they were defending the Short Strand from a loyalist attack. Loyalists claim the violence was begun by republicans, allegedly when the returning Orangemen and supporters were attacked on Newtownards Road. They argue that republicans attacked Protestants to lure them into “a carefully prepared trap.”
The following day, loyalists expel 500 Catholic workers from the nearby Harland & Wolff shipyard. Shortly after, the British government’s representative at Stormont says that the decision to allow Orange marches to go ahead on that day was “the greatest single miscalculation I have ever seen made in the course of my life.”
Many Catholics and nationalists believe that the IRA had been unable to defend them during the August 1969 riots. However, it is argued that the IRA’s defence of Short Strand redeemed it in the eyes of many Catholics and nationalists. Prior to the gun battle, the IRA had been waiting for an opportunity to portray themselves as defenders of the Catholic community. Among republicans, the battle is seen as a key event in the growth of the Provisional IRA.
Less than a week later, the British Army seizes a large haul of Official IRA weapons during a three-day operation in west Belfast. Nationalists see this as a confiscation of their defences.
Born Helen Ruth Gifford on November 9, 1880, in Phibsborough, Dublin, to Frederick Gifford, a solicitor, and Isabella Julia Gifford (née Burton), Gifford is the fifth child and second eldest daughter of the family of six daughters and six sons. Her father is a Catholic while her mother, a niece of the painter Frederic Burton, is rigorously Protestant. All the children are brought up in the Church of Ireland. The men, emigrate and remain unionist while the women are active nationalists. Most famous are the two youngest, the artistGrace Gifford, and the journalist and broadcaster Sidney Czira.
Gifford grows up in Rathmines and goes to school at Alexandra College. She trains as a domestic economy teacher and works for seven years at a series of positions in County Meath.
Gifford experiences the living conditions of the landless rural poor while lodging in labourers’ cottages during this time. As a result, she becomes a supporter of the campaigns of the land agitator and nationalist MPLaurence Ginnell.
During the 1913 Dublin lock-out Gifford assists James Larkin enter the Imperial Hotel, on August 31 to address the crowd. He enters in disguise, that of an elderly and infirm clergyman. She poses as his niece. She speaks to the hotel staff to prevent Larkin’s strong Liverpool accent giving away his identify. This is the speech which precipitates the “Bloody Sunday” police baton charge. Gifford goes on to be a founding member of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA). This group is attractive to many women due to the feminist beliefs of James Connolly.
Gifford gives lessons on camp cookery in Liberty Hall and finds jobs for recruits coming in from abroad. As a result of this work she, very fatefully, introduces Michael Collins to her future brother-in-law Joseph Plunkett who go on to serve together in the 1916 Easter Rising. Collins is Plunkett’s aide-de-camp.
Gifford is the only one of her sisters to actively participate in the rising itself. She is with the ICA’s St. Stephen’s Green contingent alongside Countess Markievicz. Throughout the week she supervises the garrison’s provisions in the Royal College of Surgeons building, commandeering food from shops and bread vans, and by courier from other garrisons. She also ensures the delivery of provisions to troops both in the college with her and in outlying posts. She is one of the women arrested at the surrender and jailed in Kilmainham Gaol. At the same time, in the same prison her sister Grace marries Joseph Plunkett hours before his execution. Only twelve women are detained after the main release of women prisoners on May 8, 1916. Gifford is one of those transferred to Mountjoy Prison until her release on June 4, 1916. Afterward she continues to be as involved in the campaigns.
After her time in prison, Gifford travels through England to the United States where she and other women veterans of Easter week lecture throughout America. While there she marries Joseph Donnelly, of Omagh, County Tyrone in 1918. In 1921 she and their year-old daughter Maeve leave him to return to Ireland.
Frederick Gifford dies in September 1917 and leaves Gifford £800. However, she is was not well off. She becomes a broadcaster and journalist for the national radio and the Irish press. Holding to her upbringing, she remains a staunch Protestant, unlike four of her sisters, who had married Catholics.
Gifford becomes devoted to preserving the historical record of the independence movement. Noticing the huge number of visitors for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress, she organises a small exhibition there of 1916 memorabilia for the National Museum of Ireland. She is irritated by the display of Catholic religious artifacts there. She campaigns for a permanent exhibition of recent Irish nationalist history. She coordinates a substantial body of material pertinent to nationalist organisations, the Easter Rising, and the Irish War of Independence, which now forms the core of the present collection.
Over the years Gifford is secretary of the Old IRA Association, a member of the Old Dublin Society, and a founder of the Kilmainham Gaol Restoration Society. She also looks after stray and neglected dogs and cats. She dies at the age of 90 on June 23, 1971, at the Gascoigne nursing home in Rathmines, Dublin.
(Pictured: Irish nationalist Nellie Gifford taken in Boston in 1917)
On June 5, 1976, a bomb explodes at the door of the Times Bar on York Road, killing two Protestants. The pub is frequented by members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), a legal loyalist paramilitary group. Irish republicans are blamed for the bombing. Shortly after, the UVF Brigade Staff (its Shankill Road-based leadership) decide to hit back by attacking the Chlorane Bar. It is a hastily arranged operation devised by its military commander “Bunter,” whom investigative journalistMartin Dillon refers to as “Mr. F.” The Chlorane Bar is located at 23 Gresham Street in Belfast’s city centre, near Smithfield Market. Its clientele is mixed (Protestant and Catholic), which is unusual during The Troubles. On August 17, 1973, the Chlorane Bar had been firebombed, however, no one was injured as the pub was closed at the time of the attack. Later that same month, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), a cover name sometime used by the UDA, claim responsibility for a car bomb which exploded in Gresham Street. Although there were no human casualties, a pet shop located near the bomb’s epicentre was damaged in the blast and a number of animals inside the building were either killed or injured.
The attack is planned and executed by the UVF platoons based at the Brown Bear and the Windsor Bar respectively. These are two pubs located on the Shankill Road and regularly frequented by UVF members. Dillon sometimes refers to the former platoon as the “Brown Bear Team” because the members generally meet at that particular pub, which faces Shankill Library on the corner of Mountjoy Street. To carry out the attack, along with the procuring of weapons and masks, a black taxi is hijacked by two young men outside the Long Bar on the Shankill Road to transport the gunmen to the Chlorane Bar. Taxi driver Mark Hagan and a passenger are held hostage at the Windsor Bar.
The Chlorane Bar is likely chosen for its nearness to the Shankill Road, affording the attackers a speedy getaway. There is not much of a security presence that evening in the area. The driver of the taxi, with four specifically chosen armed men seated in the rear of the vehicle in the manner of genuine passengers, makes his way from the Shankill Road to North Street and turns south into Gresham Street. Upon arrival outside the Chlorane Bar, the four gunmen don their masks, devised from yellow money bags, and exit the taxi.
At 10:00 p.m., the four masked gunmen storm through Chlorane Bar’s front door leading to the public bar. There are about sixteen customers inside the pub at the time. One of the four gunmen is Robert “Basher” Bates, a member of the violent Shankill Butchers gang led by Lenny Murphy, who is in police custody at the time the attack against the Chlorane takes place. Bates is the only one of the four to have been from the “Brown Bear Team.” The hit squad is commanded by a “Mr. G,” leader of the Windsor Bar UVF platoon, with “Mr. D” as his second-in-command and “Mr. C” completing the team. Entering the bar in single file, “Mr. G” orders everybody to stand up, and then asks the startled customers whether there are any “Prods” (Protestants) among them. William Greer, a Protestant, thinking the gunmen are from the Irish Republican Army, quickly flees to the men’s toilet where he places his feet up against the door. Customer Frederick Graham and his girlfriend, Pat Mahood, assume the same thing. “Mr. G” tells the customers to separate into two groups, with the Protestants standing at the bottom end of the bar, and the Catholics at the top.
When one man, Edward Farrell, admits to being a Catholic, the UVF men open fire. Farrell tries to run toward the toilet but is shot dead. The Catholic owner of the Chlorane, 64-year-old James Coyle, is standing behind the bar when he is hit at close-range. The bullet enters his heart and he dies instantly. The gunmen continue firing and two Protestant men, Daniel McNeil and Samuel Corr, are also struck by the hail of bullets. McNeil is killed on the spot and Corr is fatally wounded. Another Catholic man, John Martin, is shot and dies of his injuries on June 23. Several other customers are hit as gunfire is sprayed around the bar. One customer pretends to be dead, however, a gunman walks over to where he lay and deliberately fires three shots into his thigh, knee, and below the ankle. The man later recounts that he had then looked up to see “men lying shot all over the place.” William Greer, hiding in the toilet, is shot when one of the gunmen fire through the door. He survives despite being hit in the leg and neck. There are more customers upstairs in the lounge area, but although they hear the gunshots, the gunmen never go near them. Dillon maintains that it had not been the UVF unit’s intention to kill any Protestants.
“Mr. G” calls a halt to the shooting, saying “that’s it,” and the four-man UVF team nonchalantly walks out of the pub and re-enters the hijacked black taxi, which is parked so the driver has easy access to North Street. This route offers a quick return to the Shankill. After the four men get into the back seat, the driver (“Mr. H”) drives off. As the taxi passes by the Catholic Unity Flats area, three shots are fired from the vehicle. Two young men walking nearby get a look at the driver. He is described as being around 38 to 40 years old and having shoulder-length, black curly hair. Upon the taxi’s return to the Shankill, Mark Hagan and the passenger are released. They immediately go to the Tennent Street Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Station off the Shankill where they report the taxi’s hijacking. The shooting team proceeds to the Long Bar pub where “Mr. I” (commander of UVF 1st Battalion) procures a forty-ounce bottle of vodka for “Mr. G” and “Mr. D” – their payment for leading the operation.
Having heard the gunshots, a barmaid serving in the upstairs lounge goes downstairs to investigate and discovers the body of her employer, James Coyle, lying on the floor behind the bar and those of the other dead and wounded. The first policeman on the scene is Constable George McElnea, from the RUC Special Patrol Group in Tennent Street. He quickly notices the pile of bodies near the men’s toilet as Samuel Corr stumbles toward him, gravely injured. McElnea places Corr on a bench and offers what assistance he can but to no avail. Corr dies of his gunshot wounds before the ambulance arrives. Alan McCrum, a Scenes of Crime officer, appears at the Chlorane fifteen minutes after the shootings. He retrieves 24 spent bullet casings from the floor and determines that most of the shots had been fired at the rear of the pub. Later ballistic testing establishes that the weapons used in the attack were a .22 caliber pistol, a 9 mm pistol, and two .45 snub-nosed revolvers. Police believe one of the victims, Daniel McNeil, had tenuous UVF connections, although he is not an active member.
The hijacked black taxi is found by police the following morning in a cul-de-sac in Beresford Street, off the Shankill Road. A cyclist, who had witnessed the masked gunmen entering the Chlorane Bar, describes the four men as having been in the 20 to 30 age group, all about 5’10 in height and well-built. The last gunman to enter had shoulder-length brown hair. The witness had gone to a nearby British Army post where he told soldiers what he had seen.
Ten days after the gun attack, the Chlorane Bar is blown up by a bomb. Three weeks after the attack the Provisional IRA, using their sometime cover-name of the “Republican Action Force“, enter Walker’s Bar in Templepatrick and kill three Protestant civilians in retaliation for the Chlorane attack. As part of this series of deadly tit for tat attacks on pubs, the UVF responds by killing six customers at the Catholic-owned Ramble Inn outside Antrim.
No one is ever charged with the shootings. In February 1979, Bates is convicted of the murders he had committed as part of the Shankill Butchers, and given ten life sentences. In his statement to the police following his arrest in 1977, he recounts his role in the Chlorane Bar attack. He alleges while working as a barman in the Long Bar on the evening of June 5, 1976, he is approached by the UVF military commander, “Mr. F”, who informs him of a job in which he is to take part that same evening. It is decided to attack the city centre pub in retaliation for the IRA’s earlier bombing of The Times pub. Bates goes on to say that “Mr. I” provides the weapons which are used in the shooting and “Mr. J” (UVF Provost Marshal) procures the masks. Bates claims that his revolver malfunctions and therefore he never fires his gun during the attack. However, forensic evidence proves that two .45 revolvers had been fired inside the Chlorane. Upon his release from the HM Prison Maze, Bates is gunned-down in June 1997 by the son of James Curtis Moorhead, a UDA man he had killed in 1977.
The Tribunal of Inquiry into the Beef Processing Industry, also known as the Beef Tribunal, is established on May 31, 1991, chaired by Justice Liam Hamilton. It is set up to inquire into malpractice in the Irish beef processing industry, mainly centred on Goodman International, owned and controlled by Larry Goodman. It also examines accusations of special dispensations given by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Albert Reynolds, to Goodman.
The Tribunal begins hearings on June 21, 1991, and it reports its conclusions in July 1994, at the time Ireland’s longest-running inquiry.
The Tribunal is tasked with “inquiring into the following definite matters of urgent public importance: (i) allegations regarding illegal activities, fraud and malpractice in and in connection with the beef processing industry made or referred to:– (a) in Dáil Éireann, and (b) on a television programme transmitted by ITV on May 13, 1991; (ii) any matters connected with or relevant to the matters aforesaid which the Tribunal considers it necessary to investigate in connection with its inquiries into the matters mentioned at (i) above; and 2. making such recommendations (if any) as the Tribunal, having regard to its findings, thinks proper.”
The Tribunal comes weeks after the broadcast of a World in Action programme. The allegations made in Dáil Éireann cover many of the allegations made in the television programme and included the following:
Abuses of the system under which subsidies are paid by the European Economic Community (EEC) to those engaged in the beef processing industry
Failure of regulatory authorities and allegations of political influence in relation to alleged abuses of the system
Tax evasion and Political influence in regard thereto
The Beef Tribunal concludes that tax evasion occurred at Goodman International and shined a light on widespread improper relationships between the beef industry, particularly Goodman, and the government. However, no criminal charges are brought, aside from the journalistSusan O’Keeffe who is charged and acquitted for not revealing sources.
Though not directly charged with wrongdoing, Albert Reynolds’s government is ultimately brought down by the fallout of the Beef Tribunal.
Ten years later, Fintan O’Toole comments that while a “shocking set of scandals” were uncovered (including the aforementioned tax evasion, fraud, and theft), “virtually nothing happened,” eroding public trust in the system.
(Pictured: Larry Goodman, founder and Executive Chairman of Goodman International, which is now ABP Food Group)
Yelverton is the eldest son of Francis Yelverton of Kanturk, County Cork, and Elizabeth Barry, daughter of Jonas Barry of Kilbrin (now Ballyclogh, County Cork). His father dies when he is only ten. His mother reaches a great age, dying only a year before her son. He goes to school in Charleville and Midleton College, and attends Trinity College Dublin, where he takes a degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1757 and of Bachelor of Laws in 1761. His family lacks wealth and social position and he is for some years an assistant master under Andrew Buck in the Hibernian Academy. This menial occupation is later a source of great embarrassment to him, as his enemies love to ridicule him as “Buck’s usher.”
In 1761, Yelverton marries Mary Nugent, daughter of William Nugent of Clonlost, County Westmeath, and his wife Ursula Aglionby, a lady of some fortune, and is thus enabled to read for the Irish Bar, entering the Middle Temple. He is called to the Bar in 1764. Despite his lack of family connections, his success in his profession is rapid, due to his legal ability, charm and remarkable eloquence, and he takes silk eight years afterward.
Yelverton is elected to the Irish House of Commons as member for Donegal Borough from 1774 to 1776. In the latter year, he is elected for both Belfast and Carrickfergus. He chooses to sit for the latter constituency and represents Carrickfergus until 1784. Although few examples of his oratory survive, all contemporaries agree on his eloquence, which gives him a dominant position in the Commons. He also serves as Recorder of Carrickfergus from 1778 until his death. This is not a Crown appointment as the Recorder is elected by a vote of the entire town corporation.
Yelverton gives his support to Henry Grattan and the Whigs during the greater part of his parliamentary career. He is a strong supporter of the demand for an independent Irish Parliament, but later changes his stance.
Yelverton plays a crucial role in the reforms which are collectively called the Irish Constitution of 1782. In particular he sponsors the Act 21 and 22 of George III, An Act to regulate the manner of passing bills and to prevent delays in summoning of Parliaments – which is popularly known as “Yelverton’s Act.” This radically modifies Poynings’ Law of 1495 by which all legislation to be passed by the Irish Parliament has to be drafted by the Privy Council of Ireland, then sent to the English privy council for approval. Under Yelverton’s Act, the role of the Irish Privy Council is abolished and legislation is commenced in the normal way in the Irish Parliament, which for the last 17 years of its existence enjoys a wide measure of independence.
In his latter days, Yelverton becomes identified with the court party and votes for the Act of Union 1800, for which his viscounty is a reward. For this he is never forgiven by many of his former friends. Sir Jonah Barrington, who continues to regard Yelverton with affection and respect, regrets that this action should have destroyed his reputation forever, but he argues that such a mistake of judgment is understandable in a man who lacks worldly wisdom, and despite his many good qualities, does not have a strong moral sense.
Yelverton becomes Attorney-General for Ireland in 1782, and is elevated to the bench as Lord Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1783. He is created Baron Yelverton in 1795, and in 1800 Viscount Avonmore in the Peerage of Ireland. As Chief Baron, he leads the opposition to the proposal to increase the number of judges in each of the courts of common law from three to four, on the practical ground that four-judge courts often divide evenly and thus cannot reach an effective decision. Despite this common-sense view, the new judges are eventually appointed.
In 1797, Yelverton attains a degree of infamy for presiding over what is widely regarded as a “show trial” which leads to the execution of the United Irishman, William Orr, although he is said to have shed tears when passing the death sentence on Orr. Orr is charged with administering the United Irish oath to a soldier called Hugh Wheatly. This had recently become a capital offence. In fact, it is generally believed that another man, William McKeever, administered the oath. Wheatly, who is the principal witness for the prosecution, later confesses that he had perjured himself, but despite a superb defence by John Philpot Curran, Orr is found guilty and hanged. Yelverton may have formed an early impression of Orr’s guilt and acted on it – even his admirers admitted that as a judge he lacks impartiality.
Peter Finnerty, a journalist, is later convicted of seditious libel for publishing an attack on Yelverton over his conduct of Orr’s trial and this does nothing to enhance the judge’s reputation.
Yelverton dies on August 19, 1805, at his mansion, Fortfield House, Terenure, County Dublin, which he had built at great expense around 1785. He is buried nearby in Rathfarnham.
FitzGerald joins Fine Gael, attaching himself to the liberal wing of the party. and in 1969 is elected to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. He later gives up his university lectureship to become Minister for Foreign Affairs in the coalition government of Liam Cosgrave (1973–77). When the coalition government is resoundingly defeated in the 1977 Irish general election, Cosgrave yields leadership of Fine Gael to FitzGerald. In his new role as Leader of the Opposition and party leader, he proceeds to modernize and strengthen the party at the grass roots. He briefly loses power in 1982 when political instability triggers two snap elections.
By the time of the 1981 Irish general election, Fine Gael has a party machine that can easily match Fianna Fáil. The party wins 65 seats and forms a minority coalition government with the Labour Party and the support of a number of Independent TDs. FitzGerald is elected Taoiseach on June 30, 1981. To the surprise of many, FitzGerald excludes Richie Ryan, Richard Burke and Tom O’Donnell, former Fine Gael stalwarts, from the cabinet.
On May 5, 2011, it is reported that FitzGerald is seriously ill in a Dublin hospital. Newly elected Fine Gael Taoiseach Enda Kenny sends his regards and calls him an “institution.” On May 6 he is put on a ventilator. On May 19, after suffering from pneumonia, he dies at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin at the age of 85.
In a statement, Irish PresidentMary McAleese hails FitzGerald as “a man steeped in the history of the State who constantly strove to make Ireland a better place for all its people.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny pays homage to “a truly remarkable man who made a truly remarkable contribution to Ireland.” Henry Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State, who serves as an opposite number to FitzGerald in the 1970s, recalls “an intelligent and amusing man who was dedicated to his country.”
FitzGerald’s death occurs on the third day of Queen Elizabeth II‘s state visit to the Republic of Ireland, an event designed to mark the completion of the Northern Ireland peace process that had been “built on the foundations” of FitzGerald’s Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher in 1985. In a personal message, the Queen offers her sympathies and says she is “saddened” to learn of FitzGerald’s death.
On his visit to Dublin, United States PresidentBarack Obama offers condolences on FitzGerald’s death. He speaks of him as “someone who believed in the power of education; someone who believed in the potential of youth; most of all, someone who believed in the potential of peace and who lived to see that peace realised.”
FitzGerald is the author of a number of books, including Planning in Ireland (1968), Towards a New Ireland (1972), Unequal Partners (1979), All in a Life: An Autobiography (1991), and Reflections on the Irish State (2003).
O’Faolain is born in Dublin on March 1, 1940, the second of nine children of Tomás O’Faolain and Kathleen O’Sullivan. Originally a schoolteacher and Army lieutenant, under the pen name Terry O’Sullivan, her father becomes a prominent social diarist for the Evening Press in Dublin. He is distant from his children and engages in extra-marital affairs which produce at least two half-siblings. Despite earning as much money as the newspaper’s editor, Douglas Gageby, he does not share his income with his family. The family lives in poor conditions, frequently going hungry. Her mother becomes an alcoholic, going to the pub every day at 4 p.m. and not returning home until midnight.
O’Faolain attends convent school in Dublin but is expelled at the age of fourteen after going home from dances with a married man. She then goes to a boarding school in County Monaghan, whose austere environment and strict educational standards benefit her. From there, she studies English literature at University College Dublin (UCD), where she runs in a social circle that includes Mary Lavin, John McGahern, Patrick Kavanagh, and Louis MacNeice. Although she drops out of her studies temporarily and spends time working menial jobs in England, with financial assistance from Lavin and others, she graduates in 1961. On scholarships, she studies medieval English at the University of Hull before completing a postgraduate degree in 19th-century English literature at the University of Oxford. She then returns to Dublin to work at UCD as an academic in the English literature department, which brings her into contact with the bohemian Dublin literary scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In 1970, O’Faolain moves to London to work for the BBC. She is a producer at the Community Programme Unit, which seeks to allow members of the public to create programmes for national broadcast on human interest topics like transgender people, anti-pornography protests, and community organising in the Bogside. She also makes programmes with the arts faculty of the Open University, and teaches evening classes at Morley College. During this period, she shows little interest in Ireland, regarding the country as backward and unsophisticated, but a visit to the Merriman Summer School in County Clare in 1974 sparks new enthusiasm. In 1977, she moves back to Dublin to work for the public broadcaster, RTÉ, where she becomes a colleague of female journalists like Doireann Ní Bhriain, Marian Finucane, and Nell McCafferty – later her partner – who are making programmes about Irish society with a feminist bent. She Is the producer of Women Today, a pioneering radio programme, from 1983 to 1986. One series she works on, Plain Tales, a televised interview programme in which women speak directly to camera about their life experiences, wins a Jacob’s Award in 1985.
O’Faolain has an interest in books from an early age, and credits voracious reading for helping her through a difficult childhood. She works as a book reviewer for The Times. Between 1990 and 1993, she co-presents Booklines, a television programme about books for RTÉ, a programme she says “nobody ever watched because it was on terribly late at night.”
In 1986, Conor Brady, the editor of The Irish Times, offers O’Faolain a newspaper column after hearing her being interviewed by Gay Byrne on the radio. Brady is struck by her ability to “infuse ordinary people’s everyday activities with value and interest.” The column becomes a major success and she is awarded journalist of the year in 1986.
O’Faolain acts as a roving commentator for The Irish Times, covering the 1994 Cregg Wood murders in County Clare, and visiting Northern Ireland at the time of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Following periods of leave while she works on her books, she leaves the paper in 2002, and writes a column in the Sunday Tribune from 2005 until her death.
O’Faolain never marries and has no children. Although she writes about her relationships with men and women, she does not identify as bisexual, though others have described her as such. She suffers from alcoholism. After Are You Somebody?, she divides her time between Ireland and New York City. During the final years of her life, she is in a relationship with a Brooklyn-based lawyer, John Low-Beer, whom she meets on Match.com.
O’Faolain is diagnosed with metastatic cancer while living in New York City in early 2008. She experiences a strange feeling in the right side of her body and presents at the emergency department of a hospital, where she is told that she has primary tumours in her lungs which has spread to her brain and liver, and that her cancer is incurable. She refuses chemotherapy.
O’Faolain returns to Ireland and is interviewed by her friend, Marian Finucane, on her radio show about her terminal illness on April 12, 2008. Both O’Faolain and Finucane are in tears during the interview, which is recorded in Galway, where she is undergoing radiotherapy. She tells Finucane: “I don’t want more time. As soon as I heard I was going to die, the goodness went from life”. Her frank discussion of her illness leads to the interview being preceded by a warning that her comments may be upsetting to others with life-threatening conditions. She says that she does not believe in God or an afterlife, but as in the song “Thíos i Lár an Ghleanna,” she is asking for help she knows will not come from a god she does not believe in. The interview has a major public impact in Ireland. After Finucane’s death in 2020, the Irish Independent describes it as “one of the most extraordinary [interviews] in the history of Irish broadcasting.”
In the final weeks of her life, O’Faolain travels Europe with close friends and family, staying in the Ritz Hotel in Paris and visiting the Berlin State Opera and the Prado Museum in Madrid for the first time. She dies in a hospice in Blackrock, Dublin, late on May 9, 2008. Her funeral takes place in the Church of Our Lady of the Visitation in Fairview in north Dublin on May 13. Her ashes are buried in Kilbarrack Cemetery in north Dublin with her maternal grandparents, Terence and Marion O’Sullivan, and her brother, Dermot Phelan.
Byrne is Head of Communications with the Higher Education Authority (HEA) until 2019, and has been Vice-President of the National Youth Council of Ireland. In 2014, he is named as one of the European 40 Under 40, in the European Young Leaders Programme.
In January 2006, The Sun includes Byrne’s picture on the cover of its Irish edition beneath the headline “Bertie‘s FF Man in Gay Web Shame,” revealing that Byrne has a profile on the dating website Gaydar. He responds at the time, “I have not, nor have I ever, done anything illegal and I am not a hypocrite in any way. My views on gay rights issues are well known. I am not married with four children or anything like that, so there is no suggestion of hypocrisy.” His family and political career suffer as a result and he is not selected for candidacy in the 2007 Irish general election following this incident. He later describes how a journalist from The Gorey Echo first approaches him, “The first few questions were about roads. Then the journalist said, ‘Are you aware you have a profile on this dating website?'” When he confirms that the profile is his, he experiences a sleepless night before The Gorey Echo outs him locally: “I was ringing around people I knew and my parents were ringing around people … my grandmother didn’t know and a lot of my extended family and my friends didn’t know.” Gorey Echo group editor Tom Mooney defends the publication by saying he believes Byrne’s behaviour to be “unfitting of a public representative.”
Byrne contests the 2019 European Parliament election for Fianna Fail in the South constituency, having unexpectedly beaten Cork TD Billy Kelleher in the vote for the party’s nomination. However, Kelleher is later added to the ticket. Fianna Fáil then divides the constituency geographically, asking people in counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois, Offaly, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow to vote for Byrne, and those in counties Cork, Kerry, Clare and Limerick to vote for Kelleher. Kelleher wins 11.69% of the first-preference votes (FPV) and is elected on the 17th count. Byrne wins 9.62% of the FPV, and is eliminated on the 16th count.
Byrne is elected as a TD at the 2019 Wexford by-election. Andrew Bolger is co-opted to Byrne’s seat on Wexford County Council following his election to the Dáil. His maiden speech is about housing solutions and the need to address the challenges facing Generation Rent. In an interview he says he can envisage a United Ireland where the 12th of July and Saint Patrick’s Day are public holidays and speaks about how Ireland needs to ensure Unionists feel at home in a new agreed state and that may mean addressing issues such as Ireland joining the Commonwealth.
Byrne loses his Dáil seat at the 2020 Irish general election, following what he calls “a dirty campaign.” His defeat after only 71 days makes him the TD with the second-shortest term of service, after the Anti H-Block TD Kieran Doherty, who dies on hunger strike in August 1981, only 52 days after his election.
On March 31, 2020, Byrne is elected to Seanad Éireann at the 2020 Seanad election. He is named as Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Higher Education, Innovation and Science by TaoiseachMicheál Martin in July 2020.
At the 2024 Irish general election, Byrne is elected to the Dáil. He is subsequently appointed Cathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
Byrne is openly gay. As of 2020, he is single and describes politics as “almost like an addiction,” which makes relationships difficult. He lives in Gorey.
In March 2025, Byrne is injured during the theft of his phone in London.
Mitchel is born in Camnish, near Dungiven, County Derry, on November 3, 1815, the son of a Presbyterian minister. At the age of four, he is sent to a classical school, run by an old minister named Moor, nicknamed “Gospel Moor” by the students. He reads books from a very early age. When a little over five years old, he is introduced to Latin grammar by his teacher and makes quick progress. In 1830, not yet 15 years old, he enters Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) and obtains a law degree in 1834.
In the spring of 1836, Mitchel meets Jane Verner, the only daughter of Captain James Verner. Though both families are opposed to the relationship, they become engaged in the autumn and are married on February 3, 1837, by the Rev. David Babington in Drumcree Church, the parish church of Drumcree.
Mitchel works in a law office in Banbridge, County Down, where he eventually comes into conflict with the local Orange Order. He meets Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy during visits to Dublin. He joins the Young Ireland movement and begins to write for The Nation. Deeply affected by the misery and death caused by the Great Famine, he becomes convinced that nothing will ever come of the constitutional efforts to gain Irish freedom. He then forms his own paper, United Irishmen, to advocate passive resistance by Ireland’s starving masses.
In May 1848, the British tire of Mitchel’s open defiance. Ever the legal innovators in Ireland, they invent a crime especially for the Young Irelanders – felony-treason. They arrest him for violating this new law and close down his paper. A rigged jury convicts him, and he is deported first to Bermuda and then to Australia. However, in June 1853, he escapes to the United States.
Mitchel works as a journalist in New York City and then moves to the South. When the American Civil War erupts, he is a strong supporter of the Southern cause, seeing parallels with the position of the Irish. His family fully backs his commitment to the Southern cause. He loses two sons in the war, one at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 and another at the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1864, and another son loses an arm. His outspoken support of the Confederacy causes him to be jailed for a time at Fort Monroe, where one of his fellow prisoners is Confederate PresidentJefferson Davis.
In 1874, the British allow Mitchel to return to Ireland and in 1875 he is elected in a by-election to be a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom representing the Tipperary constituency. However, his election is invalidated on the grounds that he is a convicted felon. He contests the seat again in the resulting by-election and is again elected, this time with an increased vote.
Unfortunately, Mitchel, one of the staunchest enemies to English rule of Ireland in history, dies in Newry on March 20, 1875. He is buried in his parents’ grave in the unitarian cemetery, High Street, Newry, where a monument is later erected by his widow. He is also commemorated by a statue in Newry. Thirty-eight years later, his grandson, John Purroy Mitchel, is elected Mayor of New York City.
seamus dubhghaill 