seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Journalist


by Leave a comment

Birth of Tony Gregory, Independent Politician & Teachta Dála

Tony Gregory, Irish independent politician and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Central constituency from 1982 to 2009, is born on December 5, 1947, in Ballybough on Dublin‘s Northside.

Gregory is the second child of Anthony Gregory, warehouseman in Dublin Port, and Ellen Gregory (née Judge). He wins a Dublin Corporation scholarship to the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School. He later goes on to University College Dublin (UCD), where he receives a Bachelor of Arts degree and later a Higher Diploma in Education, funding his degree from summer work at the Wall’s ice cream factory in Acton, London. Initially working at Synge Street CBS, he later teaches history and French at Coláiste Eoin, an Irish language secondary school in Booterstown. His students at Synge Street and Coláiste Eoin include John Crown, Colm Mac Eochaidh, Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Liam Ó Maonlaí.

Gregory becomes involved in republican politics, joining Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1964. In UCD he helps found the UCD Republican Club, despite pressure from college authorities, and becomes involved with the Dublin Housing Action Committee. Within the party he is a supporter of Wicklow Republican Seamus Costello. Costello, who is a member of Wicklow County Council, emphasises involvement in local politics and is an opponent of abstentionism. Gregory sides with the Officials in the 1970 split within Sinn Féin. Despite having a promising future within the party, he resigns in 1972 citing frustration with ideological infighting in the party. Later, Costello, who had been expelled by Official Sinn Féin, approaches him and asks him to join his new party, the Irish Republican Socialist Party. He leaves the party after Costello’s assassination in 1977. He is briefly associated with the Socialist Labour Party.

Gregory contests the 1979 local elections for Dublin City Council as a “Dublin Community Independent” candidate. At the February 1982 general election, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as an Independent TD. On his election he immediately achieves national prominence through the famous “Gregory Deal,” which he negotiates with Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey. In return for supporting Haughey as Taoiseach, he is guaranteed a massive cash injection for his inner-city Dublin constituency, an area beset by poverty and neglect.

Although Gregory is reviled in certain quarters for effectively holding a government to ransom, his uncompromising commitment to the poor is widely admired. Fianna Fáil loses power at the November 1982 general election, and many of the promises made in the Gregory Deal are not implemented by the incoming Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition.

Gregory is involved in the 1980s in tackling Dublin’s growing drug problem. Heroin had largely been introduced to Dublin by the Dunne criminal group, based in Crumlin, in the late 1970s. In 1982 a report reveals that 10% of 15- to 24-year-olds have used heroin at least once in the north inner city. The spread of heroin use also leads to a sharp increase in petty crime. He confronts the government’s handling of the problem as well as senior Gardaí, for what he sees as their inadequate response to the problem. He co-ordinates with the Concerned Parents Against Drugs group in 1986, who protest and highlight the activities of local drug dealers and defend the group against accusations by government Ministers Michael Noonan and Barry Desmond that it is a front for the Provisional IRA. He believes that the solution to the problem is multi-faceted and works on a number of policy level efforts across policing, service co-ordination and rehabilitation of addicts. In 1995 in an article in The Irish Times, he proposes what would later become the Criminal Assets Bureau, which is set up in 1996, catalysed by the death of journalist Veronica Guerin. His role in its development is later acknowledged by then Minister for Justice Nora Owen.

Gregory also advocates for Dublin’s street traders. After attending a sit-down protest with Sinn Féin Councillor Christy Burke, and future Labour Party TD Joe Costello on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in defence of a street trader, he, Burke and four others are arrested and charged with obstruction and threatening behaviour. He spends two weeks in Mountjoy Prison after refusing to sign a bond to keep the peace.

Gregory remains a TD from 1982 and, although he never holds a government position, remains one of the country’s most recognised Dáil deputies. He always refuses to wear a tie in the Dáil chamber stating that many of his constituents could not afford them.

Gregory dies on January 2, 2009, following a long battle with cancer. Following his death, tributes pour in from politicians from every party, recognising his contribution to Dublin’s north inner city. During his funeral, politicians from the Labour Party, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are told that although they speak highly of Gregory following his death, during his time in the Dáil he had been excluded by many of them and that they were not to use his funeral as a “photo opportunity.” He is buried on January 7, with the Socialist Party‘s Joe Higgins delivering the graveside oration.

Colleagues of Tony Gregory support his election agent, Dublin City Councillor Maureen O’Sullivan, at the 2009 Dublin Central by-election in June. She wins the subsequent by-election.


by Leave a comment

Death of Máirín Cregan, Playwright & Novelist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


by Leave a comment

Death of Alexander Sullivan, Politician, Barrister & Journalist

Alexander Martin Sullivan, Irish Nationalist politician, barrister, and journalist, dies in Rathmines, Dublin, on October 17, 1884.

Sullivan, the second of six sons of Daniel Sullivan, house painter, and his wife, Catherine (née Baylor), a teacher, is born on May 15, 1829, in Bantry, County Cork. A popular date for Sullivan’s birth appears in many histories as 1830, but his gravestone reads 1829. He is educated in the local national school. One of his brothers is Timothy Daniel Sullivan, the Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1886 to 1888.

During the Great Famine of 1845 to 1847, Sullivan is employed as a clerk in connection with the relief works started by the government. Deeply influenced by the distress he witnesses, he afterward joins the Confederate Club formed in Bantry in support of the revolutionary movement of the Young Irelanders and is the organiser of the enthusiastic reception given by the town to William Smith O’Brien in July 1848 during the insurgent leader’s tour of the southern counties. Early in 1853, he goes to Dublin to seek employment as an artist. An exhibition of the arts and industries of Ireland is held in Dublin that year, and he is engaged to supply pencil sketches to the Dublin Expositor, a journal issued in connection with the exhibition. Subsequently, he obtains a post as a draughtsman in the Irish valuation office, and afterward as a reporter on the Liverpool Daily Post.

In 1855, Sullivan becomes assistant editor of The Nation, and subsequently editor and proprietor. From 1861 to 1884, in conjunction with his elder brother, T. D. Sullivan, he makes The Nation one of the most potent factors in the Irish Nationalist cause and also issues the Weekly News and Zozimus. Called to the Irish bar in 1876, he is a “special call” of the Inner Temple in 1877 and is made QC in 1881. He mainly practices at the English bar, though he acts in some political cases in Ireland.

At the 1874 United Kingdom general election Sullivan is elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for County Louth, but although he does not formally resign, he does not take his seat. At the general election in April 1880, he is again returned for County Louth, but this time formally resigns from the Commons on May 18, 1880. However, Charles Stewart Parnell is elected for both Cork City and for Meath and chooses to sit for Cork City. At the resulting by-election on May 20, 1880, Sullivan is returned unopposed to fill the vacancy in Meath. Following the development of a severe heart condition, he nearly dies after a heart attack in mid-August 1881. He holds his seat until his resignation on February 3, 1882. He then concentrates on his work at the parliamentary bar.

As a member of the Dublin Corporation, Sullivan secures a magnificent site for the Grattan Monument, toward which he donates £400, the amount of a subscription by his admirers while he is undergoing imprisonment for a political offence in 1868. The monument is formally unveiled in January 1876. Between 1878 and 1882 he is engaged in many notable trials. His last great case is on November 30, 1883, when he is a colleague of Lord Russell in the defence of Patrick O’Donnell for the murder of James Carey, an informer.

Sullivan suffers another heart attack while on holiday in Bantry in September 1884 and spends his last days with William Martin Murphy at Dartry, County Dublin. Murphy regards him as a father figure, attributing his success to Sullivan’s early advice and journalistic training. Sullivan dies on October 17, 1884, at Dartry Lodge, Rathmines, Dublin. He is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery. With his wife, Frances Genevieve Donovan, whom he marries on April 27, 1861, and who outlives him by nearly forty years, he has a family of three sons and five daughters. His second son and namesake, Alexander Martin Sullivan, is the last to hold the rank of Serjeant-at-law (Ireland).

In addition to his labours, Sullivan is a great temperance reformer. He also writes two notable books, The Story of Ireland and New Ireland and contributes many sketches (including some verse) to Irish Penny Readings (1879–85). Some of his correspondence is located in the Isaac Butt papers in the National Library of Ireland.


by Leave a comment

Birth of George Lee, Journalist, Presenter & Former Fine Gael Politician

George Lee, Irish economist, journalist, television and radio presenter, and former Fine Gael politician, is born in Templeogue, Dublin, on September 27, 1962. He has worked for RTÉ since 1992. Since 2019, he has been Environment Correspondent for RTÉ News. He previously was Economics Editor in 1996.

Lee’s father is a motor mechanic, and his mother is a hairdresser. He is the seventh in a family of eight children and grows up in Templeogue, Dublin. He attends Coláiste Éanna, a Christian Brothers’ School in the Dublin suburb of Ballyroan. He is a graduate of University College Dublin (UCD) and holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics (LSE) where his specialist area is labour economics and unemployment.

Lee is married to Mary Lee (née Kitson) and they have two children, Alison and Harry, and live in Cabinteely. He famously travels to work at RTÉ using a Segway, once giving it a test ride live on Tubridy Tonight.

Lee joins the civil service as an executive officer in the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Two years later he enters University College Dublin where he studies economics under academics such as Brendan Walsh and Peter Neary.

Prior to his move into broadcasting, Lee lectures at NUI Galway and then works as a journalist with The Sunday Business Post. He is also a Senior Economist at Riada Stockbrokers. He also works as Treasury Economist with FTI and as a research economist with the Central Bank of Ireland.

From 1992 to 2009 Lee worked at RTÉ, the public broadcasting service of Ireland. He is appointed Economics Editor with RTÉ in 1996. He is named Irish Journalist of the Year, along with Charlie Bird, in 1998 after they uncover a major tax evasion and overcharging scandal at National Irish Bank. He has devised, researched and presented several television series, including Moneybox, More to Do, Winds of Change, and Beyond the Berlin Wall. He is thought of as an “economics guru.” He leaves RTÉ in the late 1990s to work for BCP Stockbrokers. He leaves the job and returns to his RTÉ post the next day.

Before embarking on his political career, Lee films a four-part series based on the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2008. It is aired on RTÉ One in November 2009.

Lee is parodied in the 1990s comedy Bull Island, where he is seen “menacingly staring down the lens of a camera,” and is also featured on RTÉ 2fm‘s Nob Nation.

On May 5, 2009, on RTÉ News at One on RTÉ Radio 1, Lee announces that he is resigning as Economic Editor with RTÉ and announces his intention to seek the Fine Gael nomination for the Dublin South by-election in 2009. He takes a year’s unpaid leave from RTÉ in May 2009. On May 6, 2009, he is chosen as the Fine Gael candidate for the by-election. He is the only candidate for the nomination.

Lee is elected on the first count to represent Dublin South on June 6, 2009. He receives over 53% of the 1st preference vote. In total he receives 27,768 1st preference votes. When elected, he is referred to as a “Celebrity TD.” His RTÉ position is filled by Europe editor Sean Whelan, but only as correspondent. Instead, David Murphy is promoted to Business Editor.

In an opinion poll concerning support for possible candidates in the 2011 Irish presidential election conducted by the Sunday Independent in October 2009, Lee places third, receiving 12% support, ahead of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and other high-profile politicians.

Lee highlights the failure of EMPG, the holding company for U.S. publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the potential impact on the Irish taxpayers of the loans given by Anglo Irish Bank to the investors in EMPG on January 13, 2010. He sees this as another example for the urgent need of an investigation into the Irish banking crisis.

On February 8, 2010, Lee announces his resignation from Fine Gael and from Dáil Éireann, due to having “virtually no influence or input” into shaping Fine Gael’s economic policies at a time of economic upheaval. It emerges that on February 2, he met with the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and told him of his intention to resign. Kenny then offered Lee the frontbench position as spokesman on economic planning. Speaking to reporters outside Leinster House soon after his announcement, Lee says it would have been dishonest of him to accept the position. “I had absolutely no input for nine months. I think I had to be honest with myself and honest with the electorate about that and not pretend.” Asked if his resignation is a vote of no confidence in Kenny, he says there are “certainly lots of large mutterings at the moment in relation to the leader’s position.” He says he had “minimal involvement” with Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton.

Kenny notes Lee had been appointed chair of the party’s committee on economic policy and also its forum. “I had anticipated a very important role for [George Lee] in the coming period with Fine Gael.” Kenny’s spokesman later dismisses the proposition that the resignation had implications for his leadership. He cited the public endorsement of Kenny by 20 Dáil deputies over the course of the weekend. Former Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan says he is surprised at the decision. “I thought that George Lee was fitting in well,” adding that he believes he would have been a cabinet member in a Fine Gael-led government.

Lee is criticised after his resignation by Senator Eoghan Harris, who is speaking on the Lunchtime programme of Newstalk Radio. Harris suggests financial considerations and long working hours of politicians are the reasons for Lee’s resignation. Fine Gael TD Brian Hayes, who is Lee’s campaign manager in the Dublin South by-election, says that in discussions with Lee, the latter had complained about “a major reduction in his income” since leaving RTÉ to become a Dáil backbencher. Lee denies that financial considerations had anything to do with his decision to quit politics.

RTÉ receives a letter from Lee confirming his intentions to return after his leave of absence. The Sunday Tribune says on February 14, 2010, that he will have to wait for three months before returning to RTÉ. Exactly a year after leaving RTÉ, he returns to the broadcaster on May 5, 2010. He works as an advisor on the RTÉ business desk. He presents Mind Your Business on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday Mornings as a summer replacement for The Business.

When John Murray moves to present his own programme, Lee takes over The Business slot on September 4, 2010, on Saturday mornings on RTÉ Radio 1. In addition to the radio edition, he has presented a televised version on RTÉ One, also titled The Business.

Lee has been Environment Correspondent for RTÉ since June 27, 2019.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Sir Thomas Drew, Anglo-Irish Architect

Sir Thomas Drew, Anglo-Irish architect, is born in Victoria Place, Belfast, on September 18, 1838.

Drew is the son of the Rev. Thomas Drew, son of a Limerick grocer, and Isabella Drew (née Dalton), daughter of a Dublin attorney. He is one of four sons and eight daughters of the couple, although most of the children die young. His sister, Catherine Drew, is a prominent London journalist and an early champion of women’s rights.

Drew is trained under Sir Charles Lanyon before moving to work in Dublin, where he becomes principal assistant to William George Murray. In 1865, he becomes the diocesan architect of the united dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore, and from that point forward Church architecture is his principal activity. He is consulting architect for both St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.

Drew marries Adelaide Anne, sister of William George Murray, in 1871.

Among other projects, Drew is responsible for the design of the Ulster Bank on Dame Street, Rathmines Town Hall (completed 1899) and the Graduates Memorial Building at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). He takes an interest in historic buildings and is the first to draw serious attention to the architectural and historic importance of the St. Audoen’s Church, Dublin’s oldest parish church, in 1866. He produces detailed plans of the church for which he wins an award from the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), carries out excavations and draws up a paper on the church and its history.

From 1885 to 1892, Richard Orpen works with Drew as a managing assistant. Drew’s most significant work in Belfast is St. Anne’s Cathedral, completed in 1899.

Drew is knighted in the 1900 Birthday Honours and is inaugural president of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects, serving from 1901 to 1903. In addition, he is president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI) and the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and holds the chair in architecture at the National University of Ireland. He lives in Gortnadrew, Monkstown, County Dublin.

Drew dies on March 13, 1910, a month after an unsuccessful operation for appendicitis. He is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery.

Selected works:


by Leave a comment

Death of Gaelic Footballer Seán Purcell

Seán Purcell, Gaelic footballer who plays at senior level for the Galway county football team, dies in Blackrock, Dublin, on August 27, 2005, following a short illness.

Best known as a centre half-forward, Purcell plays in most outfield positions during his career. In 2009, he is named in the Sunday Tribune‘s list of the “125 Most Influential People in GAA History.”

Born in the family home on the Dublin Road, Tuam, County Galway, on December 17, 1928, the son of John Purcell, journalist and newsagent, and his wife Norah (née Kilkenny). He is educated at the Presentation Convent, Tuam Christian Brothers School and St. Jarlath’s College. He plays in the St. Jarlath’s College side that wins the Hogan Cup in 1947, beating St. Patrick’s Grammar School, Armagh, in the final at Croke Park in Dublin. His nickname “The Master” originates when he teaches at Strawberry Hill National School in Dunmore.

Purcell’s footballing career spans three decades, from the 1940s to the 1960s. He forms a successful on-field partnership with Frank Stockwell at Galway, culminating in the team winning their fourth All-Ireland championship in 1956 and leading to their nickname as the “Terrible Twins.”

Further successes in which Purcell is involved include winning the National Football League title in 1957, three Railway Cups, one of which he captains, the 1950 Sigerson Cup, appearances with the Combined Universities side and ten county titles with the Tuam Stars, including seven in a row from 1954 to 1960.

Purcell’s involvement in the GAA continues long after his playing days as he serves in a number of positions as team mentor and administrator in Galway.

In 1984, the GAA’s centenary year, Purcell is named on the GAA Football Team of the Century and the organisation’s Football Team of the Millennium in 1999. In 1984, the Sunday Independent invites readers to vote for their Team of the Century. Purcell wins more votes than any other player. In 1991, he is inducted into the All-Stars All-Time Hall of Fame. In 2003, he is named on the St. Jarlath’s All Stars team.

Purcell dies on August 27, 2005, at the age of 76, following a short illness at the Blackrock Clinic, County Dublin. He is buried in the Athenry Road graveyard at Tuam.

Purcell marries Rita Shannon in 1961. They have four daughters and two sons before the marriage ends. His son, Robert Purcell, marries Tessa Robinson, daughter of former Irish President Mary Robinson, in 2005. His grandson, Simon Carr, is a professional tennis player. Another grandson, Sam McCartan, has played Gaelic football at senior level for Westmeath. His teenage grandson, Rory Purcell, dies in 2022.


by Leave a comment

Death of Geraldine Cummins, Spiritualist Medium, Novelist & Playwright

Geraldine Dorothy Cummins, spiritualist medium, novelist and playwright, dies in Cork, County Cork, on August 24, 1969. She begins her career as a creative writer, but increasingly concentrates on mediumship and “channelled” writings, mostly about the lives of Jesus and Saint Paul, though she also publishes on a range of other topics. Her novels and plays typically document Irish life in a naturalist manner, often exploring the pathos of everyday life.

Cummins is born in Cork, on January 24, 1890, the daughter of the physician Ashley Cummins, professor of medicine at the National University of Ireland and sister to Mary Hearn and Iris Cummins. In her youth she is an athlete, becoming a member of the Irish Women’s International Hockey Team. She is also active as a suffragette. Her desire to follow her father in a medical career is vetoed by her mother, so she begins a literary career as a journalist and creative writer. From 1913 to 1917 she writes three plays for the Abbey Theatre in collaboration with Suzanne R. Day, the most successful of which is the comedy Fox and Geese (1917). She publishes the novel The Land they Loved in 1919, a naturalistic study of working class Irish life.

As she concentrates on mediumship, Cummins’s literary work tails off. However, she continues to publish creative literature in her later years. Her solo-written play, Till Yesterday Comes Again, is produced by the Chanticleer Theatre, London, in 1938. She also publishes another novel, Fires of Beltane (1936) and a short-story collection Variety Show (1959).

Literary critic Alexander G. Gonzalez says that Cummins work tries to encompass the full range of Irish social life, from the aristocracy to the lower classes. In this respect she is influenced by Somerville and Ross. Gonzalez considers her short story The Tragedy of Eight Pence to be the “finest” of her writings, the tale of a “happily married woman trying to shield her ill husband from the knowledge that his death will leave her penniless.”

Cummins begins to work as a medium following prompting from Hester Dowden and E. B. Gibbes. She receives alleged messages from her spirit-guide “Astor” and is an exponent of automatic writing. Her books are based on these communications. In 1928 she publishes The Scripts of Cleophas, which provides channelled material on early Christian history complementing Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul’s writings, supposed to have been communicated by the spirit of Cleophas, one of Paul’s followers. This is later supplemented by Paul in Athens (1930) and The Great Days of Ephesus (1933).

Cummins’s next work describes human progress through spiritual enlightenment. The Road to Immortality (1932) provides a glowing vision of the afterlife. Its contents are purportedly communicated from the “other side” by the psychologist and psychic researcher Frederic W. H. Myers. Unseen Adventures (1951) is a spiritual autobiography. She also publishes several books of spiritually-derived knowledge about details of the life of Jesus.

During World War II Cummins allegedly works as a British agent, using her personal contacts to identify pro-Nazi factions within the Irish Republican movement. She also employs her psychic activities to support the Allied cause, sending channelled messages from sympathetic spirits to Allied leaders to support the war effort. This includes information from Theodore Roosevelt, Arthur Balfour and Sara Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s mother.

In the 1940s and 50s Cummins works with psychiatrists to develop a model for using spiritualism to treat mental illness, ideas she explores in Perceptive Healing (1945) and Healing the Mind (1957). She collaborates with a psychiatrist who uses the pseudonym R. Connell on both books. Their method is for her to “read” an object associated with the patient and thus identify either childhood traumas or experiences of ancestors which have created the problem. This includes treating a patient who is concerned about his homosexual desires by discovering that this derives from the fact that his Huguenot ancestors were humiliated by Catholics in the 18th century.

Cummins’s biography of writer and spiritualist Edith Somerville is published in 1952. She also writes The Fate of Colonel Fawcett (1955) which offers her psychic insights into the disappearance of the explorer Percy Fawcett in Brazil in 1925. She claims she had received psychic messages from Fawcett in 1936. He was still alive at that time, informing her that he had found relics of Atlantis in the jungle, but was ill. In 1948 she has a message from Fawcett’s spirit reporting his death. Her last book is an account of her conversations with the spirit of Winifred Coombe Tennant, Swan on a Black Sea; a Study in Automatic Writing; the Cummins-Willett Scripts (1965).

The automatic writing and alleged channeled material from Cummins have been examined and have been described by some psychical researchers to be the product of her own subconscious. For example, Harry Price, who studies various mental mediums including Cummins, writes that “there is no question that most of the automatic writing which has been published is the product of the subconscious.” Paranormal researcher Hilary Evans notes that unlike most spiritualists, Cummins does not accept the phenomena at face value and questions the source of the material.

According to the psychical researcher Eric Dingwall information published in Cummins’ scripts allegedly from Winifred Coombe Tennant are discovered to be erroneous. Biographer Rodger Anderson writes that although spiritualists consider Cummins completely honest “some suspected that she occasionally augmented her store of knowledge about deceased persons by normal means if by doing so she could bring comfort to the bereaved.”

Cummins’ book The Fate of Colonel Fawcett (1955), contains her automatist scripts allegedly from the spirit of Colonel Fawcett. Spiritualists claim the scripts are evidence for survival. However, the psychical researcher Simeon Edmunds notes that before his disappearance Fawcett had written articles for The Occult Review. Cummins also contributes articles to the same review and Edmunds suggests it is likely she had read the work of Fawcett. Edmunds concludes the scripts are a case of subliminal memory and unconscious dramatization.

Other researchers such as Mary Rose Barrington have suspected fraud as Cummins had long standing connections with friends and families of the deceased that she claimed to have contacted and could have easily obtained information by natural means. The classical scholar E. R. Dodds writes that Cummins worked as a cataloguer at the National Library of Ireland and could have taken information from various books that would appear in her automatic writings about ancient history. Her writings were heavily influenced by literature and religious texts. Dodds also studies her book Swan on a Black Sea which was supposed to be an account of spirit conversation but writes there is evidence suggestive of fraud as Cummins had received some of the information by natural means.

Cummins dies in Cork on August 24, 1969, and is buried in St. Lappan’s churchyard, Little Island.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Eamon Dunphy, Media Personality & Journalist

Eamon Martin Dunphy, Irish media personality, journalist, broadcaster, author, sports pundit and former professional footballer, is born in Dublin on August 3, 1945.

Dunphy grows up in Drumcondra, Dublin, in what he describes as “a one-room tenement flat [with] no electricity, no hot water.” He attends Saint Patrick’s National School, Drumcondra. In 1958, he gets a one-year government scholarship to Sandymount High School but has to work as a messenger at the tweed clothing shop Kevin and Howlin.

A promising footballer, Dunphy leaves Dublin while still a teenager to join Manchester United as an apprentice. He does not break into the first team at United, and subsequently leaves to play for York City, Millwall, Charlton Athletic, Reading and Shamrock Rovers. It is at Millwall that he makes the most impact. He is considered an intelligent and skillful player in the side’s midfield. He is a member of “The Class of ’71,” the Millwall side that fails by just one point to gain promotion to the Football League First Division.

Dunphy plays 23 times for the Republic of Ireland and is Millwall’s most capped international footballer with 22 caps, until surpassed by David Forde and Shane Ferguson. He makes his Ireland debut on November 10, 1965, in the playoff at the Parc des Princes in Paris for the 1966 FIFA World Cup which Spain wins 1–0, thanks to a José Ufarte goal. He goes on to become, in his own words, “a good player, not a great player.”

Dunphy accompanies Johnny Giles back to Ireland to join Shamrock Rovers in 1977. Giles wants to make the club Ireland’s first full-time professional club and hopes to make Rovers into a force in European football by developing talented young players at home who would otherwise go to clubs in England. Dunphy is originally intended to be in charge of youth development. However, despite an FAI Cup winners medal in 1978, his only medal in senior football, and two appearances in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, he becomes disillusioned with the Irish game and drops out of football altogether to concentrate on a career in journalism.

After retiring from the game, Dunphy first begins writing on football for the Sunday Tribune and then contributes regular columns on both football and current events for the Sunday Independent. He currently writes a column on football for the Irish Daily Star. He coins the term “Official Ireland” to refer to the establishment. He also works for Ireland on Sunday (now the Irish Daily Mail), The Sunday Press (now defunct), and the Irish Examiner.

Since the 1980s, Dunphy has written a number of books. His first and most widely praised book is Only a Game? The Diary of a Professional Footballer, which is an autobiographical account of his days playing for Millwall. Written in diary form, it records events from the dressing room of his 1973–74 season, which begins well for him at Millwall but subsequently ends in disillusionment: after being substituted in an October 27, 1973, home loss to eventual league winners Middlesbrough, he does not play another game all season, the club finishing mid-table.

In 1985, rock band U2 and manager Paul McGuinness commission Dunphy to write the story of their origins, formation, early years and the time leading up to their highly successful album The Joshua Tree. His book Unforgettable Fire – Past, Present, and Future – The Definitive Biography of U2 is published in 1988. It receives some favourable reviews, but critics close to the band speak of many inaccuracies. A verbal war erupts in the press during which he calls lead singer Bono a “pompous git.”

Dunphy also writes a biography of long-serving Manchester United manager Matt Busby and in 2002 ghost writes the autobiography of Republic of Ireland and Manchester United player Roy Keane.

Since the mid-1980s, Dunphy has regularly appeared as an analyst during football coverage on Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). Since RTÉ acquired the rights to show English football, he has been a regular contributor to Premier Soccer Saturday. He also contributes to analysis of UEFA Champions League games and, in international football, RTÉ’s coverage of FIFA World Cups, UEFA European Football Championships and qualifying matches involving the Republic of Ireland national football team.

In 2001, Dunphy becomes the first male host of the quiz show The Weakest Link, which airs on TV3, for just one series. In 2003, he is hired again by TV3 to host their new Friday night chat show, entitled The Dunphy Show. Pitted head-to-head with RTÉ’s long-running flagship programme, The Late Late Show, Dunphy’s show loses what is a highly publicised “ratings war,” and is cancelled before its original run concludes.

Dunphy is the first presenter of a made-for-mobile television show on the 3 mobile network in Ireland. His rants and “Spoofer of the Week” are watched by thousands of 3 Mobile customers. The shows are awarded “Best Entertainment Show” at Ireland’s Digital Media Awards. He admits he never uses a mobile himself but enjoys filming for a mobile audience from his living room in Ranelagh.

In July 2018, Dunphy announces that he is leaving RTÉ after 40 years with the broadcaster, and that he intends to focus on his podcast The Stand with Eamon Dunphy.

Dunphy has also has a prominent radio career with several stations, including Today FM, Newstalk and RTÉ Radio 1. He is the original host in 1997 of the popular current affairs show The Last Word on Today FM. In September 2004, he takes over The Breakfast Show slot on the Dublin radio station Newstalk 106 from David McWilliams. The show tries to court controversy and listeners in equal measure. He fails to attract the large listenership predicted, with only a few additional thousand tuning in. He announces in June 2006 his intention to leave Newstalk 106, citing an inability to sustain the demands of an early morning schedule. After his departure from Newstalk 106, he confirms he is suffering from a viral illness from which he later recovers.

In July 2006, RTÉ announces that Dunphy will present a new weekly programme as part of the new RTÉ Radio 1 autumn schedule.

Dunphy rejoins Newstalk but leaves again in 2011 “due to interference from management and a push to put a more positive spin on the news.” On his last show he accuses his boss, Denis O’Brien, of “hating journalism.” He quits after Sam Smyth is sacked from Today FM (also owned by O’Brien) and says management at Newstalk is trying to remove “dissenting voices” like Constantin Gurdgiev from the airwaves.

Dunphy is a daily Mass-goer until he is preparing for marriage to his first wife, Sandra from Salford, when he is 21. He is Catholic and she is Protestant. The priest instructing them for marriage disapproves strongly of the mixed couple, saying that he should not marry her because she is “not a proper person.” Dunphy’s observance is already weakening but he quits his daily Mass-going at this point. He and Sandra have two children, a boy and a girl, and he is now a grandfather. His first marriage ends, and he moves to Castletownshend in County Cork for two years in the early 1990s. He lives with another partner, Inge, before meeting his second wife, RTÉ commissioning editor Jane Gogan, in the Horseshoe Bar in Dublin in 1992. They marry at the Unitarian Church on St. Stephen’s Green on September 24, 2009.

In an interview with An Phoblacht, Dunphy, who had previously written highly critical articles on the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, states that he is now a Sinn Féin supporter and declares he had voted for them in the 2011 Irish general election. He describes their representatives as “incredibly hard-working and incredibly intelligent.”

Dunphy publishes his autobiography entitled The Rocky Road in October 2013.

Today, Dunphy generally resides at his home near Ranelagh in Dublin. He also owns a holiday home in Deauville, France.

(Pictured: Éamon Dunphy at the Sinn Féin Summer School, 2013)


by Leave a comment

Birth of John Gray, Physician, Journalist & Politician

Sir John Gray JP, Irish physician, surgeon, newspaper proprietor, journalist and politician, is born in Claremorris, County Mayo, on July 13, 1815. He is active both in municipal and national government for much of his life and has nationalist ideals, which he expresses as owner of the Freeman’s Journal, chairman of the Dublin Corporation Water Works Committee between 1863 and 1875, and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for Kilkenny City from 1865 until his death.

Gray is the third son of John and Elizabeth Gray of Mount Street. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin and obtains the degree of M.D. and Master of Surgery at the University of Glasgow in 1839. Shortly before his marriage in the same year, he settles in Dublin and takes up a post at a hospital in North Cumberland Street. He is admitted as a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in due course.

Gray is publicly minded and contributes to periodicals and the newspaper press. In 1841, he becomes joint proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, a nationalist paper which is then published daily and weekly. He acts as political editor of the Journal for a time, before becoming sole proprietor in 1850. As owner, he increases the newspaper’s size, reduces its price and extends its circulation.

Gray enters politics at a relatively young age and attaches himself to Daniel O’Connell‘s Repeal Association. As a Protestant Nationalist, he supports the movement for the repeal of the Acts of Union with Britain. In October 1843, he is indicted with O’Connell and others in the Court of the Queen’s Bench in Dublin on a charge of sedition and “conspiracy against the queen.” The following February, he, together with O’Connell, is condemned to nine months imprisonment, but in early September 1844 the sentence is remitted on appeal. The trial has a strong element of farce, as the hot-tempered Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, challenges Gray’s counsel, Gerald Fitzgibbon, to a duel, for which he is sternly reprimanded by the judges. From then on Gray is careful to distance himself from the advocacy of violence in the national cause, though he is sympathetic to the Young Ireland movement without being involved in its 1848 rebellion. Through the growing influence of the Freeman’s Journal, he becomes a significant figure in Dublin municipal politics. He is also active in national politics during an otherwise quiet period of Irish politics up until 1860. With the resurgence of nationalism after the famine, he helps to organise the Tenant’s League founding conference in 1850, standing unsuccessfully as the League’s candidate for Monaghan in the 1852 United Kingdom general election.

Later Gray originates and organises the “courts of arbitration” which O’Connell endeavours to substitute for the existing legal tribunals of the country. Following O’Connell’s death, in 1862 he inaugurates an appeal for subscriptions to build a monument to O’Connell on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street). Independent from O’Connell, he continues to take a prominent part in Irish politics and in local affairs.

In municipal politics, Gray is elected councillor in 1852 and alderman of Dublin Corporation and takes an interest in the improvement of the city. As chairman of the committee for a new water supply to Dublin, he actively promotes what becomes the “Vartry scheme.” The Vartry Reservoir scheme involves the partial redirection and damming of the River Vartry in County Wicklow, and the building of a series of water piping and filtering systems (and related public works) to carry fresh water to the city. This work is particularly important in the improvement of conditions in the city, and to public health, as it improves sanitation and helps reduce outbreaks of cholera, typhus and other diseases associated with contaminated water. On the opening of the works on June 30, 1863, he is knighted by the Earl of Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Partially in recognition of these efforts, he is later be nominated for the position of Lord Mayor of Dublin for the years 1868–69, but he declines to serve.

In national politics, the Liberal government at the time is keen to conciliate an influential representative of the moderate nationalists to support British Liberalism and who will resume O’Connell’s constitutional agitation. In an unusual alliance with the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Paul Cullen, a man devoted to O’Connell’s memory, Gray’s newspaper exploits this shift in government policy. It supports the archbishop’s creation, the National Association of Ireland, established in 1864 with the intention of providing a moderate alternative to the revolutionary nationalism of the Fenians. The Freeman’s Journal adopts the aims of the Association as its own: it advocates the disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Ireland, reform of the land laws, educational aspirations of Irish Catholicism and free denominal education.

In the 1865 United Kingdom general election Gray is elected MP for Kilkenny City as a Liberal candidate. In this capacity he campaigns successfully at Westminster and in Ireland for the reforms also advocated in his paper. His newspaper’s inquiry into the anomalous wealth of the established church amidst a predominately Catholic population contributes considerably to William Ewert Gladstone‘s Irish Church Act 1869. He helps to furnish the proof that Irish demands are not to be satisfied by anything other than by radical legislation. He fights for the provision in the new Landlord & Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 for fixity of tenure, which Gladstone eventually concedes. The Act’s other weaknesses, however, result in its failure to resolve the “land question,” the accompanying coercion, the disappointment with Gladstone’s handling of the university question and national education, causing Gray to deflect from the Liberals and become mistrusted in Britain. In the 1874 United Kingdom general election he is re-elected as a Home Rule League MP for Kilkenny, joining its Home Rule majority in the House of Commons, and holds his seat until his death the following year.

Gray dies at Bath, Somerset, England, on April 9, 1875. His remains are returned to Ireland, and he is honoured with a public funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery. Almost immediately afterwards public subscriptions are sought for the erection in O’Connell Street, of a monument to Gray. The monument is completed in 1879 and is dedicated to the “appreciation of his many services to his country, and of the splendid supply of pure water which he secured for Dublin.” His legacy also includes his contributions to the passage of the Irish Church and Land Bills, his advocacy for tenant’s rights and his support of the Home Rule movement.

Gray marries Mary Anna Dwyer of Limerick in 1839, and they have five children, three sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Edmund Dwyer Gray, takes over the management of the Freeman’s Journal. Edmund also follows his father into politics, eventually becoming MP for Dublin St. Stephen’s Green, Lord Mayor of Dublin (1880–1881), and a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell. Edmund John Chisholm Dwyer-Gray, Edmund Dwyer Gray’s son and John Gray’s grandson, becomes Premier of Tasmania.

(Pictured: Statue to Sir John Gray on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, designed by Thomas Farrell and unveiled on June 24, 1879. Photo credit: Graham Hickey)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Uinseann MacEoin, Architect & Republican Campaigner

Uinseann Ó Rathaille MacEoin, Irish architect, journalist, republican campaigner and historian, is born in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, on July 4, 1920.

MacEoin is born Vincent O’Rahilly McGuone to Malachy McGuone, owner of the Central Hotel in Pomeroy and a wine and spirit merchant, and Catherine (née Fox). He has three siblings. Both of his parents are nationalists, and name all their children after leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Under the First Dáil in 1918, his father is appointed a judge. This results in him being interned on the prison ship Argenta on Larne Lough from 1922 to 1923. The family moves to Dublin after his release. His father dies in 1933, which leads to his wife running a workingmen’s café in East Essex Street. The family later lives on Marlborough Road, Donnybrook.

MacEoin attends boarding school at Blackrock College and is then articled to the architectural practice of Vincent Kelly in Merrion Square. As an active republican, he lives in a house on Northumberland Road from late 1939 to May 1940 where he helps in the production and distribution of an Irish Republican Army (IRA) weekly newspaper, War News. The IRA is banned by the Irish government in 1936, and its bombing campaign in Britain in 1939 is viewed by the government as a threat to Irish neutrality. MacEoin is among a group of republicans arrested in June 1940 and imprisoned in Arbour Hill Prison for a year. Once released, he is rearrested and interned at the Curragh for three years. He is sentenced to 3-months imprisonment in October 1943 for possession of incriminating documents. He is also charged with possession of ammunition, but testifies he was given the rounds against his will and never appears to have engaged in any violence. During his internment, he is taught the Irish language by Máirtín Ó Cadhain and is exposed to the socialist views of his fellow inmates. It is at this time that he adopts the Irish form of his name, Uinseann MacEoin.

While imprisoned in the 1940s, MacEoin continues his studies by correspondence and qualifies as an architect in 1945 at University College Dublin (UCD). His designs for a memorial garden in 1946 to those who died during the Irish War of Independence are commended. In 1959, he designs the site in Ballyseedy, County Kerry, for a monument by Yann Goulet commemorating those killed in the Irish Civil War and members of the IRA from Kerry who died. In 1948, he qualifies in town planning and takes up a position with Michael Scott‘s architectural practice. He works for a short time with Dublin Corporation, with their housing department, before establishing his own practice in 1955.

During the 1950s, MacEoin is a contributing editor on interior design in Hugh McLaughlin‘s magazine Creation, becoming editor of Irish Architect and Contractor in 1955. He enters into a partnership with Aidan Kelly in 1969 as MacEoin Kelly and Associates. In the early 1970s, he designs a shopping and housing development outside Dundalk, called Ard Easmuinn. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he continues as an influential architectural journalist, founding and editing Build from 1965 to 1969, and later Plan. His company, Pomeroy Press, publishes Plan along with other serials such as Stream and Field. He writes a large proportion of the copy in these periodicals, much under his own name, but he also uses pseudonyms, in particular in Plan as “Michael O’Brien.” He writes about his strong views on social housing, national infrastructure, and foreign and slum landlords, often libelously.

Despite his republican and socialist views, MacEoin is a staunch advocate for the preservation of Georgian Dublin, and campaigns for their preservation. On this topic, he writes letters to newspapers, takes part in television and radio discussions, writes comment pieces and editorials, speaks at public hearings, and takes part in direct protests such as sit-ins in buildings including those on Baggot Street, Pembroke Street, Hume Street, and Molesworth Street. He is also an active member of the Irish Georgian Society, and he campaigns actively against the road widening schemes in Dublin the 1970s and 1980s.

MacEoin and his wife purchase five Georgian houses on Mountjoy Square and three on Henrietta Street in the 1960s, all almost derelict. They refurbish them and lease them out, under the company name Luke Gardiner Ltd. He renames the 5 Henrietta Street property James Bryson House. His architectural practice moves into one of the Mountjoy Square houses. Along with fellow campaigners, Mariga Guinness and Deirdre Kelly, this demonstrates that these buildings can be salvaged and are not the dangerous structures other architects and developers claim them to be. He also purchases and saves Heath House, near Portlaoise, County Laois, living there toward the end of his life. He offers free conservation and architectural advice to community groups and is a volunteer on the renovation works on projects including Tailors’ Hall.

MacEoin remains politically active, joining Clann na Poblachta, the Wolfe Tone Societies (WTS), the Dublin Civic Group, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement. To what extent he is involved in republican or IRA activities after 1945 is not clear. However, in March 1963, he is called a witness to a case in Scotland involving a Glasgow bookmaker by the name of Samuel Docherty and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Docherty claims the bank owes him £50,000. MacEoin testifies that in February 1962 he had travelled with £50,000 in cash from Dublin to lodge to Docherty’s account in the Royal Bank of Scotland in Belfast, as a loan. When asked about the origin of this large sum of money, he states it was supplied by another person but does not divulge that person’s name. This immediately triggers the court’s suspicions, and the judge warns MacEoin he will be contempt of court if he does not name the supplier of the money. He is placed in police custody for the day, and eventually he agrees to give the name in writing in confidence to the judge. The judge ultimately rules that Docherty is guilty of attempted fraud and perjury and that MacEoin’s involvement reeks of criminality. However, no further action is ever brought forward against Docherty or MacEoin.

In Sinn Féin‘s 1971 Éire Nua social and economic programme, MacEoin writes the chapter on “Planning,” and attends meetings in Monaghan in the early 1970s on the Dáil Uladh, a parliament for the 9-county Ulster province. In 1981, during the republican hunger strikes, one of his Mountyjoy Square houses is used as the national headquarters of the National H-Block Committee. Following the 1986 Sinn Féin split, he supports Republican Sinn Féin. He is a founding member of the Constitutional Rights Campaign in 1987, a group which aims to protect the rights of Irish citizens in the European Economic Community (EEC), having campaigned against Ireland joining the EEC in the early 1970s. In 1978, he is sentenced to two weeks in Mountjoy Prison for non-payment of a fine issued for not having a television licence. He had refused to buy one to protest the lack of Irish language programming.

As an environmentalist, MacEoin opposes private car ownership, and advocates for cycleways and the redevelopment of the railway lines. He writes about the “greenhouse effect” as early as 1969. As a hill walker and mountaineer, he claims to be the first Irishman to register successful climbs of all 284 Scottish peaks, known as the Munros, in 1987. He also climbs in the Alps and the Pyrenees.

MacEoin writes three books on his memories, and those of his former comrades: Survivors (1980), on the lives of leading Irish republicans, Harry (1986), a part biography part autobiography of Harry White, and The IRA in the twilight years 1923–48 (1997). He also publishes a novel, Sybil: a tale of innocence (1992) with his publishing house, Argenta, under the name Eoin O’Rahilly. He also interviews and records dozens of Republicans as part of his research for his books. These recordings are later converted into a digital oral history archive held in trust by the Irish Defence Forces.

MacEoin marries Margaret Russell in 1956 in Navan, County Meath. They have a daughter and two sons.

MacEoin dies in a nursing home in Shankill, Dublin, on December 21, 2007. His estate at the time of his death is valued at over €3 million. His son, Nuada, takes over his father’s architectural practice.