seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Kilcoole


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Birth of Edward Conor Marshall O’Brien, Ship Builder & Designer

Edward Conor Marshall O’Brien, Irish aristocrat and intellectual, is born in Cahirmoyle, County Limerick, on November 3, 1880. His views are republican and nationalist. He is also owner and captain of one of the first boats to sail under the tri-colour of the Irish Free State. He is the first amateur Irish sailor to sail around the world.

O’Brien is a ship builder and designer, and his notable boats include the Kelpie (used for gun running in 1914), the Saoirse (in which he circumnavigates the globe) and the Ilen (a Falkland Islands service ship).

O’Brien’s grandfather is William O’Brien who is a member of Young Ireland. His grandfather and his aunt Charlotte Grace O’Brien both play roles in social reform. Robert Donough, his uncle, is an architect, and the painter Dermod O’Brien is his brother. He is educated in England at Winchester College and the University of Oxford, and in Ireland at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). After his education he comes back to Ireland and starts practicing as an architect in 1903. According to the 1911 census he lives at 58 Mount Street, south County Dublin.

O’Brien is credited with two buildings in his lifetime: the Co-operative Hall in County Donegal and the People’s Hall in County Limerick. He is also known as a naval architect, having designed two ships, the Saoirse and the llen. He later captains both of these ships himself.

In Saoirse, a 20-ton, 42-foot ketch designed and built in 1922 in Baltimore, County Cork, he and three crew members circumnavigate the globe between 1923 and 1925 – the first recorded by an amateur skipper from west to east, the first yacht circumnavigation by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin, and the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world’s ports and harbours. His voyage begins and ends at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, where he lives. His account of the voyage, Across Three Oceans, (1927) becomes one of the classics of maritime literature.

Up until O’Brien’s circumnavigation, this route is the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

O’Brien’s seagoing experiences are put to use in his design of the Ilen, which is built for the Falkland Islands as a service boat and launched in the spring of 1926. In 1998, Ilen returns to the site where she was first built, on the River Ilen near Baltimore, County Cork, where she undergoes a full restoration and is re-launched in May 2018. This task provides work-based learning for the students of the Ilen School.

O’Brien has some involvement with gun running in 1914 on behalf of the Irish Volunteers, for political reasons and because he has experience in sailing. On July 26, 1914, nine hundred guns are brought to Howth harbour aboard Erskine Childers‘ yacht Asgard. As part of the same operation, O’Brien transports arms on his yacht, Kelpie. The guns on Kelpie are transshipped to another yacht, Chotah, owned by Sir Thomas Myles, before being landed at Kilcoole in County Wicklow on August 1, 1914. After the gun running incidents, he serves in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

O’Brien is a keen mountaineer as well as a sailor, known for climbing in bare feet. He climbs Mount Brandon in southwest Ireland and Snowdon in North Wales with George Mallory and Geoffrey Winthrop Young among others. Later, during his circumnavigation (1923–1925) he plans to climb Aoraki / Mount Cook in the Southern Alps in New Zealand‘s South Island. However, because of delays during his circumnavigation, he arrives in New Zealand too late.

In 1928, O’Brien marries a well-known artist, Kathleen Francis, the youngest daughter of Sir George Clausen, RA. The couple thereafter moves to Ibiza, where they live on the Saoirse until Kathleen’s death in 1936. They have no children. Relocating to Cornwall, where he lives with his sister, he writes books on sailing and works of fiction for children. Although too old for active service when war with Germany breaks out in 1939, he assists the British war effort by serving in the Small Ships Pool, which delivers support vessels across the Atlantic and brings food supplies from the United States in private yachts.

In 1940 O’Brien sells Saoirse to the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club. The boat remains in use until 1980, when it is lost off the Jamaican coast. After the war he retires to another sister’s home in Foynes, County Limerick, where he lives and continues to write books for children until his death on April 18, 1952.


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The Founding of Na Fianna Éireann

Na Fianna Éireann (The Fianna of Ireland), known as the Fianna (“Soldiers of Ireland”), an Irish nationalist youth organization, is founded by Constance Markievicz on August 16, 1909, with later help from Bulmer Hobson. Fianna members are involved in setting up the Irish Volunteers and have their own circle of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). They take part in the 1914 Howth gun-running and, as Volunteer members, in the 1916 Easter Rising. They are active in the Irish War of Independence, and many take the anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War.

An earlier “Fianna” is organised “to serve as a Junior Hurling League to promote the study of the Irish Language” on June 26, 1902, at the Catholic Boys’ Hall, Falls Road, in West Belfast, the brainchild of Bulmer Hobson. Hobson, a Quaker influenced by suffragism and nationalism, joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1904 and is an early member of Sinn Féin during its monarchist-nationalist period, alongside Arthur Griffith and Constance Markievicz. Hobson later relocates to Dublin and the Fianna organisation collapses in Belfast. Markievicz, inspired by the rapid growth of Robert Baden-Powell‘s Boy Scouts, forms sometime before July 1909 the Red Branch Knights, a Dublin branch of Irish National Boy Scouts. After discussions involving Hobson, Markievicz, suffragist and labour activist Helena Molony and Seán McGarry, the Irish National Boy Scouts change their name to Na Fianna Éireann at a meeting in 34 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, on August 16, 1909, at which Hobson is elected as president, thus ensuring a strong IRB influence, Markievicz as vice-president and Pádraig Ó Riain as secretary. Seán Heuston is the leader of the Fianna on Dublin’s north side, while Cornelius “Con” Colbert is the leader on the south side. The Fianna forms as a Nationalist alternative to Powell’s Scouts with the aim to achieve the full independence of Ireland by training and teaching scouting and military exercises, Irish history, and the Irish language.

The Fianna finds its first years difficult and by 1912 has barely 1,000 members and a skeleton structure outside of the cities of Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Galway. But in the next couple of years the momentum of events carries the Fianna forward. It is involved in initiating the militarisation of the IRB, the launch of the Irish Volunteers and showing solidarity with the striking Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). It is also crucial to the success of the Howth and Kilcoole gun-running operations. Alongside these headline-grabbing activities, the Fianna continues with classes, drilling, camps and protests and reaps the benefits of an expanding membership and structure. When the fighting starts, the Fianna are not found wanting either. In 1916, Na Fianna members are present in all areas that mobilise and fight alongside all the other Republican organisations. They continue to fight throughout the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War. Seeing comrades being killed in action or executed or suffering imprisonment does not dim their enthusiasm for the fight. In Na Fianna Éireann’s March 1922 Árd Fheis, the 187 delegates representing 30,000 members vote unanimously to reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

The Fianna are declared an illegal organisation by the government of the Irish Free State in 1931. This is reversed when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932 but re-introduced in 1938. During the splits in the Republican movement of the later part of the 20th century, the Fianna and Cumann na mBan support Provisional Sinn Féin in 1969 and Republican Sinn Féin in 1986. The Fianna have been a proscribed organisation in Northern Ireland since 1920.

While the events in which the Fianna members are involved over the revolutionary years have a special place in Irish history, the specific role of the Fianna is absent from most written histories. This, allied with the failure to adequately commemorate the organisation’s centenary, marks a kind of revisionism of omission.


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Storm Eva Cuts Power to 6,000

On December 24, 2015 the Electricity Supply Board networks says that around 6,000 customers are without power as a result of Storm Eva. The worst affected areas are Fermoy in County Cork and Kilcoole in County Wicklow. High winds and heavy rain batter the west and northwest as Storm Eva moves across the country.

Storm Eva, also called Chuck, Staffan and other names, is the fifth named storm of the Met Office and Met Éireann‘s Name our Storms project. Heavy rainfall from Eva occur around three weeks after Storm Desmond had brought severe flooding to parts of Northern England, exacerbating the ongoing situation. The low pressure is named Chuck by the Free University of Berlin and Staffan by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.

Eva is the fifth storm to be officially named by Met Éireann on December 22, 2015. An orange wind warning is issued for counties Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal on the same day. Gales are also expected in the northwest of the United Kingdom, with storm force winds over parts of the Outer Hebrides. There are fears that the storm could cause further disruption to Cumbria in England, where areas were already dealing with the aftermath of flooding from Storm Desmond and in some cases had been flooded twice already. The army and Environment Agency staff are called in to be on stand-by to bolster flood defences.

Rain associated with the passage of Eva causes disruption when rivers burst their banks in the Cumbrian towns of Appleby-in-Westmorland, Keswick and Kendal on the December 22. Appleby-in-Westmorland receives three to four feet of flood water. The village of Glenridding is flooded for the third time in the month. Six thousand houses in Ireland are left without power. In London, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Liz Truss convenes a Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) meeting to decide on emergency measures, which include the deployment of soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment to the affected areas. On December 24, flood defence gates are closed in Carlisle, Keswick and Cockermouth to limit the damage expected from rainfall and 20 water pumps and two kilometres of temporary flood barriers are transported to northern England. Ferries operating between Dublin and Holyhead are cancelled due to bad weather on the Irish Sea.


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Premier of RTÉ One Drama Series “Glenroe”

glenroe

The first episode of Glenroe, a television drama series broadcast on RTÉ One, airs on September 11, 1983. The series runs for eighteen years, ending in May 2001.

A spin-off from Bracken, a short-lived RTÉ drama itself spun off from The Riordans, Glenroe is broadcast, generally from September to May, each Sunday evening at 8:30 PM. It is created, and written for much of its run, by Wesley Burrowes, and later by various other directors and producers including Paul Cusack, Alan Robinson and Tommy McCardle. Glenroe is the first show to be subtitled by RTÉ, with a broadcast in 1991 starting the station’s subtitling policy.

Glenroe centers on the lives of the people living in the fictional rural village of the same name in County Wicklow. The real-life village of Kilcoole is used to film the series. The series is also filmed in studio at RTÉ and in various other locations when directors see fit.

The main protagonists are the Byrne and McDermott/Moran families, related by the marriage of Miley Byrne to Biddy McDermott, colloquially known as Biddy and Miley. Other important characters include Teasy McDaid, the proprietor of the local pub, Tim Devereux, the Roman Catholic priest, George Black, the Church of Ireland Rector of the village, Fidelma Kelly, a cousin of Biddy, Blackie Connors, George Manning and Stephen Brennan.

Glenroe is noted for its original title sequence, which features the words “Gleann Rua” in Gaelic script morphing into “Glenroe” over a series of rural images. The original title sequence is used from the 1983-1984 season to the end of the 1992-1993 season. It is replaced with a more up-to-date title sequence at the start of the 1993-1994 season.

Glenroe‘s original theme tune is a traditional Irish song called “Cuaichín Ghleann Néifinn” and is arranged by Jim Lockhart of the Celtic rock band Horslips. A newly recorded version, arranged by Máire Ní Bhraonáin of the band Clannad, is introduced at the start of the 1993-1994 season.

In 2000 it seems the series is going into inevitable decline. On January 19, 2001, despite claims four years previously that it could run for another ten years, RTÉ announces that Glenroe is to end after eighteen seasons. The final episode of the series is broadcast on May 6, 2001.


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Birth of Sir Thomas Myles, Home Ruler & Surgeon

thomas-myles

Sir Thomas Myles, a prominent Irish Home Ruler and surgeon, is born in Limerick, County Limerick on April 20, 1857. He is involved in the importation of arms for the Irish Volunteers in 1914.

Myles is the third of eleven children born to John Myles (1807-1871), a wealthy corn merchant, and his second wife Prudence, daughter of William Bradshaw of Kylebeg, County Tipperary. The Myles family has been prominent merchants in and around Limerick city since Oliver Cromwell‘s time.

A prominent sportsman from an early age, Myles graduates in medicine at Trinity College Dublin in 1881. One of his duties in his first job as resident surgeon at Dr. Steevens’ Hospital is to render medical assistance to the victims of the Phoenix Park murders on May 6, 1882.

From 1900 until 1902, Myles is President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. After stepping down, he is appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on June 26, 1902, and knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Cadogan, 5th Earl Cadogan, at Dublin Castle on August 11, 1902. He also receives the honorary freedom of his native city.

Myles is also an active Home Ruler. He owns a yacht, the Chotah. In 1914, he is recruited by James Creed Meredith to help in the importation of guns for the Irish Volunteers with Erskine Childers, Edward Conor Marshall O’Brien and others. Childers lands his part of the consignment from the Asgard at Howth on July 26, 1914. Myles’s cargo is landed by the Chotah at Kilcoole, County Wicklow a week later. Meredith himself helps out aboard the Chotah during the operation. On August 1, 1914, 600 Mauser rifles and 20,000 rounds of ammunition are landed at the beach in Kilcoole. Once the arms are landed, they are taken away by Volunteers on bicycles and in vehicles. The arms are taken to Patrick Pearse‘s St. Enda’s School, in Rathfarnham, County Dublin.

Myles is appointed temporary Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps on November 21, 1914, and also becomes Honorary Surgeon in Ireland to the King. He is appointed to be an Additional Member of the Military Division of the Third Class, or Companion, of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, for services rendered in connection with the war, the appointment to date from January 1, 1917.

Sir Thomas Myles dies at the St. Lawrence’s Hospital in Dublin on July 14, 1937, and is buried at Deansgrange Cemetery in Dublin. Every year at the University of Limerick, the Sir Thomas Myles lecture is delivered as part of the Sylvester O’Halloran Surgical Meeting in honour of this remarkable surgeon and son of Limerick.