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Birth of Richard Mulcahy, Fine Gael Politician & Army General

Richard James Mulcahy, Irish Fine Gael politician and army general, is born in Manor Street, Waterford, County Waterford, on May 10, 1886, the son of post office clerk Patrick Mulcahy and Elizabeth Slattery. He is educated at Mount Sion Christian Brothers School and later in Thurles, County Tipperary, where his father is the postmaster.

Mulcahy joins the Royal Mail (Post Office Engineering Dept.) in 1902, and works in Thurles, Bantry, Wexford and Dublin. He is a member of the Gaelic League and joins the Irish Volunteers at the time of their formation in 1913. He is also a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Mulcahy is second-in-command to Thomas Ashe in an encounter with the armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at Ashbourne, County Meath, during the 1916 Easter Rising, one of the few stand-out victories won by republicans in that week and generally credited to Mulcahy’s grasp of tactics. In his book on the Rising, Charles Townshend principally credits Mulcahy with the defeat of the RIC at Ashbourne, for conceiving and leading a flanking movement on the RIC column that had engaged with the Irish Volunteers. Arrested after the Rising, he is interned at Knutsford and at the Frongoch internment camp in Wales until his release on December 24, 1916.

On his release, Mulcahy immediately rejoins the republican movement and becomes commandant of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. He is elected to the First Dáil in the 1918 Irish general election for Dublin Clontarf. He is then named Minister for Defence in the new government and later Assistant Minister for Defence. In March 1918, he becomes Irish Republican Army (IRA) chief of staff, a position he holds until January 1922.

Mulcahy and Michael Collins are largely responsible for directing the military campaign against the British during the Irish War of Independence. During this period of upheaval in 1919, he marries Mary Josephine (Min) Ryan, sister of Kate and Phyllis Ryan, the successive wives of Seán T. O’Kelly. Her brother is James Ryan. O’Kelly and Ryan both later serve in Fianna Fáil governments.

Mulcahy supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. Archive film shows that Mulcahy, as Minister of Defence, is the Irish officer who raises the Irish tricolour at the first hand-over of a British barracks to the National Army in January 1922. He is defence minister in the Provisional Government on its creation and succeeds Collins, after the latter’s assassination, as Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government’s forces during the subsequent Irish Civil War.

Mulcahy earns notoriety through his order that anti-Treaty activists captured carrying arms are liable for execution. A total of 77 anti-Treaty prisoners are executed by the Provisional Government. He serves as Minister for Defence in the new Free State government from January 1924 until March 1924, but resigns in protest because of the sacking of the Army Council after criticism by the Executive Council over the handling of the “Army Mutiny,” when some National Army War of Independence officers almost revolt after he demobilises many of them at the end of the Irish Civil War. He re-enters the cabinet as Minister for Local Government and Public Health in 1927.

During Mulcahy’s period on the backbenches of Dáil Éireann his electoral record fluctuates. He is elected as TD for Dublin North-West at the 1921 and 1922 Irish general elections. He moves to Dublin North for the election the following year and is re-elected there in four further elections: June 1927, September 1927, 1932, and 1933.

Dublin North is abolished for the 1937 Irish general election, at which Mulcahy is defeated in the new constituency of Dublin North-East. However, he secures election to Seanad Éireann as a Senator, the upper house of the Oireachtas, representing the Administrative Panel. The 2nd Seanad sits for less than two months, and at the 1938 Irish general election he is elected to the 10th Dáil as a TD for Dublin North-East. Defeated again in the 1943 Irish general election, he secures election to the 4th Seanad by the Labour Panel.

After the resignation of W. T. Cosgrave as Leader of Fine Gael in 1944, Mulcahy becomes party leader while still a member of the Seanad. Thomas F. O’Higgins is parliamentary leader of the party in the Dáil at the time and Leader of the Opposition. Facing his first general election as party leader, Mulcahy draws up a list of 13 young candidates to contest seats for Fine Gael. Of the eight who run, four are elected. He is returned again to the 12th Dáil as a TD for Tipperary at the 1944 Irish general election. While Fine Gael’s decline had been slowed, its future is still in doubt.

Following the 1948 Irish general election Mulcahy is elected for Tipperary South, but the dominant Fianna Fáil party finishes six seats short of a majority. However, it is 37 seats ahead of Fine Gael, and conventional wisdom suggests that Fianna Fáil is the only party that can possibly form a government. Just as negotiations get underway, however, Mulcahy realises that if Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan band together, they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil and, if they can get support from seven independents, they will be able to form a government. He plays a leading role in persuading the other parties to put aside their differences and join forces to consign the then Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Éamon de Valera, to the opposition benches.

Mulcahy initially seems set to become Taoiseach in a coalition government. However, he is not acceptable to Clann na Poblachta’s leader, Seán MacBride. Many Irish republicans had never forgiven him for his role in the Irish Civil War executions carried out under the Cosgrave government in the 1920s. Consequently, MacBride lets it be known that he and his party will not serve under Mulcahy. Without Clann na Poblachta, the other parties would have 57 seats between them — 17 seats short of a majority in the 147-seat Dáil. According to Mulcahy, the suggestion that another person serve as Taoiseach comes from Labour leader William Norton. He steps aside and encourages his party colleague John A. Costello, a former Attorney General of Ireland, to become the parliamentary leader of Fine Gael and the coalition’s candidate for Taoiseach. For the next decade, Costello serves as the party’s parliamentary leader while Mulcahy remained the nominal leader of the party.

Mulcahy goes on to serve as Minister for Education under Costello from 1948 until 1951. Another coalition government comes to power at the 1954 Irish general election, with Mulcahy once again stepping aside to become Minister for Education in the Second Inter-Party Government. The government falls in 1957, but he remains as Fine Gael leader until October 1959. In October the following year, he tells his Tipperary constituents that he does not intend to contest the next election.

Mulcahy dies from natural causes at the age of 85 in Dublin on December 16, 1971. He is buried in Littleton, County Tipperary.


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Birth of Monica Barnes, Fine Gael Politician

Monica Barnes (née MacDermott), Fine Gael politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency from 1982 to 1992 and 1997 to 2002, is born at Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, on February 12, 1936. She is a Senator for the Labour Panel from February 1982 to November 1982 and a Member of the Council of State from 1991 to 1995.

Barnes is educated at the Louis Convent, Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. After the birth of her first child, she later says she suffers from postpartum depression, a condition largely unrecognised in Ireland at the time. She is told by her doctor to “pull yourself together,” and subsequently she sets up a support group for women suffering from the condition and begins to take an interest in equality and women’s rights. She is a co-founder of the Council for the Status of Women (now the National Women’s Council of Ireland) in 1973, a move which prompts her to fully commit herself to politics.

Barnes unsuccessfully contests the 1981 Irish general election in the Dún Laoghaire constituency, and after a further defeat at the February 1982 Irish general election she is elected to the 16th Seanad as a Senator for the Labour Panel.

Barnes is first elected to Dáil Éireann at the November 1982 Irish general election and retains her seat until losing it at the 1992 Irish general election. She is re-elected at the 1997 Irish general election and retires at the 2002 Irish general election.

Barnes also unsuccessfully contests the European Parliament election for the Leinster constituency in 1979 and 1994.

Barnes dies at the age of 82 on May 2, 2018, at Glenageary, Dublin.

Following Barnes’s death, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says in a statement, “Monica Barnes was an inspiration for so many people in the Fine Gael party and beyond. She was particularly inspirational for women and younger members of our party. Monica gave great service to Fine Gael and to the people of Dún Laoghaire, having been encouraged to enter the political arena by [former Taoiseach] Garret FitzGerald, as a result of her work in the women’s movement.”

President Michael D. Higgins says, “I am very saddened to learn of the death of former TD and Senator, Monica Barnes, who provided exceptional public service to the people of Dún Laoghaire and Ireland over many years. Monica was a proud feminist and championed women’s rights throughout her parliamentary career and beyond. She was a pioneer in the struggle for a space for women’s rights to be discussed.”

Barnes is credited as a feminist and an advocate of women’s rights. She is seen as having made a critical intervention that led to the passing of the Health (Family Planning) (Amendment) Bill 1985, which gives Irish adults the right to purchase non-medical contraceptives without having to get a doctor’s prescription, which passed the Dáil by a narrow margin.


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Birth of Michael Butler Yeats, Barrister & Fianna Fáil Politician

Michael Butler Yeats, Irish barrister and Fianna Fáil politician, is born on August 22, 1921, at Thame, South Oxfordshire District, Oxfordshire, England. He serves two periods as a member of Seanad Éireann.

Yeats’s father is the poet William Butler Yeats, who likewise serves in the Seanad, and his mother is Georgie Hyde-Lees. His sister, Anne Yeats, is a painter and designer, as is his uncle Jack Butler Yeats. He is educated at St. Columba’s College, Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin, where he gains a first-class honours degree in history. He is an officer in the College Historical Society. He also qualifies as a lawyer but does not practise.

Yeats unsuccessfully stands for election to Dáil Éireann at the 1948 Irish general election and the 1951 Irish general election for the Dublin South-East constituency. Following the 1951 election, he is nominated to the 7th Seanad by Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. He stands at the subsequent election in 1954 for the 8th Seanad but is not elected.

From 1961 to 1980 Yeats is a member of Seanad Éireann. In 1961 he is elected to the 10th Seanad by the Labour Panel. In 1965 he is nominated by Taoiseach Seán Lemass to the 11th Seanad. In 1969 he is elected to the 12th Seanad by the Cultural and Educational Panel and re-elected to the 13th Seanad in 1973. In 1977, he is nominated by Taoiseach Jack Lynch to the 14th Seanad. He resigns from the Seanad on March 12, 1980.

From 1969 to 1973, during the 12th Seanad, Yeats serves as Cathaoirleach (chair).

While a senator, Yeats serves as a Member of the European Parliament from 1973 to 1979, being appointed to Ireland’s first, second and third delegations. He stands at the first direct elections in 1979 for the Dublin constituency but is not elected. He is Director General of the EEC Council of Ministers in Brussels in the 1980s.

Yeats marries Gráinne Ni hEigeartaigh, a singer and Irish harpist. They have four children – three daughters and a son.

Yeats dies in Dublin at the age of 85 on January 3, 2007. He is buried in Shanganagh Cemetery in Shankill, County Dublin.


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Birth of Thomas Johnson, Politician & Trade Unionist

Thomas Ryder Johnson, Irish Labour Party politician and trade unionist who serves as Leader of the Opposition from 1922 to 1927 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1917 to 1927, is born on May 17, 1872, in Liverpool, England. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin County from 1922 to 1927. He is a Senator for the Labour Panel from 1928 to 1934.

Johnson works on the docks for an Irish fish merchant, spending much of his time in Dunmore East and Kinsale. It is this way that he picks up ideas about socialism and Irish nationalism, joining a Liverpool branch of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. In 1900 he starts work as a commercial traveller, then moves in 1903 with his family to Belfast where he becomes involved in trade union and labour politics.

In 1907 Johnson helps James Larkin organise a strike in the port, but has to watch in dismay as the strike, which begins with remarkable solidarity between labour, Orange, and nationalist supporters, collapses in sectarian rioting. At various times he is the president, treasurer and secretary of the Irish Trades Union Congress (ITUC) which is, at the time, also the Labour Party in Ireland, until officially founded in 1912 by James Connolly and James Larkin. Johnson becomes Vice-president of the ITUC in 1913, and President in 1915.

Johnson sympathizes with the Irish Volunteers, many of whom are sacked from their jobs, for illegal activities. During the Easter Rising, he notes in his diary that people in Ireland paid little heed to the fate of the defeated revolutionaries. He succeeds as leader of the Labour Party from 1917, when the party does not contest the 1918 Irish general election. When the British government tries to enforce conscription in Ireland in 1918, he leads a successful strike in conjunction with other members of the Irish anti-conscription movement.

Johnson is later elected a TD for Dublin County to the Third Dáil at the 1922 Irish general election and remains leader of the Labour Party until 1927. As such, he is Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil of the Irish Free State, as the anti-treaty faction of Sinn Féin refuses to recognise the Dáil as constituted. He issues a statement of support for the Government of the 4th Dáil when the Irish Army Mutiny threatens civilian control in March 1924.

Johnson is the only Leader of the Labour Party who serves as Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil. He loses his Dáil seat at the September 1927 Irish general election, and the following year he is elected to Seanad Éireann, where he serves until the Seanad’s abolition in 1936.

In 1896 he meets Marie Tregay, then a teacher in St. Multose’s National school, outside Kinsale. A native of Cornwall, she has advanced political views. They marry in 1898 in Liverpool. Their only son, Frederick Johnson, is born in 1899, and becomes a well-known actor. Johnson dies on January 17, 1963, at 49 Mount Prospect Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin.

Each summer, Labour Youth holds the “Tom Johnson Summer School” to host panel discussions, debates and workshops.


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Death of Michael Butler Yeats, Barrister & Politician

Michael Butler Yeats, barrister, Fianna Fáil politician and only son of the poet William Butler Yeats, dies on January 3, 2007, in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin. He serves two periods as a member of Seanad Éireann.

Yeats is born on August 22, 1921, in Thame, Oxfordshire, England to W. B. Yeats, who also served in the Seanad, and his mother, Georgie Hyde-Lees. His sister Anne Yeats is a painter and designer, as is his uncle Jack Butler Yeats. He is educated at Trinity College, Dublin and is an officer in the College Historical Society. He unsuccessfully stands for election to Dáil Éireann at the 1948 Irish general election and the 1951 Irish general election for the Dublin South-East constituency.

Following the 1951 election, Yeats is nominated to the 7th Seanad by the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. He stands at the subsequent 1954 Irish general election for the 8th Seanad but is not elected.

From 1961 to 1980 Yeats is a member of Seanad Éireann. In 1961 he is elected to the 10th Seanad by the Labour Panel. In 1965 he is nominated by the Taoiseach Seán Lemass to the 11th Seanad. In 1969 he is elected to the 12th Seanad by the Cultural and Educational Panel where he serves as Cathaoirleach (chair) until 1973. He is re-elected to the 13th Seanad in 1973. In 1977, he is nominated by the Taoiseach Jack Lynch to the 14th Seanad. He resigns from the Seanad on March 12, 1980.

While a senator, Yeats serves as a Member of the European Parliament from 1973 to 1979, being appointed to Ireland’s first, second and third delegations. He stands at the first direct elections in 1979 for the Dublin constituency but is not elected.

Yeats is married to Gráinne Ni hEigeartaigh, a singer and Irish harpist. They have four children: daughters Caitríona (a concert harpist), Siobhán (a patents professional) and Síle (a broadcaster with RTÉ who also dies in 2007), and a son, Pádraig (an engineer).

Yeats dies on January 3, 2007, in St. Michael’s Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. His funeral service takes place in St. Patrick’s Church, Harbour Road, Dalkey, on January 8, 2007, followed by burial in Shanganagh Cemetery.