seamus dubhghaill

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Tag Archives: Labour Party (Ireland)


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Death of Charles Donnelly, Poet & Republican Political Activist

Charles Patrick Donnelly, Irish poet, republican and left-wing political activist, is killed on February 27, 1937, fighting on the republican side during the Spanish Civil War.

Donnelly is born in Killybrackey, near Dungannon, County Tyrone, on July 10, 1914, into a family of cattle breeders. His father, Joseph Donnelly, sells his farm in 1917 and the family moves to Dundalk and opens a greengrocer‘s shop. Joseph Donnelly becomes quite prosperous, running his shop, dealing cattle and buying and selling property in the Dundalk area. In addition to Charles, the Donnellys have five other sons and two daughters. His mother, Rose, dies in 1927, when he is 13 years old.

Donnelly receives his early education in the Christian Brothers school in Dundalk. When he is fourteen in 1928, the family moves again, this time to Dublin, where his father purchases a house on Mountjoy Square in the north inner city. He enrolls in O’Connell School on North Frederick Street but is expelled after only a few weeks. He spends the next few months wandering the streets of Dublin during school time before his father discovers what had happened. Also at this time, he meets and is befriended by radical political activists from the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Communist Party of Ireland and the left-Republican group Saor Éire.

Donnelly’s father and aunts get him an apprenticeship with a carpenter, but he gives this up after a year to enroll in University College Dublin (UCD) in 1931, where he studies Logic, English, History and the Irish language. In university he begins writing poetry and prose for student publications but fails his first-year examinations. At this time, he also becomes deeply involved in radical left-wing and republican politics. He drops out of university in 1934, having failed his first-year exams three times and joins the radical group, the Republican Congress. There he befriends veteran republicans Frank Ryan and George Gilmore. He also becomes involved in a romantic relationship with another republican activist, Cora Hughes, Éamon de Valera‘s goddaughter and later partner of George Gilmore. In July 1934, he is arrested and imprisoned for two weeks for his role in picketing a Dublin bakery with other Congress members. After this, his father expells him from the family home and he spends a period sleeping in parks around Dublin.

The Republican Congress splits at its first annual meeting in September 1934, but the 20-year-old Donnelly is elected to the National Executive of the truncated organisation. Thereafter, he writes for the Congress newspaper on political and social questions. In January 1935, he is again arrested for assaulting a Garda at a Congress demonstration and is imprisoned for a month. In February 1935, he leaves Ireland for London. In the British capital he forms the first Republican Congress branch in London and becomes its first chairman. He finds employment variously as a dishwasher in pubs and cafes and as a reporter with an international news agency. While in London he remains a regular contributor to the Republican Congress newspaper and various left-wing publications. Together with two other poets, Leslie Daiken and Ewart Milne, he is one of the founders of a duplicated publication called Irish Front, the London journal of the Republican Congress. Daiken admits that many of the Irish Front editions are written almost entirely by Donnelly.

Eoin McNamee recalls Donnelly as “a frail looking Dublin man with a Tyrone background…he was something of an intellectual and clearly the theorist of the Irish Republican Congress in London at that time. He was well versed in Marxism, wrote for the Congress and Communist press, and frequently appeared on left-wing public platforms.”

In July 1936, on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Donnelly urges the Republican Congress to send fighters to the International Brigades. He himself returns to Dublin with the intention of organising such a force. By the end of 1936, he has gone again to London and joins the Brigades. He reaches Spain on January 7, 1937, and at Albacete, meets up with an Irish contingent, led by Frank Ryan, known as the Connolly Column, who had come to Spain to fight on the Republican side. He and his comrades are attached to the American Lincoln Battalion. On February 15, after receiving only rudimentary military training, the Lincoln Battalion is thrown into the Battle of Jarama, near Madrid. Donnelly reaches the front on February 23, where he is promoted to the rank of field commander. On February 27, his unit is sent on a frontal assault on the Nationalist positions on a hill named Pingarrón. The object of the attack is to take the enemy trenches and ultimately to drive them across the Jarama River. He and his unit are pinned down by machine gun fire all day. In the evening, the Nationalists launch a counterattack.

A Canadian veteran recalls, “We ran for cover, Charlie Donnelly, the commander of an Irish company is crouched behind an olive tree. He has picked up a bunch of olives from the ground and is squeezing them. I hear him say something quietly between a lull in machine gun fire: Even the olives are bleeding.” The line later becomes famous.

A few minutes later, as his unit retreats, Donnelly is caught in a burst of gunfire. He is struck three times, in the right arm, the right side and the head. He collapses and dies instantly. His body lay on the battlefield until it is recovered by fellow Irish Brigadier Peter O’Connor on March 10. He is buried at Jarama in an unmarked grave with several of his comrades.

Written by Donnelly’s brother Joseph, a collection of his work, Charlie Donnelly: the Life and Poems, is published in 1987 by Dedalus Press. On the eve of the 71st anniversary of his death, February 26, 2008, he is commemorated with the unveiling of a plaque at his alma mater, UCD, attended by 150 people. The commemoration, organised jointly by a group of UCD students and the Donnelly family, is hosted by the School of English and also includes a lecture by Gerald Dawe on Donnelly’s life and poetry. In April 2008, the UCD branch of the Labour Party is renamed the Charlie Donnelly Branch in his honour.

Donnelly’s friend Blanaid Salkeld commemorates him in her poem “Casualties,” writing “That Charlie Donnelly small and frail/ And flushed with youth was rendered pale/ But not with fear, in what queer squalor/ Was smashed up his so-ordered valour.” A 1976 documentary about the Civil War by Cathal O’Shannon is entitled Even the Olives are Bleeding.

Donnelly is survived by a brother, Joseph, who manages to get many of his poems published in 1987; only five or six are published during his lifetime. Discussing his work, Colm Tóibín says it “mixed an Audenesque exactitude with a youthful romanticism… his poem “The Tolerance of Crows” belongs in any anthology of modern poetry.” In 1992, Donnelly has work included in Dedalus Irish Poets: An Anthology from Dedalus Press.

In 1992 New Island Books publishes Even the Olives Are Bleeding: The Life and Times of Charles Donnelly by Joseph O’Connor. The book is launched by future Irish President Michael D. Higgins.

Donnelly is commemorated in the Christy Moore song Viva La Quinta Brigada.


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Albert Reynolds Succeeds Charles Haughey as Taoiseach

Albert Reynolds, Fianna Fáil politician and businessman, succeeds Charles Haughey as Taoiseach on February 11, 1992, following Haughey’s retirement as leader of Fianna Fáil.

Reynolds is born in Rooskey, County Roscommon on November 3, 1932. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1977 to 2002, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1979 to 1981, Minister for Transport from 1980 to 1981, Minister for Industry and Energy from March 1982 to December 1982, Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1987 to 1988, Minister for Finance from 1988 to 1991, Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1992 to 1994 and as Taoiseach from 1992 to 1994.

Reynolds is educated at Summerhill College in Sligo, County Sligo and works for a state transport company before succeeding at a variety of entrepreneurial ventures, including promoting dances and owning ballrooms, a pet-food factory, and newspapers. In 1974 he is elected to the Longford County Council as a member of Fianna Fáil. He enters Dáil Éireann, lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament, in 1977 as a member representing the Longford-Westmeath parliamentary constituency and becomes Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in Haughey’s Fianna Fáil government (1979–81). He is subsequently Minister of Industry and Commerce (1987–88) and Minister for Finance (1988–91) in Haughey’s third and fourth governments. He breaks with Haughey in December 1991. On January 30, 1992, Haughey retires as leader of Fianna Fáil at a parliamentary party meeting. Reynolds easily defeats his rivals Mary O’Rourke and Michael Woods in the party leadership election and succeeds Haughey as Taoiseach on February 11, 1992.

The Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats coalition that Reynolds inherits breaks up in November 1992 but, after the general election later that month, he surprises many observers by forming a new coalition government with the Labour Party in January 1993. He plays a significant part in bringing about a ceasefire between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and unionist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland in 1994, but he is less effective in maintaining his governing coalition. When this government founders in November 1994, he resigns as Taoiseach and as leader of Fianna Fáil, though he remains acting prime minister until a new government is formed the following month. He unsuccessfully seeks his party’s nomination as a candidate for the presidency of Ireland in 1997. He retires from public life in 2002.

In December 2013, it is revealed by his son that Reynolds is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Reynolds dies on August 21, 2014. The last politician to visit him is former British Prime Minister John Major. His funeral is held at Church of the Sacred Heart, in Donnybrook on August 25, 2014. Attendees include President Michael D. Higgins, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, former British Prime Minister John Major, former Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader and Nobel Prize winner John Hume, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Theresa Villiers, former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, former Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and the Lord Mayor of Dublin Christy Burke. An unexpected visitor from overseas is the frail but vigorous Jean Kennedy Smith, former United States Ambassador to Ireland, who is the last surviving sibling of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Reynolds is buried at Shanganagh Cemetery with full military honours.


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Birth of Desmond “Des” O’Malley, Irish Politician

Desmond Joseph “Des” O’Malley, Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats politician, is born on February 2, 1939, in Limerick, County Limerick.

O’Malley is born into a storied Limerick political family. His maternal grandfather, Denis O’Donovan, is killed during the Irish War of Independence by the Black and Tans, two of his uncles and his father hold the office of Mayor of Limerick, and his uncle Donogh O’Malley is a Minister for Education. He is educated at the Jesuit Crescent College and at University College Dublin (UCD), from which he graduates with a degree in law in 1962.

In 1968, O’Malley enters politics upon the sudden death of his uncle Donogh who, at that the time, is the sitting Minister for Education. He is chosen after Donogh’s widow, Hilda, still in shock at the sudden death of her husband, turns down the opportunity to contest the by-election necessitated by his death.

O’Malley is subsequently elected as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Limerick East constituency in the by-election. Perhaps the first sign of the defiance that would define his career materialises during the 1969 Irish general election when Hilda asks her nephew to step aside and allow her to contest in the Limerick East constituency as the main Fianna Fáil candidate. He refuses and places third in the four-seat constituency, with his aunt, running as an independent, coming in fifth.

Following the general election, O’Malley is appointed Parliamentary Secretary to both Minister for Defence Jim Gibbons and Taoiseach Jack Lynch and serves as Government Chief Whip. In his role as a confidante of Lynch, the political lines within Fianna Fáil that put him on a collision course of over twenty years with Charles Haughey, are drawn. He plays a central role in the Arms Crisis prosecutions of Haughey and Neil Blaney in 1970. After their acquittals, the stage is set within Fianna Fáil for a long-term power struggle that eventually results in O’Malley’s expulsion from the party in 1984.

In the meantime, O’Malley’s next position within Lynch’s government comes when he is made Minister for Justice after Mícheál Ó Móráin is forced to resign due to ill-health. One of the most significant aspects of his legacy transpires during his tenure as Minister for Justice from 1970 to 1973. In response to the ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland, he tries and fails to introduce internment without trial for republicans within the State. He is, however, successful in reintroducing the Offences Against the State Act, which enables convictions for Irish Republican Amy (IRA) membership on the word of a Garda Superintendent, and the Special Criminal Court, a non-jury court presided over by three judges which tries cases of terrorism and serious organised crime.

When Lynch resigns the Fianna Fáil leadership following electoral defeat in 1979, O’Malley and Martin O’Donoghue manage the leadership campaign of George Colley, who subsequently loses to Haughey. Following Haughey’s ascent to leadership, O’Malley retains the industry and commerce ministerial portfolio he had been appointed to following the 1977 Irish general election.

In 1982, after Fianna Fáil loses its majority but stays in government by virtue of a confidence and supply agreement with Sinn Féin – The Workers Party and two independents, O’Malley is appointed Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism, but with the death of Colley and the loss of O’Donoghue’s seat, he becomes increasingly isolated within Fianna Fáil.

After the party whip is removed from him in 1984, amidst inter-party wrangling over the New Ireland Forum, O’Malley is expelled from the party the following year, the final straw being his famous “I stand by the Republic” speech in which he announces his intention to abstain on a vote regarding the liberalisation of the sales of contraceptives, which Fianna Fáil opposes.

O’Malley goes on to establish the Progressive Democrats, joined by Mary Harney (who had also been expelled by Fianna Fáil), and later by Fianna Fáil TDs Bobby Molloy and Pearse Wyse, as well as Fine Gael TD Michael Keating. In the 1987 Irish general election, the Progressive Democrats win fourteen seats, making them the third biggest party in the Dáil. Among those elected are O’Malley, his cousin Patrick O’Malley, Anne Colley, daughter of George Colley, Martin Gibbons, son of Jim Gibbons, Michael McDowell and Martin Cullen.

O’Malley’s animus for Haughey does not stop him from entering coalition with Fianna Fáil after the 1989 Irish general election, with him once again appointed Minister for Industry and Commerce. While in government, he finally witnesses the downfall of Haughey in 1992, when he is forced to resign over the emergence of new evidence concerning his tapping of journalists’ phones in the 1980s. The coalition with Fianna Fáil does not last long under new Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, with the Government collapsing after Reynolds accuses O’Malley of dishonesty during the Beef Tribunal.

O’Malley retires as leader of the Progressive Democrats in 1993, and the party moves into opposition, only to re-enter government with Fianna Fáil in 1997, where it remains upon O’Malley’s retirement from politics in 2002.

While the Progressive Democrats no longer exist, they are generally credited with the breaking up of the Fianna Fáil versus Fine Gael dichotomy of Irish politics that had dominated since the founding of the Free State. Since 1922, Irish governments have tended to be either single-party Fianna Fáil cabinets, be they minority or majority, or Fine Gael-led coalitions, typically involving the Labour Party. A Fine Gael-Labour coalition is in power at the time of the founding of the Progressive Democrats, and a single-party government or clear majority has not been won in Ireland since.

O’Malley dies in Dublin on July 21, 2021, at the age of 82, having been in poor health for some time. He is predeceased by his wife, Pat, and survived by their six children, four daughters including the former TD Fiona O’Malley, and two sons.

Perhaps O’Malley’s greatest legacy is the political reality of Ireland today: the low-tax, pro-business economic policies of the Progressive Democrats have been the dominant ideology in the State since the 1990s. Sinn Féin, the party most affected by his measures as Minister for Justice, no longer vote against the retention of the Offences Against the State Act and Special Criminal Court.

(From: “Desmond O’Malley: 1939-2021,” eolas Magazine, http://www.eolasmagazine.ie, August 2021)


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Brian Cowen Resigns as Fianna Fáil Leader

Taoiseach Brian Cowen resigns as leader of the ruling Fianna Fáil party on January 22, 2011. Having won a secret leadership ballot on Tuesday, January 18, during a week of political turmoil, he says he will remain at the head of government until the upcoming election on March 11, 2011.

Cowen has seen his ratings plummet amid Ireland’s economic crisis and its bailout by the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“I’m concerned that renewed internal criticism of Fianna Fáil is deflecting attention from this important debate,” Cowen says. “Therefore, taking everything into account after discussing the matter with my family I have taken on my own counsel, the decision to step down.”

Cowen says he spoke to John Gormley, leader of the junior coalition party, the Green Party, before making the announcement. He says his resignation will not affect government business.

“My political assessment is that this is the right thing to do for the party,” Cowen says at a press conference at the Merrion Hotel in central Dublin. “But it’s about me directing my attention to the country.”

During the past week, six ministers resigned, and Cowen’s cabinet reshuffle collapsed, prompting a Green Party threat to pull out of the coalition government.

“I believe that it was my duty to put in place the best possible team we could to fight this election to put them on the frontbench and into position,” Cowen says. “It was not a cynical view by me, it was a political act.”

Opposition parties demand Cowen set a new date for the general election. The Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, says he would move a motion of no confidence in Cowen as Taoiseach in the Dáil on Tuesday, January 25, unless he goes to the president to seek a dissolution of parliament. He says his party will also vote against the government in upcoming motion of confidence previously put forward by the Labour Party.

The Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, says the Irish people do not want the government to remain in office another day. “It is simply not tenable for Cowen to remain on as Taoiseach as his colleagues in Fianna Fáil squabble over the remnants of their party,” he says.

The Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, says Cowen’s decision will lead to further instability. “The government and Fianna Fáil are in chaos. Their focus is not on the problems facing the country,” he says.

(From: “Irish prime minister Brian Cowen resigns as party leader” by David Batty, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com, January 22, 2011)


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The 23rd Government of Ireland is Formed

The 23rd Government of Ireland is formed on January 12, 1993, following the 1992 Irish general election to the 27th Dáil held on November 25, 1992. It is a coalition of Fianna Fáil, with leader Albert Reynolds as Taoiseach, and the Labour Party, with leader Dick Spring as Tánaiste. It is the first time that these two parties are in government together. On each previous occasion Labour was in government, it was a junior coalition party with Fine Gael. The government lasts for 675 days from its appointment until its resignation on November 17, 1994, and continues to carry out its duties for an additional 28 days until the appointment of its successor, giving a total of 703 days.

The 27th Dáil lasts until 1997, but the first government falls in 1994 following the breakdown of relations between the two parties. It is succeeded in December 1994 by the 24th Government, a coalition of Fine Gael, with leader John Bruton as Taoiseach, Labour, with Dick Spring serving again as Tánaiste, and Democratic Left, led by Proinsias De Rossa. This is the only time a government with a new coalition of parties is formed within a single Dáil term.

The 27th Dáil first meets on December 14, 1992. In the debate on the nomination of Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil leader and outgoing Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, Fine Gael leader John Bruton and Labour Party leader Dick Spring are each proposed. None of these proposals are passed by the Dáil: Reynolds receives 68 votes in favour with 94 against, Bruton receives 55 in favour to 107 against, and Spring receives 39 in favour to 122 against. Reynolds resigns as Taoiseach and continues in a caretaker capacity.

On January 12, 1993, Albert Reynolds and John Bruton are again proposed for the nomination of the Dáil for the position of Taoiseach, and on this occasion, the nomination of Reynolds is successful by 102 votes to 60. Reynolds is then appointed as Taoiseach by President Mary Robinson.

After his appointment as Taoiseach by the president, Reynolds proposes the members of the government, and they are approved by the Dáil. They are appointed by the president on the same day.

Harry Whelehan SC is appointed by the president as Attorney General on the nomination of the Taoiseach. He resigns as Attorney General on November 11, 1994, on his nomination as President of the High Court, a position he serves in for only two days. Following Whelehan’s resignation, Eoghan Fitzsimons SC is appointed by the president as Attorney General on the nomination of the Taoiseach.

The Government on the nomination of the Taoiseach appoints Noel Dempsey to the post of Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach with special responsibility as Government Chief Whip. The Government on the nomination of the Taoiseach appoints the other Ministers of State as well.

After the sum of European Structural and Investment Funds allocated to Ireland is lower than previously announced, a motion of no confidence is proposed in the government. This is then debated on October 28, 1993, as a motion of confidence in the government, proposed by the Taoiseach. It is approved by a vote of 94 to 55.

In November 1994, following the resignation of Attorney General Harry Whelehan, it emerges that he had failed to expedite the extradition of Fr. Brendan Smyth to Northern Ireland for sexual offences committed against children. The appointment of Whelehan to the court despite this leads to a motion of no confidence in the government. Reynolds responds on November 16 by proposing a motion reaffirming the confidence of the Dáil in the Taoiseach and the Government.

On the following day, November 17, Labour withdraws from the government and Reynolds resigns as Taoiseach. The motion of confidence in the government is withdrawn. Reynolds and the Fianna Fáil ministers continue to carry on their duties until their successors are appointed on December 15.


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Birth of Brendan Corish, Irish Labour Party Politician

Brendan Corish, Irish Labour Party politician who serves as Tánaiste and Minister for Health (1973-77), Leader of the Labour Party, Minister for Social Welfare (1954-57 and 1973-77), Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (1948-51), is born in Wexford, County Wexford, on November 19, 1918. He is a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1948 to 1982.

Corish’s father, Richard Corish, a well-known trade union official and Sinn Féin member, had been elected to the Second Dáil shortly after the birth of his son and later joins the Labour Party, serving as a local and national politician until his death in 1945. His mother is Catherine Bergin. He is educated locally at Wexford CBS and, in his youth, is a member of the 1st Wexford Scout troop (Scouting Ireland). At the age of nineteen, he joins the clerical staff of Wexford County Council. He spends several years playing Gaelic football for the Wexford county team. He was married to Phyllis Donohoe, and they have three sons.

Corish is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party candidate in the Wexford by-election in 1945, necessitated by the death of his father who was the sitting TD. He takes a seat on the fractured opposition benches, as Fianna Fáil‘s grip on power continues.

Corish retains his seat at the 1948 Irish general election in which Fianna Fáil is returned as the largest party in the Dáil once again. However, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta, Clann na Talmhan and a number of Independent candidates all come together to form the first inter-party government. Corish is appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministers for Defence and Local Government.

When the Second Inter-party Government is formed after the 1954 Irish general election, Corish is appointed Minister for Social Welfare.

In 1960, Corish succeeds William Norton as Labour Party leader. He introduces new policies which make the party more socialist in outlook and describes the party program as Christian socialist. He considers that the party principles are those endorsed by Pope John XXIII and greatly admires the Pope who he says is “one of the greatest contributors of all changes in Irish attitudes.” However, the party moves carefully because “socialism” is still considered a dirty word in 1960s Ireland. He claims that Ireland will be “Socialist in the Seventies.” To a certain extent he is right because Fine Gael and the Labour Party form a coalition government between 1973 and 1977.

Corish becomes Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Social Welfare. A wide range of social security benefits are introduced during his time as a government minister, including a Deserted Wife’s Benefit and Unmarried Mother’s Allowance, Prisoner’s Wife’s Allowance, Single Woman’s Allowance, and the Supplementary Welfare Allowance, providing supplementary income to individuals and families with low incomes. In 1974, compulsory social insurance is extended to virtually all employees, and that same year short-term social insurance benefits (occupational injury, maternity, unemployment and sickness benefits) become partially index-linked. According to one study, this signals “an extension in the function of the income maintenance system from basic income support to proportional replacement of market earnings for some groups.” The replacement of the existing flat-rate unemployment benefit with an earnings-related benefit means that the average unemployment replacement rate goes up from about 30% to 60%.

Corish is deeply religious, telling the Dáil in 1953 that “I am an Irishman second, I am a Catholic first…if the hierarchy give me any direction with regard to Catholic social teaching or Catholic moral teaching, I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the hierarchy and the church to which I belong.”

In 1977, the Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave calls a general election, and Fianna Fáil is returned to power in a landslide victory. Corish resigns as leader of the Labour Party, having signaled his intent to do so before the election. He is succeeded as party leader by Frank Cluskey. He retires from politics completely at the February 1982 Irish general election.

Corish dies in Wexford at the age of 71 on February 17, 1990.


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Birth of Frank Clarke, Former Chief Justice of Ireland

George Bernard Francis Clarke, Irish barrister who is Chief Justice of Ireland from July 2017 to October 2021, is born on October 10, 1951, in Walkinstown, Dublin. He has a successful career as a barrister for many years, with a broad practice in commercial law and public law. He is the chair of the Bar Council of Ireland between 1993 and 1995. He is appointed to the High Court in 2004 and becomes a judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland in February 2012. Following his retirement from the bench, he returns to work as a barrister. Across his career as a barrister and a judge, he is involved in many seminal cases in Irish legal history.

Clarke is the son of a customs officer who dies when he is aged eleven. His mother is a secretary. He is educated at Drimnagh Castle Secondary School, a Christian Brothers secondary school in Dublin. He wins the Dublin Junior High Jump Championship in 1969. He studies Economics and Maths at undergraduate level at University College Dublin (UCD), while concurrently studying to become a barrister at King’s Inns. He is the first of his family to attend third level education and is able to attend university by receiving grants. While attending UCD, he loses an election to Adrian Hardiman to become auditor of the Literary and Historical Society (L&H).

Clarke joins Fine Gael after leaving school. He is a speechwriter for Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and election agent for George Birmingham. He then subsequently, himself, runs for election to Seanad Éireann. He campaigns against the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland in 1983 and in favour of the unsuccessful Tenth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 1986. He chairs a meeting of family lawyers in 1995 supporting the successful second referendum on divorce.

Clarke is called to the Bar in 1973 and to the Inner Bar in 1985. He has a practice in commercial, constitutional and family law. Two years after commencing practice he appears as junior counsel for the applicant in State (Healy) v Donoghue before the Supreme Court, which establishes a constitutional right to legal aid in criminal cases.

Clarke represents Michael McGimpsey and his brother Christopher in a challenge against the constitutionality of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which is ultimately unsuccessful in the Supreme Court in 1988.

Clarke appears for the plaintiff with Michael McDowell and Gerard Hogan in Cox v Ireland in 1990, where the Supreme Court first introduces proportionality into Irish constitutional law and discovers the right to earn a livelihood. He represents Seán Ardagh and the Oireachtas Subcommittee formed after the death of John Carthy in a constitutional case which limits the powers of investigation of the Oireachtas, which leads to the unsuccessful Thirtieth Amendment of the Constitution. In an action taken by tobacco companies to challenge the legality of bans on tobacco advertising, he appears for the State.

Clarke is twice appointed by the Supreme Court for the purpose of Article 26 references. He argues on behalf of the Law Society of Ireland in a referral regarding the Adoption (No. 2) Bill 1987. He is appointed by the Supreme Court to appear to argue on behalf of the rights of the mother in In re Article 26 and the Regulation of Information (Services outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Bill 1995. In 1994, President Mary Robinson requests him to provide her with legal advice on the presidential prerogative to refuse to dissolve Dáil Éireann.

Clarke is external counsel to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and represents the Flood Tribunal in its case against Liam Lawlor and the State in Charles Haughey‘s challenge to the legality of the Moriarty Tribunal. He and George Birmingham also appear for Fine Gael at the Flood Tribunal, and he represents the public interest at the Moriarty Tribunal. He is a legal advisor to an inquiry into the deposit interest retention tax (DIRT) conducted by the Public Accounts Committee, along with future judicial colleagues Paul Gilligan and Mary Irvine.

Clarke is Chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland from 1993 to 1995. Between 1999 and 2004, he acts as chair of Council of King’s Inns. He is a professor at the Kings’s Inns between 1978 and 1985 and is appointed an adjunct professor at University College Cork (UCC) in 2014. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

Clarke acts as a chair of the Employment Appeals Tribunal while still in practice. He is also a steward of the Turf Club and the chairman of Leopardstown Racecourse. He was due to take over as senior steward of the Turf Club but does not do so due to his appointment to the High Court.

Clarke is appointed as a High Court judge in 2004. He is chairman of the Referendum Commission for the second Lisbon Treaty referendum in 2009. As a High Court judge he gives a ruling on the Leas Cross nursing home case against RTÉ, that the public interest justifies the broadcasting of material that otherwise would have been protected by the right to privacy. He frequently presides over the Commercial Court during his time at the High Court. He is involved in the establishment of two High Court lists in Cork, Chancery and a Non-Jury List.

Clarke is appointed to the Supreme Court on February 9, 2012, and serves as Chief Justice from October 2017 until his retirement on October 10, 2021, required by law on his 70th birthday. In March 2021, the Cabinet begins the process of identifying his successor. Donal O’Donnell is selected to replace him. His final day in court is October 8, 2021, where judges, lawyers and civil servants make a large number of tributes to him. Mary Carolan of The Irish Times says that under his leadership the Supreme Court is “perhaps the most collegial it had been in some time.”

Following his retirement from the judiciary, Clarke resumes his practice as a barrister and rejoins the Bar of Ireland. Under the rules of the Bar of Ireland, he cannot appear before a court of equal or lesser jurisdiction to that on which he sat as a judge. Given that he was the most senior judge in Ireland, he cannot appear in any court in Ireland. He can appear in the European Union (EU) courts. However, he indicates his intention to focus on mediation and arbitration work.

In June 2022, Clarke is sworn in as judge of the court of appeal of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) courts but resigns a few days later following criticism from barrister and Labour Party leader, Ivana Bacik.

Clarke has been married to Dr. Jacqueline Hayden since 1977. They have a son and a daughter. He is interested in rugby and horse racing, at one point owning several horses.


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Death of George Colley, Fianna Fáil Politician

George Colley, an Irish Fianna Fáil politician, dies suddenly in London on September 17, 1983.

Colley is born in the Dublin suburb of Fairview on October 18, 1925, the son of Harry and Christina Colley. His father is a veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising and a former adjutant in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who is elected to Dáil Éireann in 1944, as a Fianna Fáil candidate. He is educated at St. Joseph’s Secondary C.B.S. in Fairview, where one of his classmates and closest friends is Charles Haughey, who later becomes his political archrival. He studies law at University College Dublin (UCD) and qualifies as a solicitor in the mid-1940s. He remains friends with Haughey after leaving school and, ironically, encourages him to become a member of Fianna Fáil in 1951. Haughey is elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1957 Irish general election, ousting Colley’s father in the process. This puts some strain on the relationship between the two young men.

Colley is elected to the Dáil at the 1961 Irish general election, reclaiming his father’s old seat in the Dublin North-East constituency. Furthermore, he is elected in the same constituency as Haughey, thereby accentuating the rivalry. Thereafter, he progresses rapidly through the ranks of Fianna Fáil. He becomes a member of the Dáil at a time when a change from the older to the younger generation is taking place, a change facilitated by Taoiseach Seán Lemass.

Colley is active in the Oireachtas as chairman of some of the Joint Labour Committees, which are set up under the Labour Court, to fix legally enforceable wages for groups of workers who have not been effectively organised in trade unions. He is also leader of the Irish parliamentary delegation to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. His work as a backbencher is rewarded by his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands in October 1964.

Following the return of Lemass’s government at the 1965 Irish general election, Colley joins the cabinet as Minister for Education. He introduces a plan to establish comprehensive schools, set up an advisory council on post-primary school accommodation in Dublin, and introduces a school psychological service.

Colley is promoted as Minister for Industry and Commerce in a cabinet reshuffle in July 1966, and he continues the government policy of economic expansion that had prevailed since the late 1950s.

In November 1966, Seán Lemass resigns suddenly as party leader. Colley contests the subsequent leadership election. He is the favoured candidate of party elders such as Seán MacEntee and Frank Aiken, the latter managing Colley’s campaign. Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney also declare their interest in the leadership; however, both withdraw when the Minister for Finance, Jack Lynch, announces his candidacy. Colley does not back down, and the leadership issue goes to a vote for the first time in the history of the Fianna Fáil party. The leadership election takes place on November 9, 1966, and Lynch beats Colley by 59 votes to 19. When the new Taoiseach announces his cabinet, Colley retains the Industry and Commerce portfolio.

In the wake of the Arms Crisis in 1970, a major reshuffle of the cabinet takes place, with four Ministers either removed, or resigned, or simply retired from the government due to the scandal. Colley remains loyal to the party leader and is rewarded by his appointment as Minister for Finance, the second most important position in government.

In 1973, Fianna Fáil are ousted after sixteen years in government when the national coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party come to power. Colley is appointed opposition Spokesman on Finance, in the new Fianna Fáil front bench. As the 1977 Irish general election approaches, Colley and Martin O’Donoghue are the main architects of Fianna Fáil’s election manifesto.

Fianna Fáil sweeps to power at the 1977 Irish general election, with a 20-seat Dáil majority, contrary to opinion polls and political commentators. Colley is re-appointed as Minister for Finance and Minister for the Public Service, and is also appointed as Tánaiste, establishing him firmly as the heir apparent to Taoiseach Jack Lynch.

In December 1979, Jack Lynch resigns unexpectedly as Taoiseach and as Fianna Fáil leader. Colley and Charles Haughey seek the leadership position and are evenly matched. A secret ballot is taken on December 7, 1979. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael O’Kennedy, announces his support for Haughey on the eve of the election. This apparently swings the vote, and Haughey beats Colley by 44 votes to 38. Colley remains as Tánaiste but demands and receives a veto on Haughey’s ministerial appointments to the departments of Justice and Defence.

Fianna Fáil loses power at the 1981 Irish general election. Haughey delays naming a new opposition front bench, but Colley remains a key member of the Fianna Fáil hierarchy. The party regains office at the February 1982 Irish general election. He demands the same veto as before on Haughey’s Defence and Justice appointments but is refused. When it is revealed that Ray MacSharry is to be appointed Tánaiste in his stead, he declines another ministerial position. This effectively brings his front bench political career to an end, but he remains a vocal critic of the party leadership from the backbenches.

When the Fianna Fáil government collapses and are replaced by another coalition government after the November 1982 Irish general election, a number of TDs and Senators express lack of confidence in Haughey’s leadership once again. Several unsuccessful leadership challenges take place in late 1982 and early 1983, with Colley now supporting Desmond O’Malley and the Gang of 22 who oppose Haughey.

Colley dies suddenly on September 17, 1983, aged 57, while receiving treatment for a heart condition at Guy’s Hospital, Southwark, London. He is survived by his wife, three sons, and four daughters, one of whom, Anne Colley, becomes a TD as a member of the Progressive Democrats party.


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Birth of Desmond Ryan, Revolutionary, Writer & Historian

Desmond Ryan, Irish writer, historian, and in his earlier life a revolutionary in Sinn Féin, is born in London on August 27, 1893.

Ryan is the son of the Templemore, County Tipperary-born London journalist William Patrick Ryan, editor of the Peasant and Irish Nation and assistant editor of the London Daily Herald, and his wife, Elizabeth. He comes to Ireland in 1906, aged 13, with his mother and sister, and studies at St. Enda’s School, Rathfarnham, under headmaster and founder Patrick Pearse. He later teaches in the school and is briefly Pearse’s secretary.

Ryan attributes to Pearse the saying “[G]ive me a hundred men and I will free Ireland!” He becomes part of a group of former students lodging in St. Enda’s while they go to university who join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). They meet in a safe house at Rathfarnham in 1911. The men take the tram from Rathfarnham to Nelson’s Pillar in central Dublin. Pearse once told his friend, “Let them talk! I am the most dangerous revolutionary of the whole lot of them!” In 1911, the Dungannon Clubs revive the Volunteers Militia movement. These clubs are not initially successful in Dublin but are more so in Belfast amongst nationalists. One of the northern members is the Dubliner Oscar Traynor, in his youth a professional footballer with Belfast Celtic F.C., later a war hero and later again a politician and Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

At this stage, according to Ryan, Pearse is a constitutional nationalist who speaks for Home Rule from a platform shared with Tom Kettle and John Redmond and refuses to hear any criticism of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). But on the foundation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) by Edward Carson and the approach of World War I, Pearse becomes increasingly sure that Ireland cannot achieve independence except by force, and begins with Thomas MacDonagh, Éamonn Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett, Tom Clarke, Bulmer Hobson and others to plan the Easter Rising.

Eoin MacNeill is appointed leader of the Irish Volunteers. Ryan writes that Pearse, a risk-taker and idealist, tells him MacNeill is “too tactful.” MacNeill is prepared to entertain the Irish Parliamentary Party with negotiations. Ryan quotes Pearse as saying, “[MacNeill] has the reputation of being tactful, but his tact consists in bowing to the will of the Redmondites every time. He never makes a fight except when they assail his personal honour, when he bridles up at once… very delicate position… he is weak, hopelessly weak.”

Pearse tells Ryan that MacNeill is “a Grattan come to life again.” Henry Grattan is a constitutional orator and MP in the Protestant-only 18th-century Irish House of Commons, but one of those who fiercely opposes the notorious Acts of Union 1800, secured by massive bribery (which is then repaid out of Irish taxes), making Ireland part of the United Kingdom. Moreover, MacNeill is an “inconclusive ditherer.” He wants the Irish Volunteers to be apolitical.

The Easter Rising is preceded by the revelation of the “Castle Document,” a plan by the British government to arrest the leaders of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army and other radicals. Ryan claims that this document, presented to MacNeill on the Wednesday before the Rising and said to have been stolen from high-ranking British staff in Dublin Castle, is a forgery. Some claim that it is concocted by Joseph Plunkett with the implicit approval of Catholic Archbishop Cullen of Dublin, a sympathiser with Dublin Castle and Redmond’s war stratagem. “Forgery is a strong word,” Ryan says, “but that in its final form the document was a forgery no doubt can exist whatever.” Modern interpretation from Charles Townshend has judged the document to be genuine, and the opinion attributed to the Archbishop’s Palace as circumstantial. Grace Gifford, Plunkett’s widow, says that she was with Plunkett when he deciphered it at Larkfield House. Prior to his execution, Seán Mac Diarmada is met by a priest, and makes the assumptive response that it is a fraudulent document.

Ryan fights through the Easter Rising from April 24, 1916, in the General Post Office (GPO) under murderous artillery fire and describes the battle vividly in his witness statement to the Bureau of Military History. He describes the garrison retreating to Moore Street and quotes Pearse’s sculptor brother Willie Pearse, who is executed a few days later, as saying “Connolly has been asked out to negotiate. They have decided to go to save the men from slaughter, for slaughter it is.”

Ryan fights in the Irish War of Independence and afterwards writes about his experiences. However, the Irish Civil War which follows from June 1922 to April 1923 repels him. He cannot accept that Irishmen would fight Irishmen.

Ryan returns to his studies in University College Dublin (UCD), and after taking his BA follows his father into journalism, working for the Freeman’s Journal. In 1922, he moves to London to work on the Daily Herald. He writes books on Pearse, James Connolly, Éamon de Valera, Seán Treacy and John Devoy, and on Fenianism as well as writing on the Rising and the War of Independence.

Ryan marries Sarah Hartley in 1933. In 1939 they return to Ireland, where he edits the Torch, a Labour paper. Finding his views at odds with the Labour Party‘s official line, publication ceases in 1944. He and his wife then move to Swords in north County Dublin, where they operate a poultry farm.

Desmond Ryan dies on December 23, 1964.


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Birth of Brendan Halligan, Economist & Politician

Brendan Halligan, economist and politician, is born in Dublin on July 5, 1936. He is founder and president of the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), a think tank on European and international issues. He is president of the Ireland China Institute, an independent think tank based in Dublin which is officially launched in October 2019. His career spans Irish public sector bodies and work in the private sector. At various times he is General Secretary of the Labour Party, a Teachta Dála (TD), a Senator, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Halligan grows up in Rialto, Dublin, and is educated at St. James’s Christian Brothers School, Dublin. He studies at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and becomes a chemical analyst in the CIÉ depot in Inchicore. He and three friends decided to go to university and form a co-operative and work at various jobs in London to fund their studies. In 1959, he begins an economics and law degree at University College Dublin (UCD). There he is influenced by lecturers including George O’Brien, Patrick Lynch and Garret FitzGerald. He receives a master’s degree in economics from UCD in 1964.

Following an early career as an economist, working with the Irish Sugar Company until 1967, Halligan becomes involved in politics. In that year, he becomes General Secretary of the Labour Party.

The party leader, Brendan Corish, relies on Halligan’s intellectual and political skills in his new role. Under Halligan, the party undergoes an energetic reorganisation. New structures and policies are put in place, coinciding with the party’s leftward policy shift and an acute anti-coalition stance. He strongly supports both approaches, but is instrumental in securing the party’s eventual, somewhat unwilling, reversal of its anti-coalition stance after its disappointing result in the 1969 Irish general election. The 1973 Irish general election results in a Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition government coming to power.

Halligan is appointed to Seanad Éireann in 1973. Three years later, he wins a by-election in Dublin South-West, and thus becomes a TD. After boundary changes, he stands in the new Dublin Finglas at the 1977 Irish general election but is not elected. He stands again in the revived Dublin North-West constituency at the 1981 and November 1982 Irish general elections, but again is not elected.

Halligan continues to serve as General Secretary of the party until 1980, and is appointed a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1983 until 1984, replacing Frank Cluskey, where he specialises in economic affairs and energy policy.

In 1980, Halligan sets up CIPA, his own public affairs consultancy based in Dublin, and becomes a lecturer in Economics at the University of Limerick. He is also chairman of European Movement Ireland during the late 1980s. In 1985, he is appointed as Chairman of Bord na Móna, the Irish Peat Development Authority, a position he holds for ten years. In 1989 he founds the Institute of European Affairs (IEA), which later becomes the IIEA. He is Director of CIPA until 2014.

Resulting from his keen interest and experience in energy policy and renewable energy, Halligan serves as Chair of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland from 2007 until 2014. He is President of the IIEA, and he is also a Board Member of Mainstream Renewable Energy.

In later years Halligan also works on the foundation and development of the Ireland China Institute (ICI), which, with its maxim bridging the gap between knowledge and understanding, seeks to strengthen Irish-Chinese diplomatic relations, developing cultural links and fostering a deeper understanding of the respective cultural norms and values between the two nations. He is also President of ICI.

Halligan dies on August 9, 2020, after a long illness. On his death, Taoiseach Micheál Martin describes him as “a man who gave his life to politics and the public service with a deep commitment to the institutions of the state.” European Commissioner for Trade Phil Hogan states that “Brendan was a committed European to his fingertips. He was a pragmatic European intellectual, in the tradition of Spinelli, Monnet and Schuman.”