seamus dubhghaill

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Founding of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, often abbreviated to 32CSM or 32csm, is an Irish republican group founded by Bernadette Sands McKevitt on December 7, 1997, at a meeting of like-minded Irish republicans in Finglas, Dublin. It does not contest elections but acts as an advocacy group, with branches or cumainn organised throughout the traditional counties of Ireland.

The 32CSM has been described as the “political wing” of the now defunct Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), but this is denied by both organisations. The group originates in a split from Sinn Féin over the Mitchell Principles.

Those present at the initial meeting are opposed to the direction taken by Sinn Féin and other mainstream republican groups in the Northern Ireland peace process, which leads to the Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement) the following year. The same division in the republican movement leads to the paramilitary group now known as the Real IRA breaking away from the Provisional Irish Republican Army at around the same time.

Most of the 32CSM’s founders had been members of Sinn Féin. Some had been expelled from the party for challenging the leadership’s direction, while others felt they had not been properly able to air their concerns within Sinn Féin at the direction its leadership had taken. Bernadette Sands McKevitt, wife of Michael McKevitt and a sister of hunger striker Bobby Sands, is a prominent member of the group until a split in the organisation.

The name refers to the 32 counties of Ireland which are created during the Lordship and Kingdom of Ireland. With the partition of Ireland in 1920–22, twenty-six of these counties form the Irish Free State which is abolished in 1937 and is now known as Ireland since 1949. The remaining six counties of Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom. Founder Bernadette Sands McKevitt says in a 1998 interview with the Irish Mirror that people did not fight for “peace” – “they fought for independence” – and that the organisation reaffirms to the republican position in the 1919 Irish Declaration of Independence.

Before the referendums on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the 32CSM lodges a legal submission with the United Nations challenging British sovereignty in Ireland. The referendums are opposed by the 32CSM but are supported by 71% of voters in Northern Ireland and by 94% in the Republic of Ireland. It is reported in February 2000 that the group established a “branch” in Kilburn, London.

In November 2005, the 32CSM launches a political initiative titled Irish Democracy, A Framework for Unity.

On May 24, 2014, Gary Donnelly, a member of the 32CSM, is elected to the Derry City and Strabane District Council. In July 2014, a delegation from the 32CSM travels to Canada to take part in a six-day speaking tour. On arrival the delegation is detained and refused entry into Canada.

The 32CSM has protested against what it calls “internment by remand” in both jurisdictions in Ireland. Other protests include ones against former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley in Cobh, County Cork, against former British Prime Minister John Major being given the Keys to Cork city, against a visit to the Republic of Ireland by Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) head Sir Hugh Orde, and against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and Anglo-American occupation of Iraq.

In 2015, the 32CSM organises a demonstration in Dundee, Scotland, in solidarity with the men convicted of shooting Constable Stephen Carroll, the first police officer to be killed in Northern Ireland since the formation of the PSNI. The organisation says the “Craigavon Two” are innocent and have been victims of a miscarriage of justice.

The group is currently considered a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in the United States, because the group is considered to be inseparable from the Real IRA, which is designated as an FTO. At a briefing in 2001, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State states that “evidence provided by both the British and Irish governments and open-source materials demonstrate clearly that the individuals who created the Real IRA also established these two entities to serve as the public face of the Real IRA. These alias organizations engage in propaganda and fundraising on behalf of and in collaboration with the Real IRA.” The U.S. Department of State’s designation makes it illegal for Americans to provide material support to the Real IRA, requires U.S. financial institutions to block the group’s assets and denies alleged Real IRA members visas into the U.S.

The 32CSM also operates outside of the island of Ireland to some extent. The Gaughan/Stagg Cumann covers England, Scotland and Wales, and has an active relationship of mutual promotion with a minority of British left-wing groups and anti-fascist organisations. The James Larkin Republican Flute Band in Liverpool, and the West of Scotland Band Alliance, the largest section of which is the Glasgow-based Parkhead Republican Flute Band, are also supporters of the 32CSM. As of 2014, the 32CSM’s alleged paramilitary wing, the Real IRA, is reported to have been still involved in attempts to perpetrate bombings in Britain as part of the Dissident Irish Republican campaign, which has been ongoing since 1998.


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Death of Sir James Craig, First Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon PC PC (NI) DL, prominent Irish unionist politician, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1921 until his death, dies peacefully at his home at Glencraig, County Down, at the age of 69 on November 24, 1940.

Craig is born at Sydenham, Belfast, on January 8, 1871, the seventh of nine children of James Craig (1828–1900), a wealthy whiskey distiller who had entered the firm of Dunville & Co. as a clerk and by age 40 is a millionaire and a partner in the firm. Craig Snr. owns a large house called Craigavon, overlooking Belfast Lough. His mother, Eleanor Gilmore Browne, is the daughter of Robert Browne, a prosperous man who owned property in Belfast and a farm outside Lisburn. Craig is educated at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, Scotland. After school he begins work as a stockbroker, eventually opening his own firm in Belfast.

Craig enlists in the 3rd (Militia) battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles on January 17, 1900, to serve in the Second Boer War. He is seconded to the Imperial Yeomanry, a cavalry force created for service during the war, as a lieutenant in the 13th battalion on February 24, 1900, and leaves Liverpool for South Africa on the SS Cymric in March 1900. After arrival he is soon sent to the front and is taken prisoner in May 1900, but released by the Boers because of a perforated colon. On his recovery he becomes deputy assistant director of the Imperial Military Railways, showing the qualities of organisation that are to mark his involvement in both British and Ulster politics. In June 1901 he is sent home suffering from dysentery, and by the time he is fit for service again the war is over. He is promoted to captain in the 3rd Royal Irish Rifles on September 20, 1902, while still seconded to South Africa.

On his return to Ireland, having received a £100,000 legacy from his father’s will, Craig turns to politics, serving as Member of the British Parliament for East Down from 1906 to 1918. From 1918 to 1921 he represents Mid Down and serves in the British government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Pensions (1919–20) and Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (1920–21).

Craig rallies Ulster loyalist opposition to Irish Home Rule in Ulster before World War I, organising the paramilitary Ulster Volunteers (UVF) and buying arms from Imperial Germany. The UVF becomes the nucleus of the 36th (Ulster) Division during World War I. He succeeds Edward Carson as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in February 1921.

In the 1921 Northern Ireland general election, the first ever, Craig is elected to the newly created House of Commons of Northern Ireland as one of the members for Down.

On June 7, 1921, Craig is appointed the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The House of Commons of Northern Ireland assembles for the first time later that day.

Craig is made a baronet in 1918, and in 1927 is created Viscount Craigavon, of Stormont in the County of Down. He is also the recipient of honorary degrees from Queen’s University Belfast (1922) and the University of Oxford (1926).

Craig had made his career in British as well as Northern Irish politics, but his premiership shows little sign of his earlier close acquaintance with the British political world. He becomes intensely parochial and suffers from his loss of intimacy with British politicians in 1938, when the British government concludes agreements with Dublin to end the Anglo-Irish trade war between the two countries. He never tries to persuade Westminster to protect Northern Ireland‘s industries, especially the linen industry, which is central to its economy. He is anxious not to provoke Westminster, given the precarious state of Northern Ireland’s position. In April 1939, and again in May 1940 during World War II, he calls for conscription to be introduced in Northern Ireland (which the British government, fearing a backlash from nationalists, refuses). He also calls for Winston Churchill to invade Ireland using Scottish and Welsh troops in order to seize the valuable ports and install a Governor-General at Dublin.

While still prime minister, Craig dies peacefully at his home at Glencraig, County Down at the age of 69 on November 24, 1940. He is buried on the Stormont Estate on December 5, 1940, and is succeeded as the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland by the Minister of Finance, J. M. Andrews.

(Pictured: James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, bromide print by Olive Edis, National Portrait Gallery, London)


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“The Siege of Rochelle” First Performed at Drury Lane Theatre

Irish composer Michael William Balfe‘s opera The Siege of Rochelle is first performed at the Drury Lane Theatre in London on October 29, 1835.

The opera is originally prepared for the English Opera House but for some reason the theatrical manager, Samuel James Arnold, does not want it. Instead, Alfred Bunn, the manager of Drury Lane Theatre, seizes the opportunity and begins what is a very fruitful collaboration with Balfe that lasts a decade. Balfe is to become the mainstay of English Opera for almost the next 30 years with a succession of popular operas.

The opera runs for 70 nights on its initial run and is revived in the following three seasons with Balfe singing the role of Michel. Queen Victoria sees the opera on November 15, 1837, her first state visit to a theatre during her reign. In 1836, the opera is reported as staged in Leeds, York, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Bath and Dublin with Abigail Betts as Clara. John Wilson, who sings in the initial run of the opera, also sings in, at least, some of these. Madame Balfe chooses the opera for her benefit in 1841, and Bunn opens his 1843 season with it on September 30. Emma Romer uses it to open her 1853 season at the Surrey Theatre, although it is being described by then as “somewhat hacknied.”

October 1875 sees a revival of the opera by the Carl Rosa Opera Company at the Princess’s Theatre, and it is then included in the company’s repertoire that tours to Manchester in 1875, Liverpool in 1876, Birmingham in 1877 and Dublin in 1879. The Turner Company tours it in 1893. This is possibly the opera’s last performance until the Wexford Festival Opera performances in 1963. The overture and songs from the opera, such as “When I beheld the anchor weigh’d” continue to retain a place in the concert hall and the home into the 20th century.

In 1838, the opera is performed by the Caradori-Allan troupe at the Park Theatre in New York but fails although it appears to be retained in the repertory. In 1839, it is performed again in Dublin with Balfe as Michel and in Sydney in 1848.

The opera’s production sparks an acrimonious argument between a correspondent in The Examiner accusing Balfe of plagiarism from Luigi Ricci‘s 1832 opera, Chiara di Rosemberg, and, in defence, Frederick Beale, from Balfe’s publishers, and Balfe. The matter seems to be settled in Balfe’s favour when the score of Chiara di Rosemberg is displayed at music publisher Cramer, Beale and Co. so that people can compare the two for themselves. While Edward Fitzball probably uses Ricci’s libretto as the basis for his, it does not seem to have been a straight translation, as some allege, but similarities would help to feed the accusations of plagiarism, bolstered by the Italian training and approach of both composers and the fact that Balfe had sung in Chiara di Rosemberg in Italy in 1834.

Balfe is said to have been paid £5 a night by Bunn and 400 guineas for the score by the publishers Cramer, Beale and Co. In 1871, the Bury and Norwich Post (April 11, 1871) report that the copyright has sold for £156 and just over ten years later the Aberdeen Evening Express (May 8, 1883) notes that the copyright has been sold again for approximately £20, adding “So much for Balfe’s ‘popularity.”


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Birth of John Hogan, the “Greatest of Irish Sculptors”

Irish sculptor John Hogan, described in some sources as the “greatest of Irish sculptors,” is born in Tallow, County Waterford, on October 14, 1800. According to the Dictionary of Irish Biography he is responsible for “much of the most significant religious sculpture in Ireland” during the 19th century. Working primarily from Rome, among his best-known works are three versions of The Dead Christ, commissioned for churches in Dublin, Cork, and the Basilica of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Hogan is the third child of John Hogan, a carpenter and builder of Cove Street, Cork, County Cork, and Frances Cos, the great-granddaughter of Sir Richard Cox, Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1703 to 1707. As the family feels that she had married beneath her station, she is disinherited.

At the age of fourteen, Hogan is placed as clerk to an attorney, where he spends much of his time carving figures in wood. After two years, he chooses to be apprenticed to the architect Sir Thomas Deane, where his talents for drawing and carving are developed. He carves balusters, capitals, and ornamental figures for Deane’s buildings. At the completion of his apprenticeship in March 1820, Deane encourages him to consider taking up sculpture as a profession. For the next three years, he attends lectures on anatomy, copies casts of classic statuary in the Gallery of the Cork Society of Arts, and makes anatomical studies in wood of feet, hands, and legs. Among the first of his works to attract notice is a life-size figure of Minerva for an insurance building built by Deane.

In 1821, Hogan carves twenty-seven statues in wood for the North Chapel in Cork for the reredos behind the high altar. After subsequent cathedral renovations, these are now positioned in decorative plasterwork over the nave. He also does a bas-relief of the “Last Supper” for the altar. This work keeps him employed for about a year.

In 1823, the engraver William Paulet Carey visits Cork, and impressed with Hogan’s talent, begins to publicise his work in order to raise subscriptions for him to study in Italy. Hogan arrives in Rome, by way of Dublin and Liverpool, in 1824. He works in the galleries of the Vatican but cannot afford a studio. Additional subscriptions allow him to improve his situation, rent a studio, purchase marble, and hire models. Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen says to him, “My son, you are the best sculptor I leave after me in Rome.”

In 1829, Hogan visits Ireland, bringing several works with him. The Royal Arts Society provides a venue for an exhibition. The Royal Dublin Society awards him a gold medal.

Hogan’s best-known work and masterpiece are the three versions of the statue of The Dead Christ or The Redeemer in Death. Created in flawless Carrara marble, the first version (1829) is located in St. Therese’s Church, Dublin, the second (1833) in St. Finbarr’s (South) Church, Cork, and the third and final version (1854) is located in the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, Newfoundland. His other works include the Sleeping Shepherd and The Drunken Faun. He assures his international reputation in 1829 with The Dead Christ. Thereafter, his creations are snapped up by Irish bishops visiting his Rome studio.

In 1837 Hogan is elected a member of the Virtuosi del Pantheon. During the next several years, he has several works in hand, including a marble statue of Daniel O Connell, for the Repeal Association. The statue stands today at City Hall, Dublin, the same spot where O’Connell gave his first speech against the Acts of Union in 1800.

In 1840, a monumental group in memory of Bishop James Warren Doyle, founder of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow, is brought to Dublin and exhibited at the Royal Exchange. The statue of Bishop Doyle is in the Cathedral of the Assumption, as is a second Hogan work depicting the Holy Family.

Hogan marries Cornelia Bevignani in Rome in 1838. The figure of Hibernia, in Hogan’s work Hibernia with the Bust of Lord Cloncurry (1844), is reportedly modelled on his wife. A representation of this work is later used as the watermark on all Series A banknotes printed in Ireland from the 1920s to the 1970s. The couple has four sons and eight daughters.

With the revolutionary movement growing in Italy during the 1840s, and after spending twenty-four years in Rome, Hogan returns with his family to Ireland in 1848. At first, he finds little work in the aftermath of the Great Famine, but gradually commissions increase. He can be impatient with ignorance, intolerant of professional inferiority, and independent. He holds aloof from other artists and refuses to join the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Hogan has a stroke in 1855 and, though he recovers somewhat, his health begins to fail. By the year prior to his death, he can no longer work and his sons, John Valentine Hogan and James Cahill, assist at his studio and complete some of the work.

Hogan dies at his home at 14 Wentworth Place (later renamed Hogan Place), Dublin, on March 27, 1858. He is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

(Pictured: Scan of a drawing depicting the Irish sculptor John Hogan with his sculpture The Drunken Faun in background, published in the Dublin University Magazine, January 1850)


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Death of Robert Holmes, Lawyer & Nationalist

Robert Holmes, Irish lawyer and nationalist, dies in London on October 7, 1859.

Holmes, the son of parents who are natives of Antrim, County Antrim, and settled in Belfast, is born during a visit by his parents to Dublin in 1765. He enters Trinity College, Dublin in 1782, and graduates B.A. in 1787. He at first devotes himself to medicine, but he soon turns his attention to the law. In 1795, he is called to the bar. He spends a substantial period of his professional life travelling the northeast circuit in Ireland, where he gains a reputation for great ability and legal skill.

Holmes studies law and becomes one of the best-known defenders of the Nationalist leaders in Ireland. He speaks in 1846 in defence of Charles Gavan Duffy, editor of The Nation. Duffy had been indicted over an article written by John Mitchel, which comes to be known as the “Railway Article.” His defence proves successful and his speech on behalf of his client is described by Lord Chief Justice Edward Pennefather as “the most eloquent ever heard in a court of Justice.”

In 1798, during a parade of the lawyer’s corps of yeomanry, of which he is a member, Holmes throws down his arms on learning that the corps is to be placed under the military authorities, dreading that he might have to act against the populace. To one Joy, a barrister, who had used insulting language to him respecting this circumstance, he sends a challenge, for which he suffers three months’ imprisonment. In 1799, he publishes a satirical pamphlet on the projected Acts of Union, entitled A Demonstration of the Necessity of the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland. With the rising of his brother-in-law, Robert Emmet, on July 23, 1803, he has no connection, although he is arrested on suspicion and imprisoned for some months. This retards his advancement. He declines to receive any favours from the government, refusing in succession the offices of Crown prosecutor, King’s Counsel, and Solicitor-General, and to the last he remains a member of the outer bar.

Holmes has for many years the largest practice of any member of the Irish courts, and is listened to with attention by judges, although he is not always very civil to them. His law arguments form an important set of articles in the Irish Law Reports, and he is an impressive advocate, notably in his speeches in Watson v. Dill, in defence of The Nation newspaper, and his oration on behalf of John Mitchel, tried for treason-felony on May 24, 1848. During the course of his practice he makes over £100,000.

Holmes marries, firstly, Mary Anne Emmet, daughter of Dr. Robert Emmet. She is the sister of Robert Emmet, who leads an unsuccessful rebellion in 1803, and whose brother, Thomas Addis Emmet, is a leading member, with Theobald Wolfe Tone, of the Society of United Irishmen. Both take part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The marriage produces one surviving child, a daughter, who later marries George William Lenox-Conyngham, chief clerk of the Foreign Office, and in turn has an only daughter who in 1861 marries Viscount Doneraile.

Holmes marries in 1810 at Childwall, Liverpool, as his second wife, the English educator and writer Eliza Lawrence. She dies in 1811.

After his retirement in 1852, Holmes resides in London with his only child Elizabeth. He dies at the age of 94 at her home, 37 Eaton Place, Belgrave Square, London, on October 7, 1859.

During the course of his life, Holmes is the author of three published works. The first, published in 1799, is entitled A Demonstration of the Necessity of the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland, a satirical pamphlet ridiculing the arguments of its supporters. The next is An Address to the Yeomanry of Ireland, demonstrating the necessity of their declaring their opinions upon Political Subjects. His most important work however, according to Peter Aloysius Sillard, is The Case of Ireland Stated, which apparently goes through six editions, the last in 1847.

(Pictured: Image of Robert Holmes from Michael Doheny’s “The Felon’s Track”)


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Death of Joseph McGarrity, Irish American Political Activist

Joseph McGarrity, Irish American political activist best known for his leadership in Clan na Gael in the United States and his support of Irish republicanism back in Ireland, dies of cancer on September 4, 1940.

McGarrity is born on March 28, 1874, in Carrickmore, County Tyrone. His family grows up in poverty, motivating his need to immigrate later in life. He grows up hearing his father discussing Irish politics, including topics such as the Fenians, the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and Irish Home Rule. By the time he is an adult, he has developed a keen interest in politics himself.

McGarrity immigrates to the United States in 1892 at the age of 18. He is reputed to have walked to Dublin before boarding a cattle boat to Liverpool disguised as a drover, and then sailing to the United States using a ticket belonging to someone else. He settles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and becomes successful in the liquor business. His business fails, however, on three occasions, twice due to embezzlement by his business partner.

In 1893 McGarrity joins Clan na Gael, an Irish organisation based in the United States committed to aiding the establishment of an independent Irish state. Clan na Gael had been heavily involved with the Fenian Brotherhood that McGarrity had grown up hearing about, and by the latter half of the 19th century had become a sister organisation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). In the decade just before McGarrity joins, Clan na Gael and the Fenian movement had waged the Fenian dynamite campaign, where they attempted to force the British state to make concessions in Ireland by bombing British infrastructure. However, this had caused a split within Clan na Gael that is not mended until seven years after McGarrity joins when, in 1900, the factions reunite and plead to support “the complete independence of the Irish people, and the establishment of an Irish republic.” In the years that follow the 1880s and 1890s, he is, amongst others, credited with helping to stitch the organisation back together and bring it renewed strength.

McGarrity helps sponsor several Irish Race Conventions and founds and runs a newspaper called The Irish Press from 1918-22 that supports the Irish War of Independence. He is the founder of the Philadelphia chapter of Clan Na Gael.

During World War I, while the United States is still neutral, McGarrity is involved in the Hindu–German Conspiracy. He arranges the Annie Larsen arms purchase and shipment from New York to San Diego for India.

When Éamon de Valera arrives in the United States in 1919 they strike up an immediate rapport and McGarrity manages de Valera’s tour of the country. He persuades de Valera of the benefits of supporting him and the Philadelphia branch against the New York branch of the Friends of Irish Freedom organisation led by John Devoy and Judge Daniel F. Cohalan. He becomes president of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. He christens his newborn son Éamon de Valera McGarrity, although their relationship becomes strained upon de Valera’s entry back into Dáil Éireann in the Irish Free State.

McGarrity opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty and travels to Dublin in 1922 and assists the development of the short-lived Collins/De Valera Pact by bringing de Valera and Michael Collins together before the 1922 Irish general election.

The Irish Civil War sees a split in Clan na Gael just as it had split Sinn Féin back in Ireland. McGarrity and a minority of Clan na Gael members support the anti-treaty side but a majority support the pro-treaty side, including John Devoy and Daniel Cohalan. Furthermore, in October 1920 Harry Boland informs the Clan na Gael leadership that the IRB will be cutting their ties to the Clan unless the IRB is given more influence over their affairs. Devoy and Cohalan resist this, but McGarrity sees the Clan’s connection with the IRB as vital. While McGarrity’s faction is initially labelled “Reorganised Clan na Gael,” they are able to inherit total control of the Clan na Gael name as Devoy is not able to keep effective organisation of the group. In general, however, the in-fighting amongst the Irish on both sides of the Atlantic is quite disheartening for Irish Americans and in the years to come neither pro nor anti-treaty sides of Clan na Gael see much in the way of donations.

With the scope of Clan na Gael now narrowed, and Devoy and Cohalan removed from the picture, McGarrity becomes chairman of the organisation. He does not support the founding of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and opposes the party’s entry into the Dáil in 1927. Even after the Irish Civil War, he still supports the idea that a 32-county Irish Republic can be achieved through force. in the spring of 1926, he receives Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army Andrew Cooney to the United States. Cooney and Clan na Gael formally agree that each organisation will support the other and that Clan na Gael will raise funds, purchase weapons and build support for the IRA in the United States.

Going into the late 1920s though Clan na Gael, as are most Irish American organisations, is struggling. Having limped past the split caused by the Irish Civil War, the rejection of Fianna Fáil has caused a second split in the membership. Many Irish Americans see the IRA and Fianna Fáil as one and the same at that point and Clan na Gael and McGarrity’s hostility to them causes much friction.

By July 1929, the Clan’s membership in one of its strongholds, New York City, is down to just 620 paid members. Then in October of that same year Wall Street crashes and the Great Depression hits. In 1933 McGarrity is left almost bankrupt after he is found guilty of “false bookkeeping entries.” His livelihood is saved when he becomes one of the main ticket agents in the United States for the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake. He is a personal friend of Joseph McGrath, one of the founders of the Sweepstake. The sweepstakes allow him to turn his fortunes around.

Despite the trying times of both Clan na Gael and his personal life, McGarrity holds fast in his belief in physical force Irish Republicanism. In 1939 he supports the demand from Seán Russell for the “S-Plan” bombing campaign in Britain, which proves disastrous. He allegedly meets Hermann Göring in Berlin in 1939 to ask for aid for the IRA, which leads indirectly to “Plan Kathleen.”

McGarrity is a lifelong friend of fellow Carrickmore native and avid Republican, Patrick McCartan. When he dies on September 4, 1940 a mass is held in the St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. He remains an unrepentant physical force republican all his life. A number of McGarrity’s papers are in the National Library of Ireland. He donates his personal Library to Villanova University.

The IRA signs all its statements ‘J.J. McGarrity’ until 1969 when the organisation splits into the ‘Official‘ and ‘Provisional‘ movements. Thereafter the term continues to be used by the Officials while the Provisionals adopt the moniker ‘P.O’Neill.’


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Death of Anew McMaster, Touring Shakespearean Actor & Manager

Anew McMaster, the last of the touring actor-managers who presents William Shakespeare’s plays throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and the United States, dies in Dublin on August 24, 1962. For almost 35 years he tours as actor-manager of his own theatrical company performing the works of Shakespeare and other playwrights.

McMaster is born as Andrew McMaster on December 24, 1891, the son of Liverpool-born Andrew McMaster, a master stevedore, and Alice Maude (née Thompson). A number of sources make the erroneous claims, based on details supplied by McMaster himself, that he is born in 1893 or 1894 or even 1895 in County Monaghan in Ireland, but according to the Birth Register and the 1901 Census he is actually born in 1891 in Birkenhead, England. Like his future brother-in-law, Micheál Mac Liammóir, who is born in London as Alfred Willmore but who claims to have been born in Cork to Gaelic-speaking parents, McMaster reinvents himself as Irish and claims for himself the town of Monaghan as his birthplace, and Warrenpoint, County Down, as the scene of his earliest memories.

At the age of 19, McMaster gives up a career in banking to pursue one on the stage. He moves to Ireland and tours the country with the O’Brien-Ireland theatrical company from 1910 to 1914. Success quickly follows with his appearance as Jack O’Hara in Paddy the Next Best Thing at the Savoy Theatre in 1920. From 1921 he tours Australia in this and other plays, and in 1925 forms his own company, the McMaster Intimate Theatre Company, a “fit-up” company to tour in the works of Shakespeare, mainly in Ireland but also in Britain and Australia, touring with his theatrical company until 1959. One of the last actor-managers “of the old school – and an epitome of the type,” on occasions McMaster persuades a “big name” to act with his company as a draw for audiences, and Frank Benson (1928), Sara Allgood (1929) and Mrs. Patrick Campbell appear with him.

In 1933 at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon McMaster appears as Hamlet opposite Esme Church as Gertrude, Coriolanus, Macduff in Macbeth, Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing, Prince Escalus in Romeo and Juliet, and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. His greatest roles are as Othello and as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, to which he adds King Lear in 1952. Just before World War II he and his company appear at the Chiswick Empire in a Shakespeare season. He tours the United States as James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill‘s Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1956. Having “a great organ voice,” Harold Pinter, who acts in his company in Ireland from 1951 to 1953 and calls him “Perhaps the greatest actor-manager of his time,” later describes McMaster as “evasive, proud, affectionate, shrewd, merry.” In his brief biography Mac (1968), Pinter recalls, “Mac gave about a half dozen magnificent performances of Othello while I was with him… At his best he was the finest Othello I have seen. [He] stood dead in the centre of the role, and the great sweeping symphonic playing would begin, the rare tension and release within him, the arrest, the swoop, the savagery, the majesty and repose.”

McMaster’s only film role is an uncredited appearance as the Judge in Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960).

In 1924 McMaster marries the actress and designer Marjorie Willmore, the sister of Micheál Mac Liammóir. They have two children, the actors John Christopher McMaster and Mary-Rose McMaster.

McMaster dies at the age of 70 at his home in Dublin on August 24, 1962. He is buried with his wife in Dean’s Grange Cemetery in County Dublin.

McMaster trains a generation of actors who tour with his company and go on to achieve success as actors. These include Pauline Flanagan, Milo O’Shea, T. P. McKenna, Kenneth Haigh, Henry Woolf, Harold Pinter, Donal Donnelly and Patrick Magee. It is while they are touring with McMaster’s company that the actor and dramatist Micheál Mac Liammóir and the actor and producer Hilton Edwards first meet and begin their lifelong partnership.

McMaster’s biography, A Life Remembered: A Memoir of Anew McMaster, by his daughter Mary-Rose McMaster, is published in 2017. Harold Pinter also publishes a short biography, Mac, in 1968.


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Birth of Paul McGuinness, Former Manager of U2

Paul McGuinness, the founder of Principle Management Limited, a popular music act management company based in Dublin, is born on June 16, 1951, in Rinteln, Westphalia, Germany. He is the manager of the rock band U2 from 1978 to 2013.

McGuinness is born in a British military hospital at Rinteln where his father, Philip McGuinness, a native of Liverpool, is serving with the Royal Air Force. His mother, Sheila McGuinness (née Lyne), is a schoolteacher from County Kerry. There are three children in the family: Paul, Niall, and Katy.

McGuinness receives his early formal education in Ireland at the private Jesuit boarding school, Clongowes Wood College. From there he goes on to Trinity College Dublin, where he directs plays, edits the magazine T.C.D. Miscellany, and promotes gigs, but drops out before obtaining a degree.

Before becoming involved with U2, Guinness works as a film assistant director on productions such as John Boorman‘s Zardoz. For a time, he also manages folk-rock group Spud.

McGuinness first meets U2 at a Dublin gig on May 25, 1978, where they are supporting the Gamblers. Following this meeting, he becomes U2’s manager, having been introduced to the band by Bill Graham, a journalist with Hot Press magazine. His original agreement with the band is that the money is to be split equally five ways, though this is later changed.

McGuinness founds Principle Management Limited on March 29, 1984. He and Bill Whelan set up a music publishing company called McGuinness/Whelan Publishing in the late 1980s. Whelan later composes the music for the theatrical show Riverdance.

In 2002, McGuinness is presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Meteor Music Awards at the Point Theatre in Dublin and U2 wins the best Irish Band Award.

Noted for his business acumen, McGuinness is responsible for U2 3D concert films, U2-branded iPods, sponsorship from BlackBerry and the first-ever concert streamed live on YouTube.

McGuinness is regarded as the fifth member of U2, although in an interview with The Irish Press in 1985, when asked if he is the fifth member of U2, he replies, “The fifth member of U2 is in Adam (Clayton)‘s trousers.” He is also regarded as one of the most successful managers in the music business.

McGuinness steps down as manager of U2 after 34 years on November 13, 2013, with Madonna‘s manager, Guy Oseary, succeeding him in 2014 when he sells Principle Management Limited to Live Nation.

McGuinness is a founding partner of TV3 (Ireland) and is one of the owners of Ardmore Film Studios. He becomes a member of the Arts Council of Ireland on January 1, 1988, having been appointed by Charles Haughey. He serves until February 2000 when he resigns.

McGuinness has been an advocate on behalf of artists, record labels, and music publishers. On January 28, 2008, in a speech at the Midem music industry convention in Cannes, he specifically accuses companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook of building “multi-billion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it.”

In 2015, McGuinness founds Primo Productions, a film and TV company. Primo produces three seasons of Riviera, a drama set in the South of France. He writes the “list of ingredients” for the show: “Rich people behaving badly in the sun, yachts, Maseratis, great clothes, beautiful women, art fraud, money laundering through the auction houses, Russians, English people, American, French. Murder, adultery.” Everyday life on the Côte d’Azur. His production partner is Kris Thykier of Archery Pictures. The show is originally commissioned by Anne Mensah of Sky Atlantic.

McGuinness marries Kathy Gilfillan in 1977. They meet while he is studying at Trinity. Gilfillan is director of The Lilliput Press. They have two children.


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Death of Brendan Bowyer, Royal Showband Frontman

Brendan Bowyer, Irish singer best known for fronting the Royal Showband and The Big Eight and who has five number one hits in Ireland, dies in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 28, 2020.

Born in Waterford, County Waterford on October 12, 1938, Bowyer is renowned for having The Beatles open for the Royal Showband at a concert on April 2, 1962 at the Pavilion Theatre, Liverpool, England, some six months before the release of The Beatles debut single “Love Me Do” in October 1962. He is regarded as one of the first headlining Elvis impersonators. Elvis Presley himself is a big fan of Bowyer’s performances and often attends his concerts in the Stardust Resort and Casino in Las Vegas during the 1970s.

Bowyer begins his career with the Royal Showband in 1957. His ability to tailor American rock and roll music to the tastes of Irish audiences, and his athletic, spirited on-stage performances make him a popular vocalist of the 1960s Irish showband era. On September 6, 1963, he and the Royal Showband become the first Irish artists to top the Irish Singles Chart, with the hit “Kiss Me Quick,” which stays at the number one position for seven weeks. They return to the top position later that year with “No More,” and repeat the feat in 1964 with “Bless You.”

Bowyer takes part in the 1965 Irish National Song Contest for a chance to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest in Naples with the song “Suddenly in Love,” but can only manage fifth place. The Royal Showband’s greatest success is to come in 1965 with “The Hucklebuck,” which spends a further seven weeks at the top of the Irish Singles Chart, and is a hit in Australia, but fails to appear in the UK Singles Chart. “Don’t Lose Your Hucklebuck Shoes” returns the band to the number one position later in 1965.

In the summer of 1971, Bowyer, along with singer Tom Dunphy, leave the Royal Showband and form the Big Eight Showband. The band spends the summers playing the ballroom circuit in Ireland but also spends six months of the year in Las Vegas. Within a short time, the band makes the decision to relocate to Las Vegas permanently. He is based in Las Vegas from then on, though he makes frequent trips back to Ireland. In 1977 he makes a brief return to the Irish charts with his tribute, “Thank You Elvis.”

Having enjoyed a semi-retirement phase, Bowyer returns to the spotlight, touring Ireland each year, some for months on end, with his daughter Aisling Bowyer, and a six-piece band. They perform his showband era hits, dance numbers, nationalist songs, modern contemporary songs and concert hits.

A covers album, Follow On, is released in 2001, where Bowyer performs some of the most popular Irish songs, such as “Summer in Dublin,” “What’s Another Year,” “Past the Point of Rescue,” and “I Don’t Like Mondays.”

In 2005, Bowyer and Aisling headline the entertainment list for the Tall Ships Festival in Waterford, performing in the open air to an estimated crowd of 12,000. In 2015, Bowyer is the star of the “Ireland’s Showbands – Do You Come Here Often?” concert series.

Bowyer dies at the age of 81 in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 28, 2020.


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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.