On November 5, 1940, British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill addresses the House of Commons of the United Kingdom to report on Britain’s wartime situation after six months in office. While the speech’s main focus is on the resilience of British cities and the ongoing Battle of Britain, he does note the loss of certain overseas ports, including Irish ones, as part of the broader context of Allied shipping losses and strategic vulnerability, bemoaning the fact that the Irish ports had been returned to the Republic of Ireland government in 1938.
Churchill becomes Prime Minister on May 10, 1940, following the fall of France and the evacuation at Dunkirk. By late November, Britain is engaged in the Battle of Britain, with the Luftwaffe targeting industrial centres and ports across the country. The night before the speech, November 4, is the first night in eight weeks without air raids over London, but the Luftwaffe has shifted focus to other strategic locations.
While the Hansard record for November 5, 1940 does not list Irish ports by name, Churchill’s remarks on shipping losses and the vulnerability of ports are part of his broader assessment of the war’s impact on Britain’s global trade and naval operations. “The fact that we cannot use the South and West Coasts of Ireland to refuel our flotillas and aircraft and thus protect the trade by which Ireland as well as Great Britain lives, is a most heavy and grievous burden and one which should never have been placed on our shoulders, broad though they be.”
Military losses of approximately 300 killed and 500 wounded.
Minimal infrastructure damage to vital services like water, fuel, electricity, and gas.
There are challenges in transportation but they are improving.
Extensive plans are underway for shelters and winter preparations.
The mention of Irish ports in Churchill’s speech underscores the global nature of the war and the strategic importance of Ireland as a neutral but vital Allied base. The loss of such ports would have implications for naval operations, supply routes, and Britain’s ability to sustain its war effort.
To read the full text of Churchill’s November 5, 1940 speech, it is preserved in the National Churchill Museum’s 1940 speeches collection and in the UK Parliament’s Hansard archives.
Seven prominent Englishmen, known as the “Immortal Seven,” invite William to intervene, framing it as a defense of Protestantism and constitutional government. William, James’s nephew and son-in-law, sees the invasion as both a political opportunity and a strategic move to counter French expansion.
William assembles one of the largest fleets in European history, with 14,000–21,000 troops and a powerful navy. On November 5, 1688, he lands at Brixham in Torbay with his army. The campaign is marked by low casualties and minimal fighting, as James’s forces begin to collapse and many defect to William’s side.
By late November, James retreats from Salisbury and flees to France on December 23, 1688. William enters London without significant resistance, leading to the constitutional settlement in 1689, in which Mary II and William III become joint monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
The Glorious Revolution is often described as a “bloodless” revolution because it avoids large-scale battles, but it is a decisive political change that establishes parliamentary supremacy and lays the foundation for constitutional monarchy in Britain. William’s invasion is also notable as one of the last successful invasions of England.
In summary, on November 1, 1688, William III of Orange’s departure from Hellevoetsluis is the start of a swift and politically decisive campaign that ends James II’s reign and reshapes the British monarchy.
(Pictured: William III landing at Brigham on November 5, 1688)
Noyk is born on August 12, 1884, in Telšiai, Lithuania, to a Jewish family. His father is from Kovno and his mother from Berlin. His family moves to Dublin when he is one year old. He is educated at Dublin’s The High School and later attends Trinity College Dublin (TCD) as a sizar in Hebrew, winning a classics scholarship and graduating with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 1907. Shortly after graduation, he becomes a practicing solicitor in Dublin.
Noyk becomes closely associated with the Irish republican movement through his friendship with Arthur Griffith and joins Sinn Féin shortly after the 1916 Easter Rising. He serves as Griffith’s personal solicitor until Griffith’s death in 1922. He is particularly renowned for defending republican prisoners during the Irish War of Independence, including notable figures like General Seán Mac Eoin, Thomas Whelan, Patrick Moran, James Boyce, and Frank Teeling.
During the Irish War of Independence, Noyk frequently coordinates with Michael Collins on intelligence and administrative matters. He helps investigate British officials’ actions that threaten Dáil finances and provides legal cover for IRA operations. On Bloody Sunday (November 21, 1920), he defends IRA members in British court-martials, arranging alibis and expert witnesses to mitigate convictions where possible.
Throughout his career, Noyk demonstrates a delicate balance between legal practice and revolutionary activity. He is involved in confidential operations to protect assets, people, and information vital to the republican cause.
Noyk marries Mabel Stein, the sister of artist Stella Steyn, and they have four children, living for many years on Wellington Road in Dublin. He is also a prominent figure in Dublin social life, involved in sports as a solicitor for Shamrock Rovers Football Club and in horse racing circles.
Noyk is remembered as a key figure in Ireland’s struggle for independence. His legal skill, political activism, and work with Republican courts and the Department of Finance made him an indispensable ally of Michael Collins and a defender of Irish republicans during some of the most turbulent years in Ireland’s history. His life demonstrates the vital role of legal professionals in revolutionary movements, balancing official channels with clandestine support for political aims.
Brooke is the son of The Reverend William Brooke, the well-off Church of Ireland Rector of Killinkere and Mullagh within the Church of Ireland Diocese of Kilmore. He first begins his career as a poet. His now forgotten philosophical poem Universal Beauty is published in 1735, and Alexander Pope thinks its sentiments and poetry fine. He then turns dramatist by adapting extant plays, such as The Earl of Essex. He writes from the Tory point of view and becomes one of the most important figures in Augustan drama, although not for his successes.
Brooke’s Gustavus Vasa (1739) has the distinction of being the first play banned by the Licensing Act 1737. The play concerns the liberation of Sweden from Denmark in 1521 by Riksföreståndare (Protector of the Realm or Regent) Gustav Vasa (who later becomes King Gustav I of Sweden). Sir Robert Walpole believes that the villain of the play resembles him. Further, a facetious “attack” on it is the first public writing of Samuel Johnson, whose A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the English Stage feigns support for Walpole while it drives the censor’s argument to reductio ad absurdum.
Brooke lives in Ireland most of his life, but he spends time in London when his plays are on the stage. In politics, he is somewhat radical in arguing publicly for loosening the laws persecuting Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom. His daughter, Charlotte Brooke, is herself an important figure in the history of Irish literature, publishing Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789) and working to increase the profile of Irish language poetry.
Later, Brook’s Earl of Essex comes back to the boards in a revival. Again, Samuel Johnson offers his public support of Brooke, but when he hears the Earl saying at the end of Act II, “Who rules o’er free men must himself be free,” Johnson replies, “Who drives fat oxen must himself be fat.” Although Johnson is objecting to the misuse and overuse of “freedom” and is at that time in a vexatious debate over the American Revolutionary War (saying, “Why is it that we hear the loudest cries for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?”), Brooke is mortified by Johnson’s parody and changes the line for his Collected Works.
Brooke has a difficult life and makes a very poor living. The Licensing Act 1737 robs him of his primary avenue to making a living, for, after the Act, he is the first man banned by it. Whatever fame this lends him is made up for by his inability to get new plays performed. His greatest commercial successes come from the Earl of Essex and his two novels, The Fool of Quality (1760-1772) and Juliet Grenville (1774), which are two of the finest sentimental novels. John Wesley is so fond of The Fool of Quality, in which Brooke declares his belief in universal salvation, that he seeks to have a copy of it given out to all new Methodist churches.
Brooke has twenty-two children. Of these, only Charlotte survives adolescence. She shepherds his Works through the press after his death.
The death of Brooke’s wife after a long illness and the loss of so many of his children, leaves Brooke’s physical and mental health increasingly unstable. His decline is evident in the last volume of The Fool of Quality and his final three-volume novel Juliet Grenville. He dies in Dublin on October 10, 1783, and is buried in his father’s churchyard in Mullagh.
Lennox is the daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, an illegitimate grandson of King Charles II, and Lady Sarah Cadogan. She is renowned for her beauty, vivacity, and intellectual curiosity, and is considered the most attractive and socially adept of the Lennox sisters. She is presented at court at the age of thirteen and becomes engaged to James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare, in 1745.
James FitzGerald becomes Marquess of Kildare and then Duke of Leinster in recognition of his political influence. The couple’s financial arrangements are generous, leaving FitzGerald a substantial jointure and properties, which later strains the resources of her surviving children.
After the Duke of Leinster’s death in 1773, FitzGerald marries her children’s tutor, William Ogilvie, on August 26, 1774, having already begun an affair. Ogilvie is nine years her junior and the likely biological father of her youngest son from her first marriage. She and Ogilvie have three additional children together, two of whom survive into adulthood. She spends time in France and Ireland before eventually settling in London to oversee her daughters’ marriages and engage in social affairs.
FitzGerald is a keen reader, politicized, and culturally active. She has a strong interest in literature, politics, and Enlightenment ideas, influenced by thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She actively manages her estates and interiors, notably Carton House and its gardens, and pursues educational and outdoor activities for her children, demonstrating innovation in child-rearing and estate management.
FitzGerald is deeply affectionate and attentive to her children, particularly Lord Edward FitzGerald, a key figure in the Irish republican movement. She is involved in mourning and supporting her children, enduring the deaths of fourteen of her 22 children across both marriages. She also navigates complex social and financial challenges, ensuring her families’ estates and alliances endure despite societal pressures.
FitzGerald’s life and correspondence exemplify the culture, politics, and familial dynamics of eighteenth-century Anglo-Irish aristocracy. She has been depicted in numerous portraits by artists including Sir Joshua Reynolds, Allan Ramsay (pictured above), and Arthur Devis. Her story, and that of the Lennox sisters, is popularized in Stella Tillyard’s 1994 book Aristocrats and the six-part BBC/PBS television series adapted in 1999, highlighting her role in history, society, and culture.
In summary, Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster, is remembered as a central figure of aristocratic Ireland and Britain, a mother to a large and influential family, and a socially and politically engaged noblewoman whose life bridged familial devotion, political awareness, and cultural sophistication.
McCarthy’s early career was meteoric: his first book, An outline of Irish history from the earliest times, appears in 1883 and is a fast-moving, strongly worded, nationalist sketch of Irish history. This is followed by a heavy-handed dramatic poem, Serapion (1883), about the early Christian era. In June of the following year he is returned as the Home Rule LeagueMP for Athlone on the death of the sitting member, and also publishes, to excellent reviews, England under Gladstone, which runs to a second edition within a year. In November 1884, his first play, The Candidate, is an overnight success in the Criterion Theatre in London. Its plot is thin but the humour and political badinage ensures it a long run.
At the 1885 United Kingdom general election McCarthy is elected nationalist MP for Newry, and he holds this seat until 1892. In the two years after his election he writes a number of novels, translates works from Persian, and writes Ireland Since the Union (1887), which is well researched, nationalist and impassioned in tone, showing a flair for biographical sketches. During this period he is known for his good attendance in the House of Commons though he does not speak much – throughout his life he is more an observer than a participator – and he is said by William O’Brien to conceal “under the gentlest of exteriors the fire of the ‘Spirit of the Nation’ ballad” (New Ireland Review, 523). In London he is well known for his controversial drama reviews in The Gentleman’s Magazine and the Sunday Sun, and in Dublin for his numerous verse and prose contributions to United Ireland. Although he makes a name for himself as a brilliant young man, he never fulfills his early promise.
In later years McCarthy continues to publish prolifically but produces only ephemeral works, and his parliamentary attendance slackens off. His political commitment is soured possibly by the party’s split in 1890. He originally sides with Charles Stewart Parnell, emphasizing in a speech on December 1, 1890, that he believes in the old-fashioned theory of personal loyalty to a leader. However, five days later he causes a minor drama by rising at the last minute to follow his father and the forty-three other anti-Parnellites, claiming that he feels he must abide by the decision of the majority. Two years later he leaves politics for good without standing in the 1892 United Kingdom general election. A sympathetic profile of him in the New Ireland Review in 1894 remarks that “no man of equal talents made so slight an impression on the political world.”
Thereafter McCarthy has less involvement in Irish affairs and writes no more Irish history books, though his novels continue to have Irish themes. He lives in London in Putney Common, and continues to travel widely. In 1894, he marries in some haste a popular comic actress, Cecilia Loftus, and the event is widely reported in the English press. However, the marriage is dissolved in the United States five years later. In 1908, his second marriage is to Loullie, daughter of Henry Killick of Budapest. He continues to enjoy success as a dramatist and has five plays, four sketches, and three duologues performed in London in the 1890s. However, he concentrates increasingly on historical fiction, which he produces at breakneck speed. In the first decade of the twentieth century he writes over twelve novels based on periods in English, Italian, French, and Irish history. The Illustrious O’Hagan (1906), The O’Flynn (1910), and The King Over the Water (1911) pointedly contradict English stereotypes of the “stage Irishman.” The Fair Irish Maid (1911) is an allegory of the Irish Parliamentary Party‘s political marriage to the ordinary Irish people rather than to the Anglo-Irishascendancy.
McCarthy dies at home in Putney on March 20, 1936 aged 79, although his obituaries all put his age at 75.
(From: “McCarthy, Justin Huntly” by Bridget Hourican, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
Ellis is from an Irish republican family, and both of his grandfathers fought in the Easter Rising in 1916. He later owns a television repair business.
Ellis is a former Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoner. He is arrested in 1981, when explosives and bomb making equipment are found under his bed. He is charged with possession of explosives. He jumps bail, but is arrested in Buffalo, New York in February 1982 and extradited to the Republic of Ireland, where in April 1983, he is sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in Portlaoise Prison. He is convicted of possessing multiple power-timer units for IRA bombs, including those suspected of being used in the Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombings. In 1983, his fingerprints are found on a huge cache of IRA explosives found in a forest outside the Berkshire town of Pangbourne. The cache is linked to the Harrods and Hyde Park bombings. On November 14, 1990, after thirty-five days on hunger strike, he becomes the first person extradited from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom under the 1987 Extradition Act. He goes on hunger strike to protest efforts to send him to Britain, but is extradited in the sixth week of his fast. His hunger strike draws considerable domestic and international attention, and at one point TaoiseachCharles Haughey intervenes, asking Ellis’ parents to ask him to give it up, but they refuse. He is acquitted at his trial in London in October 1991.
Ellis is first elected to Dublin City Council in 1999, for the Finglas local electoral area. He unsuccessfully contests the 2002 Irish general election in the Dublin North-West constituency, and receives 4,781 first-preference votes (18.3%). He is again unsuccessful at the 2007 Irish general election in the same constituency, receiving 4,873 votes (15.7%). At the 2011 Irish general election, he is elected to the 31st Dáil with 7,115 (21.7%) of the first-preference votes.
In October 2014, following claims made by Máiría Cahill that she had been raped as a 17-year-old by a member of the Provisional IRA, Ellis states that “If an allegation was made against a volunteer it would have to be investigated [internally]…To be honest they were not qualified to deal with something like sexual abuse”. Based on this, Philip Ryan of the Irish Independent accuses Ellis of admitting that the IRA ran “kangaroo courts.”
In September 2016, a bill is put forward, which if passed would criminalise hare coursing. Sinn Féin supports the legalisation of hare coursing and decides to apply the party whip. As Ellis opposes it he declines to vote. He defies party instructions by not informing party whip Aengus Ó Snodaigh that he will not be taking part in the vote so he could be excused. He is subsequently given a written warning.
In December 2016, during a session of the Dáil, Ellis and his fellow Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris are accused by Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell of having information in relation to the shooting of Brian Stack, the chief prison officer at PortlaoisePrison, in 1983. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams had just delivered an address to the Dáil in relation to Stack when Farrell rises and uses Dáil privilege to state Gerry Adams had listed Ellis and Ferris as amongst people who may have information about the Stack death in an e-mail to the Garda Commission in February 2014, and ask that the two should also address the Dáil on the matter. Ellis immediately responds by stating, “I refute [sic] any allegations. For the information, the man in question claims to be a solicitor, I was actually in jail for the period. In Portlaoise, and before that in America, so you should check your facts. You’re a disgrace.” Ferris follows Ellis, and states, “On the record of this house; In 2013, I met with gardaí at their request regarding the death of Brian Stack, I co-operated fully with them and I have nothing to answer for, and it’s a disgrace what you have come in here naming. You should be ashamed of yourself.” In December 2016, Ellis states he had received death threats following the exchange in the Dáil.
In February 2018, Ellis is censured by Sinn Féin after he states publicly that fellow party member and councillor for Ballymun Noeleen Reilly is “not fit to represent Sinn Féin” and that she had waged a social media campaign against him. For her part, Reilly is suspended by the party for six months.
At the 2020 Irish general election Ellis is again elected with 14,375 first-preference votes (44.4%). He is a poll topper in the 2020 general election along with many Sinn Féin TDs in the 2020 election. He is criticised for joining his supporters singing “Come Out, Ye Black and Tans” at the count, but he dismisses the suggestion it is inappropriate.
In 2012, the Irish Independent, citing released internal documents held by the British government that were previously sealed for 30 years, alleges that by 1982 British authorities believe Ellis to be linked to “50 murders” as part of his time in the Provisional IRA. The allegation specifically cites a telegraph from the British embassy in Washington, D.C., to American counterparts in which they claim that Ellis is linked by “forensic evidence to some 50 murders” across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Independent claims another document states that Ellis is a “leading member” of the Provisional IRA.
Sinn Féin denounces the allegations as an “Indo Smear” and releases a statement declaring, “This is not the first time such unsubstantiated allegations have been made and Dessie Ellis rejects them as he has repeatedly done. Following a prolonged hunger strike in the 1990s to protest his extradition to Britain, Dessie successfully beat these trumped-up charges in court. Dessie Ellis has made no secret of his involvement in the republican struggle over many decades, including within the ranks of the IRA. Dessie has also been an important persuader for the Peace Process for many years.” Ellis does not make any personal statement on the allegations and refers journalists to Sinn Féin’s official statement.
Ellis is proficient in karate, holding a black belt, and teaches martial arts to young people. He is married to Anne Ellis (née Dunne) with grown up children.
On September 16, 1920, the British double agent John Henry Gooding, operating under the alias F. Digby Hardy, makes a dramatic overture to the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Hardy, a habitual criminal with a long record of forgery, fraud, and petty crime, has been recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate the IRA’s intelligence network and capture Michael Collins.
Born in 1868 in Devonport, Plymouth, England, Hardy has a troubled life marked by multiple imprisonments, bigamy, and a career in petty crime. After deserting the Royal Navy in 1888, he adopts the alias “Frank Hall” and lives in Surrey before moving to London. By 1920, he is a known criminal with a five-year fraud sentence in 1918, partially served until his release in 1919.
Hardy approaches IRA intelligence, offering to betray his British superior, Basil Thomson, to the IRA. The plan is for him to infiltrate the IRA’s network and hand over information on Collins. However, the operation is foiled when Arthur Griffith, a leading Irish republican, intercepts Hardy’s mission.
Griffith arranges a staged meeting in Dublin attended by international journalists. Hardy is confronted and, upon presentation of evidence, confesses his mission and criminal background. The exposure embarrasses British intelligence and draws international attention.
Rather than being executed, Hardy is given until the next morning to leave Ireland. He flees, resuming petty crimes until his death in 1930. The September 16, 1920 incident becomes a notable example of how British intelligence’s reliance on unreliable agents could backfire during the Irish War of Independence.
In summary, on September 16, 1920, F. Digby Hardy (John Henry Gooding) attempts to betray his British handler to the IRA, but is exposed and forced to flee Dublin after being misled by Arthur Griffith into revealing his mission to reporters.
Cromwell’s death is the result of a painful urinary tract infection that leads to blood poisoning. He has been in declining health for some time, and his final days are marked by illness and discomfort. His death comes just over nine years after the Siege of Drogheda in Ireland, which begins in August 1649 and becomes one of the most infamous episodes of his military career.
The Siege of Drogheda, in which Cromwell’s forces execute thousands of Irish defenders, remains a major point of controversy in his legacy. His death in 1658 is met with celebration by many in England, as it paves the way for the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660. After his death, his body is exhumed in 1661 and publicly hanged in chains before being thrown into a pit to ensure he is dead.
Cromwell is remembered as a decisive military leader who helps restore England’s status as a leading European power, but also as a controversial figure whose actions in Ireland leave a lasting scar on Anglo-Irish relations. His death on September 3, 1658, thus marks both the end of his political and military influence and a turning point in the post-Civil War period in Britain.
The killing is widely seen as a political act, with Dunne and O’Sullivan claiming to have acted in defence of Irish nationalist principles, blaming Wilson for the “Orange Terror” and the deployment of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). Some historians suggest the assassination may have been intended to pressure Michael Collins to attack the Four Courts garrison, though no conclusive evidence of orders was ever established.
After the shooting, Dunne escapes but O’Sullivan is captured by a hostile crowd. Dunne attempts to rescue him but is himself arrested after wounding two police officers and a passerby. Both are tried quickly, found guilty after just three minutes of deliberation, and sentenced to death by Justice Montague Shearman.
Despite petitions from 45,000 people and appeals from figures like George Bernard Shaw, both men are executed on August 10, 1922, and buried within the prison grounds.
The executions are a major political flashpoint. It is only after the abolition of hanging that the law is changed and Joseph’s brother, with the assistance of the Irish National Graves Association, is able to arrange for the bodies of the two men to be repatriated to Ireland.
Dunne’s trial speech, reprinted in the Irish Independent, remains a notable piece of republican political rhetoric, framing the act as a necessary stand for Irish rights.
(Pictured: Joseph O’Sullivan (left) and Reginald Dunne (right))
