seamus dubhghaill

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Birth of Ivana Bacik, Labour Party Politician

Ivana Catherine Bacik, Irish politician who has been the Leader of the Labour Party since March 24, 2022 and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Bay South constituency since winning a by-election on July 9, 2021, is born in Dublin on May 25, 1968. She comes to prominence due to her abortion rights campaigning from the 1980s onward.

Bacik’s paternal grandfather, Charles Bacik, was a Czech factory owner who moved to Ireland in 1946. He eventually settled in Waterford, County Waterford, and in 1947 was involved in the establishment of Waterford Crystal. Her mother’s side of the family are Murphys from County Clare. Her father is an astronomer and is employed in a number of locations. As a result, she lives in London and South Africa, before moving to Crookstown, County Cork, at the age of six, when he becomes a physics lecturer in the Cork Institute of Technology. She attends the nearby national school in Cloughduv. When she is 11 years old, her family moves to the Sunday’s Well area of Cork city. At the age of 14, she moves to Dublin.

Bacik wins a scholarship to board at Alexandra College in Milltown, Dublin, and is awarded a sizarship at Trinity College Dublin. She has an LL.B. from Trinity and an LL.M. from the London School of Economics.

Bacik contests the Seanad Éireann elections in 1997 and 2002 as an independent candidate for the Dublin University constituency but is not successful.

She runs as a Labour Party candidate at the 2004 election to the European Parliament in the Dublin constituency. She runs with sitting MEP Proinsias De Rossa, who is also the party president, on the same ticket. She polls 40,707 first preference votes (9.6%) but is not elected.

In 2004, Bacik’s book Kicking and Screaming: Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century, is published by The O’Brien Press.

In 2007, she contested the Seanad Éireann elections for the third time in the Dublin University constituency, and is elected to the third seat, behind sitting Independent senators Shane Ross and David Norris. She initially sits as an Independent senator.

In February 2009, Bacik is included in an ‘All Star Women’s Cabinet’ in the Irish Independent. In March 2009, she confirmed claims made on a TV programme that she had taken two voluntary pay cuts of 10% in addition to a pension levy. In June 2009, she is the Labour Party candidate for the Dublin Central by-election. She comes in third with 17% of the first preference votes. She joins the Labour Party group in the Seanad in September 2009, and becomes Labour Party Seanad spokesperson for both Justice and Arts, Sports and Tourism. In November 2009, a feature by Mary Kenny of the Irish Independent includes Bacik in a list of women who “well deserved their iconic status.”

In May 2010, Bacik seeks Labour’s nomination to contest the next election in the Dublin South-East constituency but is not selected. In December 2010, she is added to the ticket as the second candidate beside Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, in the Dún Laoghaire constituency for the 2011 Irish general election. Gilmore tops the poll, with Bacik receiving 10.1% of first preference votes but she is not elected. She is re-elected to Seanad Éireann at the subsequent election, after which she becomes Deputy Leader of the Seanad. She holds her seat in the Seanad in 2016 and in 2020.

On April 27, 2021, after the resignation of Eoghan Murphy from his Dáil seat in Dublin Bay South, Bacik announces her intention to stand in the upcoming by-election. She campaigns with an emphasis on providing affordable housing, as well as improving healthcare and childcare, tackling climate change, and achieving “a true republic in which church and state are separated.” During the campaign, she describes herself as having “more bills passed into law than any other Senator, on issues such as workers’ conditions, women’s health rights, and LGBT equality”. She also campaigns on increasing the number of sports amenities for children in the area, calling for unused Defence Forces football fields at the Cathal Brugha Barracks to be freed up for local sports, with the suggestion rejected by Fine Gael Minister for Defence Simon Coveney. Fine Gael complains to RTÉ after she features prominently on National Treasures, a prime-time TV show broadcast by RTÉ during the campaign. RTÉ has strict rules about fair coverage of candidates during campaigns. The national broadcaster blames an “inadvertent error” for the programme being shown three days before the election. A steering group within the broadcaster tells Fine Gael that “the broadcast should not have happened.” Consequentially, RTÉ has to show a special report on the by-election on Prime Time to “ensure fair coverage is given to all candidates.”

Bacik wins this election, receiving 8,131 (30.2%) first-preference votes. It is her fourth attempt as a Labour candidate, and she expresses her delight at the success at the count centre in the RDS. Following the election, she is described by The Irish Times as “a formidable activist and public intellectual” and that Fine Gael’s perceived antipathy towards their former TD, Kate O’Connell, may have contributed to the surge in support to Bacik from women voters. The newspaper claims that her election is “a long overdue morale boost” for Labour.

In August 2021, Bacik apologises for attending Katherine Zappone‘s controversial party in the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, in July of that year. She states that she believed that it took place within existing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

In March 2022, Bacik confirms she will run to succeed Alan Kelly as Labour Party leader. Kelly states that he believes that Bacik will succeed him. On March 24, 2022, she is confirmed as Labour Party leader unopposed at a party conference in Dublin. In a speech, she says she will focus on the rising cost of living and the serious and global problems facing the country. She pledges that Labour will fight the next election as a “standalone party” rather than joining any left-wing alliance.

At the 2024 Irish general election, Bacik is re-elected to the Dáil.

Bacik lives with husband Alan Saul and their two daughters in Portobello, Dublin.


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Rev. Canon Paul Colton Elected Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross

One of the youngest members of the Church of Ireland, Rev. Canon William Paul Colton is elected Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross on January 29, 1999. He succeeds the Rt. Rev. Robert Warke.

Colton, born March 13, 1960, and known as Paul Colton, is perhaps best known for being the bishop who officiates the wedding of footballer David Beckham and Spice Girl Victoria Adams on July 4, 1999, at the medieval Luttrellstown Castle on the outskirts of Dublin.

Colton attends St. Luke’s National School, Douglas, Cork, Cork Grammar School and Ashton Comprehensive School, Cork before being awarded a scholarship to the Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada where he completes the International Baccalaureate in 1978. He studies law at University College Cork, part of the National University of Ireland, and is the first graduate of the university to be elected to a bishopric in the Church of Ireland. He studies theology at Trinity College Dublin. In 1987 he completes the degree of Master in Philosophy (Ecumenics) at Trinity College, Dublin and a Master of Laws at Cardiff University in 2006. His LL.M thesis is on the subject of legal definitions of church membership.

In 2013 Colton completes, and is conferred with, a PhD in Law also at Cardiff University. His academic areas of interest are church law, the law of the Church of Ireland, law within Anglicanism, the interface between the laws of religious communities and the laws of States (particularly in Ireland and Europe), human rights, education law, and charity law. In 2014 he is appointed as an honorary research fellow at the Cardiff School of Law and Politics of Cardiff University, and its Centre for Law and Religion.

Colton is elected Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross by an Electoral College on January 29, 1999, and consecrated on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1999, in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. He is enthroned in Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork on April 24, 1999, in St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cloyne on May 13, 1999, and in St. Fachtna’s Cathedral, Ross on May 28, 1999.

Colton is married to Susan Colton, who is deputy principal of a primary school, and they have two adult sons. He is the first Church of Ireland bishop to openly support same-sex marriage. He is involved in education debates and in charity work. He chairs the board of directors of Saint Luke’s Charity, Cork, which focuses on the elderly and dementia sufferers. He is also chairman of the board of governors of Midleton College.

At the episcopal ordination of Bishop Fintan Gavin as Catholic bishop of Cork and Ross in June 2019, Colton presents the crosier at Bishop Gavin’s own request.

As of June 2020, Colton is the longest-serving bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross since bishop William Lyon in 1617 and also the longest serving bishop still in office in the Anglican churches of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. He is the author of almost a dozen book chapters, mostly in the area of the interface between religion and law.