seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Mayo South (Dáil constituency)


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Birth of Mícheál Ó Móráin, Fianna Fáil Politician

Mícheál Ó Móráin, an Irish Fianna Fáil politician, is born in Castlebar, County Mayo on December 24, 1911. He serves as Teachta Dála (TD) from 1938 to 1973, Minister for Lands from 1959 to 1968, Minister for the Gaeltacht from 1957 to 1959 and 1961 to 1968, and Minister for Justice from 1968 to 1970.

Ó Móráin hails from a strong Republican family, members of which had fought in the Irish War of Independence, and in the Irish Civil War on the Anti-Treaty side. A solicitor by profession, he is first elected to Dáil Éireann for the Mayo South constituency on his second attempt at the 1938 Irish general election. He remains on the backbenches for several years until he is appointed to the cabinet by Taoiseach Éamon de Valera in 1957 as Minister for the Gaeltacht. He is a native speaker of the Irish language. He is appointed Minister for Lands by Taoiseach Seán Lemass in 1959 and is re-appointed to the Gaeltacht portfolio in 1961. He remains in these two Departments until 1968.

Ireland formally applies for European Economic Committee (EEC) membership in July 1961. Ó Móráin, as Minister for Lands and the Gaeltacht, delivers a widely reported address to the Castlebar Chamber of Commerce in 1962. In the speech, he argues that Ireland is “ready to subscribe to the political aims of the EEC” and that Ireland does not want to be seen as “committed” to its policy of neutrality. In the ensuing controversy, he and Lemass deny that there is any suggestion Ireland might or should abandon neutrality. Outside the country, foreign governments see this episode as a deliberately provoked debate to evaluate the government’s domestic room for manoeuvre on neutrality.

Ó Móráin is appointed Minister for Justice by Taoiseach Jack Lynch in 1968. It is in this role that he is most remembered. While he is still Minister, the Arms Crisis in Ireland erupts in 1970. This political scandal sees Government ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney dismissed by the Taoiseach for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle arms to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland. Ó Móráin continually suffers from ill health, which is accentuated by his alcoholism. When the Arms Crisis erupts, Lynch comes to see him in a hospital in Galway and asks for his resignation. Ó Móráin is a witness at the subsequent Arms Trial. He testifies that he had passed on Garda intelligence reports about the involvement of ministers with the IRA to the Taoiseach before the arms were seized at Dublin Airport. Hus evidence at the trial has been described as “erratic.”

Ó Móráin loses his Dáil seat at the 1973 Irish general election and retires from politics. He dies at his home in Sutton, Dublin, in on May 6, 1983. With a Fianna Fáil guard of honour, he is buried in Castlebar. With his wife, Madge, he has one daughter, Sorcha, and two sons, John, and Michael, who dies in a road accident in 1972.


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Death of Seán Flanagan, Irish Footballer & Fianna Fáil Politician

Seán Flanagan, Irish Fianna Fáil politician, dies in Dublin on February 5, 1993. He serves as Minister for Health from 1966 to 1969, Minister for Lands from 1969 to 1973 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1965 to 1966. He serves as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Connacht–Ulster constituency from 1979 to 1989. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Mayo South constituency from 1951 to 1969 and for the Mayo East constituency from 1969 to 1977.

Flanagan is born in Coolnaha, Aghamore, Ballyhaunis, County Mayo on January 26, 1922. He is educated locally, then later at St. Jarlath’s College in Tuam, County Galway, where he shows enthusiasm for sport. He wins two Connacht championship medals with the college in 1939 and 1940. He later studies at Clonliffe College in Dublin, and then enrolls at University College Dublin, where he studies law and qualifies as a solicitor.

Flanagan also plays senior Gaelic football for Mayo. He captains the All-Ireland final-winning sides of 1950 and 1951 and wins five Connacht senior championship medals in all. He also wins two National Football League titles in 1949 and 1954. While still a footballer, he enters into a career in politics.

In recognition of his skills and long-running contribution to the sport, Flanagan is awarded the 1992 All-Time All Star Award as no Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) All Stars Awards were being issued at the time of his playing career. In 1984, the Gaelic Athletic Association centenary year, he is honoured by being named on their Football Team of the Century. In 1999, he is again honoured by the GAA by being named on their Gaelic Football Team of the Millennium.

Flanagan comes from a Fianna Fáil family and is recruited into the party in east Mayo. He is elected a Fianna Fáil TD for Mayo South at the 1951 Irish general election and then wins a seat from 1969 in Mayo East at each subsequent election until he loses his seat at the 1977 Irish general election.

Flanagan rises rapidly through the party ranks and is appointed a Parliamentary Secretary under Taoiseach Seán Lemass in 1959. In the 1966 Fianna Fáil leadership election he supports Jack Lynch. When Lynch becomes Taoiseach, he is promoted to the Cabinet as Minister for Health. Three years later in 1969, he becomes Minister for Lands. He loses his seat at the 1977 Irish general election and effectively retires from domestic politics. However, he is elected to the European Parliament in the first direct elections in 1979. He is re-elected in 1984 and retires from politics in 1989.

Flanagan marries Mary Patricia Doherty in 1950. They have two sons and five daughters, including Dermot, who also plays All-Ireland senior football for Mayo.

Flanagan dies at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin on February 5, 1993, at the age of 71. Following his death, a Mayo sports journalist comments, “Above all, we’ll miss that noble link with an era when, as children, Seán Flanagan was our second God.”


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Birth of Irish Republican Tom Maguire

Tom Maguire, Irish republican who serves as commandant-general in the Western Command of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and leads the South Mayo flying column, is born on March 28, 1892.

On September 18, 1920, the Mayo Brigade of the IRA is reorganized and spilt up into four separate brigades. Tom Maguire is appointed commander of the South Mayo brigade.

Maguire leads an ambush on a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) patrol in Toormakeady, County Mayo, on May 3, 1921, killing four. Maguire’s flying column then heads for the Partry Mountains. According to one account, the column is surrounded by many soldiers and policemen guided by aeroplanes. Maguire is wounded and his adjutant is killed, but the column manages to escape with no further casualties. Maguire is involved in numerous other engagements including the Kilfall ambush.

At the 1921 Irish election to Dáil Éireann, Maguire is returned unopposed as Teachta Dála (TD) for Mayo South–Roscommon South as a Sinn Féin candidate. He opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and apart from voting against the treaty when the vote is called, does not participate in any substantial way in the Dáil treaty debates. He is returned unopposed at the 1922 Irish general election. At the 1923 Irish general election, Maguire faces a contest and succeeds in securing the second of five seats in the Mayo South constituency.

Maguire is a member of the anti-Treaty IRA executive which commands rebel troops during the Irish Civil War. Maguire is captured by the National Army while in bed and is told that he would be executed, but his life is spared. While in prison his brother, Sean Maguire, aged 17, is executed by the government.

Maguire remains a TD until 1927. He initially indicates a willingness to contest the June 1927 Irish general election as a Sinn Féin candidate but withdraws after the IRA threatens to court-martial any member under IRA General Army Order 28, which forbids its members from standing in elections.

Maguire subsequently drifts out of the IRA. In 1932, a Mayo IRA officer reports that Maguire, now firmly aligned with Sinn Féin, refuses to call on men to join the IRA when speaking at republican commemorations. When challenged on this, Maguire claims that, as the IRA “were no longer the same as they used to be,” he disagrees with the organisation.

In December 1938, Maguire is one of a group of seven people, who had been elected to the Second Dáil in 1921, who meet with the IRA Army Council under Seán Russell. At this meeting, the seven sign over what they contend is the authority of the Government of Dáil Éireann to the Army Council. Henceforth, the IRA Army Council perceives itself to be the legitimate government of the Irish Republic and, on this basis, the IRA and Sinn Féin justify their rejection of the states of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and political abstentionism from their parliamentary institutions.

When the majority of IRA and Sinn Féin decide to abandon abstentionism in the 1969–1970 split, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill seek and secure Maguire’s recognition of the Provisional IRA as the legitimate successor to the 1938 Army Council. Of the seven 1938 signatories, Maguire is the only one still alive at the time.

Likewise, in the aftermath of the 1986 split in the Republican Movement, both the Provisional IRA and the Continuity IRA seek Maguire’s support. Maguire signs a statement which is issued posthumously in 1996. In it, he confers legitimacy on the Army Council of the Continuity IRA. In The Irish Troubles, J. Bowyer Bell describes Maguire’s opinion in 1986, “abstentionism was a basic tenet of republicanism, a moral issue of principle. Abstentionism gave the movement legitimacy, the right to wage war, to speak for a Republic all but established in the hearts of the people.”

Tom Maguire dies on July 5, 1993, and is buried in Cross, County Mayo. Republican Sinn Fein have held multiple commemorations by his graveside.