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Tag Archives: Middle East


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Birth of Alan Shatter, Lawyer, Author & Fine Gael Politician

Alan Joseph Shatter, Irish lawyer, author and former Fine Gael politician who serves as Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence (2011-14), is born into a Jewish family in Dublin on February 14, 1951. He also serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South constituency (1981-2002, 2007-16). He leaves Fine Gael in early 2018 and unsuccessfully contests the 2024 Irish general election as an independent candidate for Dublin Rathdown.

Shatter is the son of Reuben and Elaine Shatter, an English couple who meet by chance when they are both on holiday in Ireland in 1947. He is educated at The High School, Dublin, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the Europa Institute of the University of Amsterdam. In his late teens, he works for two months in Israel on a kibbutz. He is a partner in the Dublin law firm Gallagher Shatter (1977-2011). As a solicitor he acts as advocate in many seminal and leading cases determined both by the Irish High and Supreme Courts. He is the author of one the major academic works on Irish family law which advocates substantial constitutional and family law reform.

Shatter enters politics at the 1979 Irish local elections, winning a seat on Dublin County Council for the Rathfarnham local electoral area. He retains this seat until 1999, becoming a member of South Dublin County Council in 1994. He is first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1981 as a Fine Gael TD and is re-elected at each subsequent election until he loses his seat in the 2002 Irish general election. He is re-elected at the 2007 Irish general election.

Shatter is Fine Gael Front Bench spokesperson on Law Reform (1982, 1987–88), the Environment (1989–91), Labour (1991), Justice (1992–93), Equality and Law Reform (1993–94), Health and Children (1997–2000), Justice, Law Reform and Defence (2000–02), Children (2007–10) and Justice and Law Reform (2010–11).

On March 9, 2011, Shatter is appointed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny as both Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence.

Under Shatter’s steerage, a substantial reform agenda is implemented with nearly 30 separate pieces of legislation published, many of which are now enacted including the Personal Insolvency Act 2012, Criminal Justice Act 2011, DNA Database Act, and the Human Rights and Equality Commission Act.

Under Shatter’s guidance, major reforms are introduced in 2011 into Ireland’s citizenship laws and a new Citizenship Ceremony is created. He both devises and pilots Ireland’s first ever citizenship ceremony which takes place in June 2011 and a new inclusive citizenship oath which he includes in his reforming legislation. During his time as Minister, he clears an enormous backlog of citizenship applications, and 69,000 foreign nationals become Irish citizens. Some applications had lain dormant for 3 to 4 years. He introduces a general rule that save where there is some real complication, all properly made citizenship applications should be processed within a six-month period. He also takes steps to facilitate an increased number of political refugees being accepted into Ireland and creates a special scheme to facilitate relations of Syrian families already resident in Ireland who are either caught up in the Syrian civil war, or in refugee camps elsewhere as a result of the Syrian civil war, to join their families in Ireland.

Shatter enacts legislation before the end of July 2011 to facilitate access to financial documentation and records held by third parties in investigations into banking scandals and white-collar crime. The legislation is first used by the Gardaí in September 2011.

During Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2013, Shatter chairs the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA) meetings and, in January 2013, in Dublin Castle, the meeting of EU Defence Ministers. Under his guidance, Ireland plays a more active role than in the past in EU defence matters and in deepening Ireland’s participation in NATO’s partnership for peace. During the Irish Presidency, substantial progress is made at the European Union level in the adoption and development of new legislation and measures across a broad range of Justice and Home Affairs issues.

Shatter implements substantial reform in the Department of Defence and restructures the Irish Defence Forces. He is a strong supporter of the Irish Defence Forces participation in international peacekeeping and humanitarian engagements and is an expert on the Middle East. As a member of the Irish Parliament and as Minister on many occasions, he visits Irish troops participating in United Nations (UN) missions in the Middle East. Under his watch contracts are signed for the acquisition of two new naval vessels with an option to purchase a third. All three naval vessels are now part of the Irish Naval Service and have been actively engaged in recent years in rescuing drowning refugees in the Mediterranean Sea attempting to enter Europe.

As Minister for Defence he enacts legislation to grant a pardon and an amnesty to members of the Irish Defence Forces who deserted during World War II to fight on the allied side against Nazi Germany and gives a state apology for their post-war treatment by the Irish State.

Shatter is the minister responsible for two amendments to the Constitution of Ireland which are passed in referendums: the Twenty-ninth Amendment in 2011 to allow for the reduction of judges’ pay, and the Thirty-third Amendment in 2013 to establish a Court of Appeal. Just prior to his resignation from government, the draft legislation to create the court is published and the court is established and sitting by October 2014.

The jurisdictions of the courts are extended for the first time in 20 years and the maximum civil damages payable for the emotional distress of bereaved relations following a negligent death is increased.

As a politician, Shatter plays a lead role in effecting much of the constitutional and legislative change he advocates. He is a former chairperson of FLAC (the Free Legal Advice Centres), a former chairperson of CARE, an organisation that campaigns for childcare and children’s legislation reform in the 1970s and a former President of the Irish Council Against Blood Sports.

Shatter is a founder member of the Irish Soviet Jewry Committee in 1970 and pioneers a successful all party Dáil motion on the plight of Soviet Jewry (1984) and visits various refuseniks in Moscow in 1985. He is a former chairperson of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee (1996-97) and initiates the creation of an Ireland/Israel Parliamentary Friendship group in 1997, leading a number of visits to Israel by members of the Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann.

Shatter is the author of the satirical book Family Planning Irish Style (1979), and the novel Laura (1989). In 2017 his biography, Life is a Funny Business, is published by Poolbeg Press and in 2019 Frenzy and Betrayal: The Anatomy of a Political Assassination is published by Merrion Press. In 2023, his book Cyril’s Lottery of Life, a comedic book with an English solicitor from a small town as its protagonist, is published.


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Birth of Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh

Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, Irish politician, is born on March 25, 1831, at Borris House, a country house near Borris, County Carlow. His middle name is spelled MacMorrough in some contemporaneous sources.

Kavanagh is the son of Thomas Kavanagh MP and artist Lady Harriet Margaret Le Poer Trench, daughter of Richard Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty. His father traced his lineage to the medieval Kings of Leinster through Art Óg Mac Murchadha Caomhánach. He has two older brothers, Charles and Thomas, and one sister, Harriet or “Hoddy.” He is born with only the rudiments of arms and legs, though the cause of this birth defect is unknown.

Kavanagh’s mother insists that he be brought up and have opportunities like any other child and places him in the care of the doctor Francis Boxwell, who believes that an armless and legless child can live a productive life. Kavanagh learns to ride horses at the age of three by being strapped to a special saddle and managing the horse with the stumps of his arms. With the help of the surgeon Sir Philip Crampton, Lady Harriet has a mechanical wheelchair constructed for her son, and encourages him to ride horses and engage in other outdoor activities. He also goes fishing, hunting, draws pictures and writes stories, using mechanical devices supplementing his physical capacities. His mother teaches him how to write and paint holding pens and brushes in his mouth.

In 1846, Lady Harriet takes three of her children, Thomas, Harriet and Arthur, traveling to the Middle East for two years. Kavanagh nearly drowns in the Nile when he falls in while fishing and is rescued by a local antiquities salesman who dives in to pull him out.

In 1849, Kavanagh’s mother discovers that he has been having affairs with girls on the family estate, so she sends him into exile to Uppsala, and then to Moscow with his brother and a clergyman, whom he comes to hate. He travels extensively in Egypt, Anatolia, Persia, and India between 1846 and 1853. In India, his letter of credit from his mother is cancelled when she discovers that he has spent two weeks in a harem, so he persuades the East India Company to hire him as a despatch rider. Other sources say that this is due to the death of his eldest brother, Charles, of tuberculosis in December 1851, which leaves him with only 30 shillings.

In 1851, Kavanagh succeeds to the family estates and to the title of The MacMurrough following the death of his older brother Thomas. He serves as High Sheriff of County Kilkenny for 1856 and High Sheriff of Carlow for 1857. A Conservative and a Protestant, he sits in Parliament for County Wexford from 1866 to 1868, and for County Carlow from 1868 to 1880. On being elected, he has to be placed on the Tory benches by his manservant. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Evelyn Denison, gives a special dispensation to allow the manservant to stay in the chamber during sittings. He is opposed to the disestablishment of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland but supports the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870. On losing his seat in 1880, William Ewart Gladstone appoints him to the Bessborough Commission, but he disagrees with its conclusions and publishes his own dissenting report. In 1886, he is made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland.

Kavanagh dies of pneumonia in London at the age of 58 on December 25, 1889. He is buried in Ballicopagan cemetery. He is succeeded in the title of The MacMurrough by his son, Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh, who also serves as MP for County Carlow from 1908 to 1910. The 1901 novel The History of Sir Richard Calmady, written by Lucas Malet (pseudonym of Mary St. Leger Kingsley), is based on his life.

Kavanagh marries his cousin, Mary Frances Forde-Leathley, in 1855. Assisted by his wife, he is a philanthropic landlord, active county magistrate, and chairman of the board of guardians. Together, they have seven children.


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Birth of Roma Downey, Actress, Producer & Author

Roma Downey, actress, producer, and author, is born in the Bogside district of Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on May 6, 1960.

Downey attends Thornhill College, a Catholic girls school. Her mother, Maureen O’Reilly Downey, a homemaker with an interest in the performing arts, dies of a heart attack at age 48 when Downey is 10 years old. Her father, Patrick Downey, is a schoolteacher by training but works as a mortgage broker. He dies when Downey is 20. Originally, she plans to be a painter and earns a Bachelor of Arts at Brighton College of Art. She studies BA(Hons) Expressive Arts at Brighton Polytechnic, which later becomes the University of Brighton. Based at the Falmer campus she combines Art and Drama for her degree.

Downey joins the Abbey Players in Dublin and tours the United States in a production of The Playboy of the Western World. She moves to New York after an agent, whom she met during the tour of The Playboy of the Western World, suggests she has potential for success there. She takes a job as a coat checker at an Upper West Side restaurant before getting cast in Broadway shows. The production leads to a nomination during the Broadway run for the Helen Hayes Award for Best Actress in 1991. She also stars on Broadway in The Circle with Rex Harrison and also at the Roundabout Theater and The Public Theater in New York City.

For nine seasons Downey plays Monica, the tender-hearted angel and employee of Tess (played by Della Reese), on the CBS television series Touched by an Angel (1994-2003), for which she earns multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Best Actress nominations. She plays the leading role of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the miniseries A Woman Named Jackie for NBC.

Downey stars in and is executive producer for a number of hit television movies for the CBS network. She is an ambassador for Operation Smile, a nonprofit medical service organization. On August 11, 2016, she is honored for her work as an actress and producer with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In her acceptance speech, she dedicates her star to the people of Derry and anyone who ever “walked Hollywood Boulevard with a dream in their hearts.”

As President of Lightworkers Media, the family and faith division of MGM, Downey and her husband, Mark Burnett, produce the Emmy-nominated miniseries The Bible for History channel, which airs in 2013 and is watched by over 100 million people in the United States. She also stars in the miniseries in the role of Mary, mother of Jesus. They also executive-produce the feature films Son of God (2014), Little Boy (2015), Woodlawn (2015), and Ben-Hur (2016) starring Jack Huston, Toby Kebbell and Morgan Freeman.

Variety recognizes Downey and Burnett as “Trailblazers” and lists Downey as one of Variety’s “100 Most Powerful Women in Hollywood.” The Hollywood Reporter includes the couple in their “Most Influential People of 2013” and Downey as one of the “100 Women in Entertainment Power” in 2014. She is honored on Variety‘s “Women of Impact in 2014.” Downey and Burnett also produce The Dovekeepers (2015) based on the bestselling book by Alice Hoffman for CBS and A.D. The Bible Continues (2015) for NBC, Women of the Bible for Lifetime, and Answered Prayers (2015) for TLC. Downey is the executive producer of the documentary “Faithkeepers” about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

Downey is the author of two books, Love Is a Family (2001) and Box of Butterflies: Discovering the Unexpected Blessing All Around Us (2018).


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Martial Law Declared in Ireland

martial-law-april-1916

The United Kingdom declares martial law in Ireland for one month on April 25, 1916, the day after the commencement of the Easter Rising. A curfew is imposed from 8:30 PM until 5:00 AM. Anyone spotted on the streets during the hours of darkness are to be shot on sight. The trams stop running at 7:00 PM and the theatres and cinemas close by 8:00 PM. Those rushing for trams leaving the city centre have to pass through a stop-and-search military cordon.

The Easter Rising, also known as the Easter Rebellion, is an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising is mounted by Irish republicans in an attempt to end British rule in Ireland, secede from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and establish an independent Irish Republic. This takes place while the United Kingdom is heavily engaged in World War I. It is the most significant uprising in Ireland since the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Organized by seven members of the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Rising begins on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, and lasts for six days. The following day the British Government immediately declares martial law in Ireland. Members of the Irish Volunteers, led by schoolmaster and Irish language activist Patrick Pearse and joined by the smaller Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly and 200 members of Cumann na mBan, seize key locations in Dublin and proclaim the Irish Republic independent of the United Kingdom. There are actions in other parts of Ireland, however, except for the attack on the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at Ashbourne in County Meath, they are minor.

With vastly superior numbers and artillery, the British army quickly suppresses the Rising and Pearse agrees to an unconditional surrender on Saturday, April 29, 1916. Most of the leaders are executed following courts-martial, but the Rising succeeds in bringing physical force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics. Support for republicanism continues to rise in Ireland in the context of the ongoing war in Europe and the Middle East and revolutions in other countries, and especially as a result of the Conscription Crisis of 1918 and the failure of the British-sponsored Irish Convention.

In the 1918 Irish general election, republicans, by then represented by Sinn Féin, secure an overwhelming victory, winning 73 Irish seats out of 105 to the British Parliament, on a policy of abstentionism and Irish independence. The following year Éamon de Valera escapes from Lincoln Gaol to become party leader. On January 21, 1919, they convene the First Dáil and declare the independence of the Irish Republic. Later that same day the Irish Republican Army, organised by Minister for Finance and IRB president Michael Collins, begins the Irish War of Independence with the Soloheadbeg ambush.

(Pictured: Rebel prisoners are marched out of Dublin by the British Army)


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Kidnapping of Tiede Herrema by the IRA

File source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiede_Herrema_(1975).jpg

Dr. Tiede Herrema, chief executive of the Dutch-owned Ferenka factory in Ballyvarra, County Limerick, is kidnapped by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on October 3, 1975. He is a Dutch businessman, born in Zuilen on April 21, 1921.

On the morning of October 3, Herrema is driving from his home in Castletroy, County Limerick, to an early-morning meeting at the Ferenka steel plant when he is abducted by two republicans, Marion Coyle and Eddie Gallagher.

Herrema, invariably referred to thereafter as “the Dutch industrialist,” had been dispatched by the parent company in his native Netherlands to troubleshoot the strike-ridden factory, which employs 1,200 at a time when the Irish economy is reeling from the oil crisis and six years of Northern Ireland troubles.

The kidnappers, banking that Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave’s government will quietly cave in, so as not to scare off other foreign investors, threatens to execute Herrema in 48 hours unless it releases republican prisoners Rose Dugdale, Kevin Mallon (a friend of Coyle’s) and James Hyland. It is the start of a 36-day ordeal for Herrema and his family, sparking the biggest manhunt in the State’s history.

Two weeks later a tape of Herrema’s voice is released, accompanied by demands for a £2 million ransom and a flight to the Middle East. After 18 days the kidnappers are traced to a terraced house in Monasterevin, County Kildare.

When Gardaí smashes the front door down the kidnappers retreat to the house’s box room, where they hole up with the hostage in a stand-off that lasts 18 days, with the world’s media camped outside.

After several days without food or water the kidnappers begin to accept supplies, as well as underpants and a chamber pot, hoisted up in a shopping basket. On day 18, Gallagher claims to be getting severe headaches and neck cramps, which Herrema takes as a sign that he is seeking a way out. Soon afterwards the kidnappers throw their guns out of a window and surrender. Herrema leaves Ireland soon thereafter.

Coyle was sentenced to 15 years, of which she serves nine. Gallagher serves 14 years of his 20-year sentence. In 1978 Gallagher and Dugdale become the first convicted prisoners in the State’s history to be married behind bars.

Herrema eventually returns to Ireland to present an episode of Saturday Live. He and his wife Elizabeth are made honorary Irish citizens in 1975, and he is made a Freeman of the city of Limerick. In 2005, he donates his personal papers to the University of Limerick.

(Pictured: Tiede Herrema (1975) by Rob Bogaerts/Anefo, Nationaal Archief, copyright: http://proxy.handle.net/10648/ac768a7c-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84)


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Birth of Journalist Eoghan Corry

eoghan-corry

Eoghan Corry, Irish journalist and author regarded as the most extensively traveled writer in Ireland, averaging over 30 countries a year, is born in Dublin on January 19, 1961.

Corry is the third of four children of Patrick Corry (1916–1971) from Kilmacduane, Cooraclare and Anne Corry (1929–2009) from Clahanmore, Milltown Malbay, both from County Clare. He grows up in Ardclough, Straffan, County Kildare.

Corry is educated at Scoil Mhuire, Clane, at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and University College Dublin (UCD). His first published work, as a teenager, is poetry in English and the Irish language in literary magazines and the New Irish Writing section of The Irish Press.

He begins his journalistic career as a sportswriter with The Irish Times and Sunday Tribune where he wins several awards and becomes sports editor. Determined to pursue a career outside of sports journalism, he joins The Sunday Press as a feature writer in 1985 and becomes features editor of The Irish Press in 1986, bringing younger writers and a more contemporary, polemical and literary style to the paper. He revives the literary and travel sections of the paper and is an adjudicator of the Dublin Theatre Festival awards.

When The Irish Press closes in 1995, he becomes Features Editor of the short-lived Evening News, storylines the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) museum in Croke Park in 1998 and is founding editor of High Ball magazine. Since then, he has been a columnist, first with The Sunday Business Post and then with the Evening Herald and Irish Independent. As a journalism lecturer in the Dublin Institute of Technology he tells students that “journalism is about pissing people off.”

Since 2002 Corry has edited Ireland’s biggest circulation travel publication, Travel Extra. He has fronted travel shows broadcast in Ireland and the Middle East and is a regular commentator on travel affairs to Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and TG4, and an occasional guest contributor to BBC Northern Ireland. He writes the ten-part series GAA@125, screened on Irish television station TG4 in 2009. He appears on Tonight with Vincent Browne from time to time to preview the next day’s newspapers.

Corry is awarded a lifetime “contribution to the industry” award at the Irish Travel Industry Awards in Dublin on January 22, 2016. He receives the Business Travel Journalist of the year award in London in October 2015. Previous awards include Irish sportswriter of the year, young journalist of the year, Seamus Kelly award, MacNamee award for coverage of Gaelic Games and is short listed for sports book of the year.


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Birth of Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne

robert-blair-paddy-mayne

Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne, British Army soldier, solicitor, Ireland rugby union international, amateur boxer, and a founding member of the Special Air Service (SAS), is born in Newtownards, County Down, on January 11, 1915.

Mayne attends school at Regent House School, a school for students aged 4 to 18. While at Regent he discovers his skill and love for the game of rugby. He also enjoys cricket and golf and becomes a marksman with the rifle club. He goes on to Queen’s University Belfast to study law. At university he takes up boxing and becomes the Irish Universities Heavyweight Champion in August 1936. He also wins the Scrabo Golf Club President’s cup in 1937. He graduates from Queen’s University in 1939.

During 1938, Mayne travels to Africa on the 1938 British Lions Tour to South Africa. He plays on a team that tours around Africa playing other local clubs. While traveling, it is discovered that Mayne has a wild side and on various occasions finds himself in trouble. His “go to” is to trash the hotel rooms of his teammates. The team includes some of the best players from around Ireland and Britain.

In 1939, with outbreak of World War II, Mayne joins the Supplementary Reserves in Newtownards and receives a commission in the Royal Artillery. He serves in several units in Ireland and England, generally with light and heavy anti-aircraft units. He volunteers for the No. 11 (Scottish) Commando unit which is sent to the Middle East. There he sees action during the Syria-Lebanon campaign. Specifically, during the Battle of the Litani River, he draws attention from Captain David Stirling who is forming the new Special Air Service (SAS). Sterling recruits Mayne for the new SAS while he is in jail for striking his commanding officer.

From November 1941 to the end of 1942, Mayne is involved in several raids behind enemy lines with the SAS. He uses jeeps to go to various Axis bases and begin blowing up planes and fuel dumps. It is claimed that he personally destroyed 100 planes during these missions. In addition to serving in the Middle East, he serves as well in Sicily, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and France. In most of these locations he works with the resistance behind the enemy lines. In France he helps to train the French Resistance.

By the end of the war, Mayne has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and has also received the British Army’s Distinguished Service Order with three bars, which means he received the award four times. After the war he joins the British Antarctic Survey in the Falkland Islands. He returns home to Newtownards when back issues, which started while he was serving in the Middle East, become more difficult for him.

Mayne is initiated into Eklektikos Lodge No. 542 in Newtownards in 1945. He is a very enthusiastic mason and joins a second lodge in Newtownards, Friendship Lodge No. 447. On the evening of December 13, 1955, he attends a meeting of Friendship Lodge and then joins some of his masonic brothers at a local bar. At about 4:00 AM on December 14, he is found dead in his Riley RM roadster in Mill Street, Newtownards, having reportedly collided with a farmer’s vehicle.

At his funeral hundreds of mourners turn out to pay their respects and to see him interred in a family plot in the town’s old Movilla Abbey graveyard. After his death his masonic jewel is preserved for many years by an old school friend before it is presented to Newtownards Borough Council where it is displayed in the Mayoral Chamber of the Council Offices.