seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Minister of State at the Department of Finance


by Leave a comment

Death of Donogh O’Malley, Politician & Rugby Union Player

Donogh Brendan O’Malley, Irish Fianna Fáil politician and rugby union player, dies suddenly in Limerick, County Limerick, on March 10, 1968. He serves as Minister for Education (1966-68), Minister for Health (1965-66) and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (1961-65). He also serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Limerick East constituency (1954-68). He is best remembered as the Minister who introduces free secondary school education in the Republic of Ireland.

O’Malley is born on January 18, 1921, in Limerick, one of eight surviving children of Joseph O’Malley, civil engineer, and his wife, Mary “Cis” (née Tooher). Born into a wealthy middle-class family, he is educated by the Jesuits at Crescent College and later at Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare. He later studies at University College Galway (UCG), where he is conferred with a degree in civil engineering in 1943. He later returns to Limerick, where he works as an engineer before becoming involved in politics.

O’Malley plays rugby at provincial level for Munster, Leinster and Connacht and at club level for Bohemians and Shannon RFC. His chances at an international career are ruined by the suspension of international fixtures during World War II. It is at a rugby match in Tralee that he first meets Dr. Hilda Moriarty, who he goes on to marry in August 1947.

Although O’Malley runs as a Fianna Fáil candidate, he is born into a politically active family who supports Cumann na nGaedheal until a falling-out with the party in the early 1930s. He first becomes involved in local politics as a member of Limerick Corporation. He becomes Mayor of Limerick in 1961, the third O’Malley brother to hold the office (Desmond from 1941-43 and Michael from 1948-49). He is a strong electoral performer, topping the poll in every general election he runs in.

O’Malley is first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for Limerick East at the 1954 Irish general election. Fianna Fáil is not returned to government on that occasion. He spends the rest of the decade on the backbenches. However, his party is returned to power in 1957. Two years later, the modernising process begins when Seán Lemass takes over from Éamon de Valera as Taoiseach. Lemass introduces younger cabinet ministers, as the old guard who has served the party since its foundation in 1926 begin to retire.

In 1961, O’Malley joins the government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. He is part of a new, brasher style of politician that emerges in the 1960s, sometimes nicknamed “the men in the mohair suits.” It is expected that this generation of politician, born after the Irish Civil War, will be a modernising force in post-de Valera Ireland.

Although his sporting background is in rugby and swimming, it is association football which O’Malley gets involved in at a leadership level, becoming President of the Football Association of Ireland despite never having played the sport.

Following Fianna Fáil’s retention of power in the 1965 Irish general election, O’Malley joins the cabinet as Minister for Health. He spends just over a year in this position before he is appointed Minister for Education, a position in which he displays renowned dynamism. Having succeeded Patrick Hillery, another dynamic young minister, he resolves to act swiftly to introduce the recommendations of an official report on education.

As Minister for Education, O’Malley extends the school transport scheme and commissions the building of new non-denominational comprehensive and community schools in areas where they are needed. He introduces Regional Technical Colleges (RTCs), now called Institutes of Technology, in areas where there is no third level college. The best example of this policy is the University of Limerick, originally an Institute of Higher Education, where O’Malley is credited with taking the steps to ensure that it becomes a university. His plan to merge Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin arouses huge controversy, and is not successful, despite being supported by his cabinet colleague Brian Lenihan. Access to third-level education is also extended, the old scholarship system being replaced by a system of means-tested grants that give easier access to students without well-off parents.

Mid-twentieth century Ireland experiences significant emigration, especially to the neighbouring United Kingdom where, in addition to employment opportunities, there is a better state provision of education and healthcare. Social change in Ireland and policies intending to correct this deficit are often met with strong resistance, such as Noël Browne‘s proposed Mother and Child Scheme. As a former Health Minister, O’Malley has first-hand experience of running the department which had attempted to introduce this scheme and understood the processes that caused it to fail, such as resistance from Department of Finance and John Charles McQuaid. This influences his strategy in presenting the free-education proposal.

Shortly after O’Malley is appointed, he announces that from 1969 all education up to Intermediate Certificate level will be without cost, and free buses will bring students in rural areas to their nearest school, seemingly making this decision without consulting other ministers. However, he does discuss it with Lemass. Jack Lynch, who, as Minister for Finance, has to find the money to pay for the programme, is not consulted and is dismayed at the announcement.

By announcing the decision first to journalists and on a Saturday (during a month when the Dáil is in recess), the positive public reaction tempers resistance to the idea before the next cabinet meeting. O’Malley’s proposals are hugely popular with the public, and it is impossible for the government to go back on his word.

Some Irish commentators consider that O’Malley’s extension of education, changing Ireland from a land where the majority are schooled only to the age of 14 to a country with universal secondary-school education, indirectly leads to the Celtic Tiger boom of the 1990s-2000s when it is followed for some years by an extension of free education to primary degree level in university, a scheme that is launched in 1996 by the Labour Party and axed in 2009 by Fianna Fáil’s Batt O’Keeffe.

In 1967, O’Malley appoints Justice Eileen Kennedy to chair a committee to carry out a survey and report on the reformatory and industrial school systems. The report, which is published in 1970, is considered ground-breaking in many areas and comes to be known as the Kennedy Report. The Report makes recommendations about a number of matters, including the Magdalene laundries, in relation to which they are not acted upon. The report recommends the closure of a number of reformatories, including the latterly infamous reformatory at Daingean, County Offaly.

O’Malley’s reforms make him one of the most popular members of the government. He is affectionately known as “the School Man” for his work in education. His sudden death in Limerick on March 10, 1968, before his vision for the education system is completed, comes as a shock to the public. He is buried with a full Irish state funeral.

Following O’Malley’s death, his widow, Hilda O’Malley, does not run in the subsequent by-election for the seat he has left vacant. It is won narrowly by their nephew Desmond O’Malley. Hilda seeks the Fianna Fáil nomination for the 1969 Irish general election, but Fianna Fáil gives the party nomination to Desmond, as the sitting TD. Hilda runs as an Independent candidate in that election. After what proves a bitter campaign against her nephew, she fails to get the fourth seat in Limerick East by just 200 votes.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Eamonn Duggan, Lawyer & Politician

Eamonn Seán Duggan, Irish lawyer and politician, is born in Richhill, County Armagh, on March 2, 1878. He serves as Minister for Home Affairs (Jan 1922-Sep 1922), Minister without portfolio (Sep 1922-Dec 1922), Parliamentary Secretary to the Executive Council (1922-26), Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (1926-27) and Government Chief Whip and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence (1927-32). He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) (1918-33) and a Senator (1933-36).

Duggan is the son of William Duggan, a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officer, and Margaret Dunne. He is a cousin of revolutionaries Thomas Burke and Christopher Burke through his mother. His parents meet when his father, a native of County Wicklow, is stationed in Longwood, County Meath, where they marry on October 19, 1874. His father is transferred to County Armagh the following year as officers cannot serve in their wife’s native county.

In 1911, Duggan is living with his parents on St. Brigid’s Road Upper in Drumcondra, Dublin. After his school education, he begins work as a law clerk. During his early years, he becomes heavily involved in politics after he qualifies as a solicitor and sets up a practice at 66 Dame Street in Dublin. He marries Evelyn Kavanagh, and they have one son.

In 1916, as a keen supporter of Irish independence, Duggan is serving in the North Dublin Union in the days approaching the 1916 Easter Rising. One of his close friends, Thomas Allen, is shot while Duggan is at the Four Courts. His efforts to get medical assistance are unsuccessful at Richmond Hospital as the British officer who responds to the call declines the message and does not allow it to go through. Eventually medical assistance is received but it is too late for Allen. In Duggan’s region, the volunteers suffer very few injuries with the most violent fighting taking place on Friday night and Saturday morning.

Duggan suffers the consequences and is subject to court-martial and then sentenced to three years penal servitude. He is interned in Maidstone, Portland and Lewes prisons. Under the general amnesty of 1917, he is released after fourteen months in prison and returns to Dublin where he goes back to studying law.

Duggan is elected to the First Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin TD for South Meath following the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland. The Drogheda Independent reports “Never before was a successful candidate accorded such a princely reception.”

Duggan engages in the Irish War of Independence in the role of IRA Director of Intelligence, which comes to an end in November 1920 when he is imprisoned again and is not released until the Anglo-Irish Truce of July 1921. When the truce concludes, he is authorised as one out of the five envoys to discuss and finalise the treaty with the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He signs the Anglo-Irish Treaty at 22 Hans Place, London.

Duggan retains numerous ministerial posts in the Cumann na nGaedheal government. In 1921, he plays a role in the Irish delegation throughout the Anglo-Irish discussions, then playing a dominant role in liaising with British officials.

After the post-treaty government, Duggan is appointed the Minister for Home Affairs and shortly afterward he becomes the Parliamentary Secretary for the Executive Council and the Minister for Defence. He continues in various roles as a TD until 1933. These include Government Chief Whip from 1927 to 1932. Until 1933, he is a Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Meath. In 1933, he declines to go forward for the general election but is elected to Seanad in April 1933. He also is involved in local politics in Dún Laoghaire as the chairman of the borough council until his death in 1936.

Duggan writes papers which reflect on his engagement in the Easter Rising. In his letters, he writes about the tough times of imprisonment. He also writes about his participation in Sinn Féin and his triumph in being a candidate for the South Meath constituency. Most of his papers consist of letters to his fiancée and later wife, May Duggan, which are written while in prison. His time as a TD is also included. In one letter, which he writes on April 25, 1916, he references “the whole damn family” consisting of information as to how his volunteers and he are being “treated as princes” by the nuns in the nearby convent, receiving help from the children in the area and building barricades. In his letter, he also writes about morale among his comrades and hearing of rumours about a German who had landed in County Kerry. In the note, he states that the letter should be sent to May Duggan who is his fiancée at the time. At the end of the letter he refers to himself as “Edmund” by which he is also known.

Duggan dies suddenly at his home in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, on June 6, 1936, at the age of 58, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery on the north side of Dublin.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Mary Irvine, First Female President of the High Court

Mary Irvine, Irish judge who is the President of the Irish High Court between 2020 and 2022, is born on December 10, 1956, in Clontarf, Dublin. She first practiced as a barrister. She is a judge of the High Court between 2007 and 2014, a judge of the Court of Appeal from 2014 to 2019 and serves as a judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland from May 2019 until becoming President of the High Court on June 18, 2020. In addition to being the first woman to hold that position, she is the first judge to have held four judicial offices. She is an ex officio member of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal.

Irvine is born to John and Cecily Irvine, her father once being deputy director of RTÉ. She is educated at Mount Anville Secondary School, University College Dublin (UCD) and the King’s Inns. She is an international golf player, winning the Irish Girls Close Championship in 1975.

Irvine is called to the Bar in 1978 and becomes a Senior Counsel in 1996. She is the secretary of the Bar Council of Ireland in 1992. She is elected a Bencher of the King’s Inns in 2004.

Irvine specialises in medical law, appearing in medical negligence cases on behalf of and against health boards in actions. She is a legal advisor to an inquiry into deposit interest retention tax (DIRT) conducted by the Public Accounts Committee, along with future judicial colleagues Frank Clarke and Paul Gilligan. She represents the Congregation of Christian Brothers at the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.

Irvine’s practice also extends to constitutional law. As a junior counsel, she represents the plaintiff in Cahill v. Sutton in 1980 in the Supreme Court with seniors Niall McCarthy and James O’Driscoll. The case establishes the modern Irish law of standing for applicants to challenge the constitutional validity of statutes. She appears with Peter Kelly to argue on behalf the right of the unborn in a reference made by President of Ireland Mary Robinson under Article 26 of the Constitution to the Supreme Court in 1995 regarding the Information (Termination of Pregnancies) Bill 1995.

Irvine is appointed as a Judge of the High Court in June 2007. She is in charge of the High Court Personal Injuries list from 2009 to 2014 and subsequently becomes the second Chair of the Working Group on Medical Negligence and Periodic Payments, established by the President of the High Court.

Irvine is appointed to Court of Appeal on its establishment in October 2014. Some of her judgments on the Court of Appeal reduce awards given by lower courts for personal injuries compensation. She writes “most of the key” Court of Appeal judgments between 2015 and 2017 which have the effect of reducing awards arising from subsequent actions in the High Court.

Irvine is appointed to chair a statutory tribunal to conduct hearings and deal with cases related to the CervicalCheck cancer scandal in 2019. However, following her appointment as President of the High Court in 2020, she is unable to continue with the position.

On April 4, 2019, Irvine is nominated by the Government of Ireland as a Judge of the Supreme Court. She is appointed by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on May 13, 2019. She writes decisions for the court in appeals involving planning law, the law of tort, intellectual property law, judicial review, and chancery law.

Irvine is appointed by Chief Justice Frank Clarke in 2019 to chair the Personal Injuries Guidelines Committee of the Judicial Council. The purpose of the committee is to review the levels of compensation issues in court cases arising out of personal injuries. Minister of State at the Department of Finance Michael W. D’Arcy writes a letter to congratulate her on her appointment and outlines his views that personal injuries awards in Ireland should be “recalibrated.” She responds to the letter by saying it is the not the committee’s duty to tailor its findings “in a manner favourable to any particular interest group.”

Following a cabinet meeting on June 12, 2020, it is announced that Irvine will be nominated to succeed Peter Kelly as President of the High Court. A three-person panel consisting of the Chief Justice Frank Clarke (later substituted by George Birmingham), the Attorney General Séamus Woulfe and a management consultant, Jane Williams, reviews applications for the position, before making recommendations to cabinet. The President of the Law Society of Ireland welcomes her appointment, describing her as an “outstandingly able judge.” She is the first woman to hold the role. As she is previously an ordinary judge of three courts, her appointment as President of the High Court makes her the first person to have held four judicial offices. She is appointed on June 18, 2020, and makes her judicial declaration on June 19.

Irvine takes over as president in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland. She issues guidelines for lawyers to negotiate personal injuries cases outside of court due to the backlog formed by delays in hearings. She issues a practice direction in July 2020 that face coverings are to be worn at High Court hearings. She criticises barristers and solicitors in October 2020 for not wearing masks in the Four Courts.

In Irvine’s first week as president, she presides over a three-judge division of the High Court in a case taken by a number of members of Seanad Éireann. The plaintiffs seek a declaration that the Seanad should sit even though the nominated members of Seanad Éireann have not been appointed. The court refuses the relief and finds for the State. In 2021, she also presides over a three-judge division on a Seanad Éireann voting rights case, where the plaintiff argues for the extension of voting rights to graduates of all third-level educational institutions and the wider population. The court finds against the plaintiff.

Irvine continues to sit in the Supreme Court following her appointment.

In April 2022, Irvine announces her intention to retire in July 2022. She retires on July 13, 2022, and is succeeded by David Barniville.

Irvine is formerly married to retired judge Michael Moriarty, with whom she has three children. Her only known son, Mark Moriarty, dies suddenly on August 19,2022.

(Pictured: Justice Mary Irvine with the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on her appointment on the Supreme Court in 2019)