Catherine O’Leary (née Donegan), was an Irish immigrant living in Chicago, Illinois, dies in Chicago on July 3, 1895. She becomes associated with the origin of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. She is widely accused of starting the fire when a cow in her barn allegedly kicks over a lantern, though the story is later shown to be unfounded.
Donegan is born in Ireland in March 1827, with more specific accounts placing her birth near Cork, in the Munster province, later emigrating to the United States. She marries Patrick O’Leary, and the couple has three children. Their son, James Patrick O’Leary, later operates a saloon and gambling establishment in Chicago.
On the evening of October 8, 1871, a fire begins in the O’Leary family’s barn on DeKoven Street. Fueled by dry conditions and strong winds, the fire spreads rapidly and destroys a large portion of Chicago.
Shortly after the fire, journalist Michael Ahern publishes a story claiming that the fire had started when a cow kicked over a lantern while it was being milked. Although he does not initially name Catherine O’Leary, she soon becomes associated with the incident because the fire began on her property. The story gains widespread attention and is reinforced by illustrations and caricatures.
In 1893, Ahern admits that he had fabricated the story. The official investigation into the fire concludes that its exact cause could not be determined. Anti-Irish sentiment at the time contributes to the O’Leary family being treated as scapegoats, and various unverified claims circulate about the circumstances of the fire.
O’Leary continues to live in Chicago after the fire. She dies of pneumonia on July 3, 1895, and is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery.
The story of O’Leary’s cow becomes a widely repeated explanation for the Great Chicago Fire, despite its lack of evidence. In 1997, the Chicago City Council formally exonerates O’Leary of any responsibility for the fire, following research by historian Richard Bales.
Barry returns to Bandon in early 1919. He describes in his guerilla days in Ireland a Damascus-like conversion to Irish nationalism on hearing of the Easter Rising while with the Mesopotamian expeditionary force, but he is only accepted into the IRA with considerable caution. Initially tested in intelligence and training work, in mid-1920 he takes charge of the new brigade flying column, which is used both to train officers and to stage offensive actions.
Barry adapts his military experience successfully to the demands of guerrilla warfare, becoming the most famed of column leaders during the Irish War of Independence. In his memoirs, he pours scorn on the obsession of many with military titles and orthodox procedure, complaining of a “paper army.” He stresses the need for spontaneity, initiative, and knowledge of local conditions. “The reality,” he writes, “was a group of fellows, mostly in caps and not-too-expensive clothing, wondering how to tackle their job and where they would sleep that night or get their supper.” (The Reality of the Anglo–Irish War (1974)). He well realises that the war’s character does not permit any close control from the IRA’s GHQ in Dublin, hence increasing the importance of local leaders. His tactics put strong emphasis on speed of movement and on the need to attack the enemy at his weakest point. The column’s ambush successes are small in number but among the best-remembered of the war. He admits, however, that his own and his column’s lack of experience with mines frequently weakened their offensives.
The column’s first successful ambush is at Tooreen on October 22, 1920, followed on November 28 by the dramatic ambushing of a patrol of auxiliaries at Kilmichael while traveling from their Macroom base. A column of thirty-six men, divided into three sections, kill sixteen auxiliaries, with one captured and later shot, suffering two fatalities of their own. Controversy has raged since over whether a false surrender by the British force caused the brutality of some of the deaths. Together with the Bloody Sunday killings of a week earlier in Dublin, Kilmichael has a profound effect on the British military and political establishment, with the declaration in December of martial law for much of Munster and the implementation of wide-ranging internment, together with the authorisation of official reprisals.
After a short period in hospital with a heart condition, in early 1921 Barry leads unsuccessful attacks on Kilbrittain, Innishannon, Drimoleague, and Bandon barracks. The seizure of Burgatia House, outside Rosscarbery, in early February, and the successful resistance made there to British troops, wins much publicity but has little military significance. He is a leading figure in the brutal final stage of the war in the first six months of 1921, which sees widespread shooting of suspected spies and destruction of loyalist property. By March 1921, his flying column, with 104 men, is easily the largest in Ireland, and an explosives expert, Capt. McCarthy, has joined them.
The protracted engagement between Barry’s column and encircling British forces at Crossbarry on March 19, 1921, comes at a time when large-scale sweeps are making life increasingly difficult for the IRA. It consists of a daring and courageous breakout. Crossbarry is the largest action of the war, and Barry is to regard it as even more important than Kilmichael. Soon afterwards, Rosscarbery barracks is successfully attacked by a Barry-led party, representing one of the few successful such initiatives in 1921. Isolated triumphs, however, cannot hide the fact that pressure is increasing on the column, and he becomes increasingly critical of inactive regions. He is later to say that all County Kerry does during the war is to shoot one decent police inspector at Listowel Racecourse and a colleague of his. He is strongly critical also of the lack of assistance from GHQ and of the divisionalisation policy. He visits Dublin in May, travels around with Michael Collins, and is present when two American officers demonstrate the Thompson submachine gun. He is more aware than most of his 1st Southern Division colleagues of the scarcity of arms and ammunition at the war’s end.
During the truce, Barry becomes liaison officer for Munster, riling the British by insisting on his military rank, and criticising the IRA liaison men in Dublin for being overly deferential. He joins the overwhelming majority of the Cork IRA in opposing the Anglo–Irish Treaty but plays a characteristically maverick role throughout the treaty split. His independent attitude is heightened by his dislike of Liam Lynch, the republican IRA’s Chief of Staff, and his continuing respect for Michael Collins. He shows impatience at the long-drawn-out peace initiatives. In March 1922, therefore, he advocates armed confrontation with pro-treaty units over the occupation of barracks in Limerick, and on June 18 he submits a resolution, which only narrowly fails, at the army convention, giving British troops seventy-two hours to leave Dublin.
At the beginning of the Irish Civil War, Barry is arrested entering the Four Courts disguised as a woman. He escapes from an internment camp at Gormanston in early September 1922. For the rest of the war his actions mirror its confused nature. In late October 1922, he leads successful raids on the small towns of Ballineen and Enniskean, and later on Inchigeelagh and Ballyvourney. In December his column takes Carrick-on-Suir, demonstrating the weakness of the Free State army, but his talk of advancing on the Curragh and of large-scale actions does not materialise. There is no evidence that he is acting in accordance with any coordinated plan. By February 1923, he realises that the Republican IRA cause is hopeless and he is involved with Fr. Tom Duggan in efforts to get 1st Southern Division to declare a ceasefire. He journeys to Dublin to put pressure on the intransigent Lynch in this connection, telling Lynch, “I did more fighting in one week than you did in your whole life.”
Barry avoids capture in roundups after the war, remaining on the run until 1924. Unlike many republicans, he does not turn to constitutionalism, remaining strongly militaristic. He is always an unreconstructed republican, though by no means a naive one. In 1924 he becomes attached to Cleeves Milk Co., based in Limerick and Clonmel, and from 1927 to retirement in 1965 is general superintendent with the Cork harbour commissioners. He strongly advocates preserving the independence of the IRA army executive during the republican split of 1925–27. He is instrumental in continuing the drilling of IRA members and is a strong supporter of armed opposition to the Blueshirts.
During the 1930s Barry is arrested at various times for possession of arms and seditious utterances. He promotes an attack against a Freemasons’ meeting in Cork in 1936 and gives the orders for the killing on March 4 of that year of Vice-AdmiralHenry Boyle Somerville. He is opposed to the use by Frank Ryan of IRA volunteers to support the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and to the proposals of Seán Russell for a bombing campaign in England. To maintain the link with traditional republicanism, he is elected IRA chief of staff in 1937. His plan, however, for the seizure of Armagh city, as part of a direct northern offensive, quickly collapses due to a leak of information, and he soon resigns his position. He forcefully attacks the bombing of English cities in 1938, regarding attacks on innocent civilians as immoral and counterproductive. He enlists in the National Army on July 12, 1940, only to be demobilised a month later. In 1946, he stands as an independent candidate in a by-election in the Cork Borough constituency, finishing at the bottom of the poll. He is more comfortable the following year touring the United States on an anti-partition platform.
In 1949 his Guerilla Days in Ireland is published. It proves a best-seller and has frequently been reprinted. It is well written in a forceful and direct style, one memoir needing no assistance from a ghost writer. Age does not mellow him: lawyers and bank managers are threatened by him over matters relating to his own column, and in 1974 he publishes a fierce pamphlet, angry at perceived slights in the Irish War of Independence memoir of Liam Deasy. He does strive to achieve a public reconciliation with Collins’s memory by unveiling the memorial to Collins at Sam’s Cross in 1966. On the outbreak of the Northern Ireland crisis in the late 1960s, he takes a militant line, castigating the argument that the Six Counties can be brought into the Republic by peaceful means, and asking when had peaceful means existed there. At the memorial meeting in Carrowkennedy, County Mayo, in 1971, he claims that there is a perfect right at the opportune time to take the Six Counties by force. He remains opposed to IRA bombing of civilian targets.
Barry dies in Cork on July 2, 1980. He is buried in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery, Cork. Early in the truce of 1921 he marries Leslie Price, one of the most active of Cumann na mBan members during and after the rising. They have no children.
While Barry always remains an influential figure in republican circles, he will be remembered best as the pioneer of guerrilla warfare, the hero of Kilmichael and Crossbarry. His military flair, individualism, and ruthlessness are well suited to the 1919–21 conflict. After that, his strained relations with colleagues and his lack of flexibility reduce his importance. While his life after the revolutionary era appears anti-climactic, he retains much of his charisma. In later years, he is ever willing to remind politicians and historians how far Ireland has retreated from republican ideals. He is often prickly and autocratic yet could be generous to old colleagues of either side of the treaty split. He is arguably the most intelligent but also the most intolerant of the revolutionary leaders.
(From: “Barry, Thomas Bernadine (‘Tom’)” by M. A. Hopkinson, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
Fiach mac Aodha Ó Broin (anglicised as Feagh or Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne), the son of the chief of the O’Byrnes of the Gabhail Raghnaill, is executed in Farranerin, County Wicklow, on May 8, 1597.
His sept, a minor one, claims descent from the 11th century King of Leinster, Bran Mac Máel Mórda, and is centered at Ballinacor North in Glenmalure, a steep valley in the fastness of the Wicklow Mountains. Their chiefs style themselves as Lords of Ranalagh. The territory of the Gabhail Rabhnaill stretches from Glendalough south to the Forest of Shillelagh in Wexford and west to the borders of present-day County Carlow, an area of some 150,000 acres.
By the time of his death in 1579, O’Byrne’s father, Hugh MacShane O’Byrne, has brought his sept to prominence much to the discomfort of the senior branch of the clan, the Crioch Branagh. The Gabhaill Rabhaill has allied themselves to several leading clans in Leinster and are related by blood and marriage to the Kavanaghs, O’ Tooles, O’Connors and the O’Moores.
O’Byrne makes a name for himself as an enemy of the English. Resenting the greed and cruelty of the Elizabethan adventurers and settlers, he raids their villages and kills them or drives them out. He is appalled at the ruthless cruelty of the seneschals (Stewarts) Thomas Masterson and Sir Henry Harrington and in 1580 goes into open rebellion when Masterson summarily execute many Kavanagh clansmen.
Other clans join with O’Byrne and when James Eustace, 3rd Viscount Baltinglass, angered by the treatment of the CatholicOld English also rebells, O’Byrne joins with him. The English are appalled at this, already Munster is in turmoil as the Earl of Desmond is in rebellion and in the north the O’ Neills are moving also against the English.
An army of 3,000 men is sent into the Wicklow Mountains but O’Byrne and Eustace are waiting for them in Glenmalure. Over 800 English lose their lives at the Battle of Glenmalure and the rest flee back to Dublin. The following year the English offer terms, Eustace refuses and flees to Spain but O’Byrne and the other clan chiefs accept the terms and are pardoned.
In the following years, O’Byrne keeps a low profile. He makes no overt moves against the English, instead of holding them at bay and even giving them hostages.
In 1592, Hugh Roe O’Donnell, with brothers Art and Henry MacShane O’Neill, escapes from Dublin Castle. The breakout has been planned with the help of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and the escapees fled to the safety of Glenmalure. It is a severe winter and Art dies from exposure and is buried in O’Byrne land but O’Byrne is able to transport Hugh Roe and Henry away to safety.
In January 1594, the English decide to move against O’Byrne, claiming that he is involved in treason. The Lord Deputy of Ireland Sir William Russell manages to take Ballinacor but O’Byrne and his wife Rose escape.
The English spend a long time collecting heads and plundering, they spare few. In April, Russell again goes hunting for O’Byrne who once again escapes. His wife, however, is captured and sentenced to be burned to death. The sentence is not carried out.
O’Byrne is once again forced to seek terms which he is granted for renewable 3 monthly terms. He stays quiet until September 1596 when his son successfully attacks a munitions transport and is able to overrun the English garrison that had been placed in Ballinacor.
Lord Deputy Russell spends the next year unsuccessfully scouring the country for O’Byrne. However O’ Byrne’s luck eventually runs out. A traitor in his camp gives information to Russell that O’Byrne will be in Ballinacorr on May 8, 1597. The Lord Deputy is able to surprise him and capture him in a cave. There he is hacked to death and decapitated with his own sword.
The head of O’Bryne is put on a spike at Dublin Castle then later sent to London to Queen Elizabeth. Angry that it would be even sent to England, she disdains to accept the head of such a base “Robin Hood.”
(From: “Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne 1543-1597” by Pádraig Mac Donnchadha, YourIrish.com, http://www.yourirish.com | Pictured: The armorial achievements (coat of arms, crest and motto) recorded by the Chief Herald of Ireland and the Ulster King of Arms as being awarded to Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne)
Spring Rice is educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and later studies law at Lincoln’s Inn, but is not called to the Bar. His family is politically well-connected, both in Ireland and Great Britain, and he is encouraged to stand for Parliament by his father-in-law, Lord Limerick.
Spring Rice first stands for election in Limerick City in 1818 but is defeated by the Tory incumbent, John Vereker, by 300 votes. He wins the seat in 1820 and enters the House of Commons. He positions himself as a moderate unionist reformer who opposes the radical nationalist politics of Daniel O’Connell and becomes known for his expertise on Irish and economic affairs. In 1824 he leads the committee which establishes the Ordnance Survey in Ireland.
Spring Rice’s fluent debating style in the Commons brings him to the attention of leading Whigs and he comes under the patronage of the Marquess of Lansdowne. As a result, he is made Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department under George Canning and Lord Goderich in 1827, with responsibility for Irish affairs. This requires him to accept deferral of Catholic emancipation, a policy which he strongly supports. He then serves as joint Secretary to the Treasury from 1830 to 1834 under Lord Grey. Following the Reform Act 1832, he is elected to represent Cambridge from 1832 to 1839. In June 1834, Grey appoints him Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, with a seat in the cabinet, a post he retains when Lord Melbourne becomes Prime Minister in July. A strong and vocal unionist throughout his life, he leads the Parliamentary opposition to Daniel O’Connell’s 1834 attempt to repeal the Acts of Union 1800. In a six-hour speech in the House of Commons on April 23, 1834, he suggests that Ireland should be renamed “West Britain.” In the Commons, he also champions causes such as the worldwide abolition of slavery and the introduction of state-supported education.
The Whig government falls in November 1834, after which Spring Rice attempts to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons in early 1835. When the Whigs return to power under Melbourne in April 1835, he is made Chancellor of the Exchequer. As Chancellor, he has to deal with crop failures, a depression and rebellion in North America, all of which create large deficits and put considerable strain on the government. His Church Rate Bill of 1837 is quickly abandoned and his attempt to revise the charter of the Bank of Ireland ends in humiliation. Unhappy as Chancellor, he again tries to be elected as Speaker but fails. He is a dogmatic figure, described by Lord Melbourne as “too much given to details and possessed of no broad views.” Upon his departure from office in 1839, he has become a scapegoat for the government’s many problems. That same year he is raised to the peerage as Baron Monteagle of Brandon, in the County of Kerry, a title intended earlier for his ancestor Sir Stephen Rice. He is also Comptroller General of the Exchequer from 1835 to 1865, despite Lord Howick‘s initial opposition to the maintenance of the office. He differs from the government regarding the exchequer control over the treasury, and the abolition of the old exchequer is already determined upon when he dies.
From 1839 Spring Rice largely retires from public life, although he occasionally speaks in the House of Lords on matters generally relating to government finance and Ireland. He vehemently opposes John Russell, 1st Earl Russell‘s policy regarding the Irish famine, giving a speech in the Lords in which he says the government had “degraded our people, and you, English, now shrink from your responsibilities.”
Spring Rice is well regarded in Limerick, where he is seen as a compassionate landlord and a good politician. An advocate of traditional Whiggism, he strongly believes in ensuring society is protected from conflict between the upper and lower classes. Although a pious Anglican, his support for Catholic emancipation wins him the favour of many Irishmen, most of whom are Roman Catholic. He leads the campaign for better county government in Ireland at a time when many Irish nationalists are indifferent to the cause. During the Great Famine of the 1840s, he responds to the plight of his tenants with benevolence. The ameliorative measures he implements on his estates almost bankrupts the family and only the dowry from his second marriage saves his financial situation. A monument in honour of him still stands in the People’s Park in Limerick.
Even so, Spring Rice’s reputation in Ireland is not entirely favourable. In a book regarding assisted emigration from Ireland, a process in which a landlord pays for their tenants’ passage to the United States or Australia, Moran suggests that Spring Rice was engaged in the practice. In 1838, he is recorded as having “helped” a boat load of his tenants depart for North America, thereby allowing himself the use of their land. However, he is also recorded as being in support of state-assisted emigration across the British Isles, suggesting that his motivation is not necessarily selfish.
At the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, most of south-eastern Ireland falls to the Catholic insurgents. Roughly 1,000 rebels blockade Duncannon, which is heavily fortified and contains an English garrison of about 300 men. Around 150 of the English troops are killed in forays against the Irish at nearby Redmond’s Hall, but without siege artillery, or expertise in siege warfare, the rebels are unable to take Duncannon.
Hostilities continue throughout 1642, as the Irish, now organised as the Irish Confederacy raid the town’s hinterland. As in much of Ireland, the conflict is bitter. In one incident, Laurence Esmonde, 1st Baron Esmonde, the Royalist commander, hangs 16 Irish prisoners who have been taken at nearby Ramsgrange. In response, the Irish execute 18 English prisoners whom they have been holding.
In 1643, because of his need for troops to fight in the English Civil War, Charles I signs a ceasefire with the Irish Confederates. As a result, hostilities between Duncannon and the Catholic-held surrounding area are suspended.
However, in 1644, the English garrison of Cork, under Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, unhappy with the Royalist truce with the Irish Confederates, declares for the English Parliament, who are to remain hostile to Irish Catholic forces throughout the 1640s. Esmonde, under pressure from elements of his garrison, also changes to the side of Parliament and effectively re-declares war on the Catholic Confederates. His motives are unclear: though he is a Protestant convert, the Esmonde family are Anglo-IrishRoman Catholics, and he owes his entire advancement to the Crown.
Duncannon is a strategically important town for two reasons. Firstly, it has formidable defences. Secondly and more importantly, its guns overlook the sea route to Waterford and New Ross, two of the most important Catholic-held towns and also ports at which the Confederates receive military aid from Catholic Europe.
Needing to keep this channel open and also fearing the presence of an English garrison deep in their territory, the Confederates’ Supreme Council in Kilkenny despatches Thomas Preston, general of their Leinster Army, to take Duncannon in January 1645. Preston has at his disposal 1,300 men, four cannons and a mortar. The mortar, the first of its kind to be used in Ireland has been donated by Spain the previous year and is commanded by a French military engineer named Nicholas La Loue. La Loue had served with Preston in Flanders and is chief of engineering in the Leinster Army.
Duncannon possesses formidable defences. For one thing, it is located on a peninsula and can only be approached from the north, the other three sides jutting out into the sea. Just off the town are docked four Parliamentarian ships, which are supplying Duncannon with food and reinforcements. Secondly, it possesse two lines of fortifications, the outer line being a more modern low deep rampart protected by a dry ditch and the inner wall being a medieval curtain wall, complete with three towers. However, it has two grave weaknesses, first, it is overlooked by a hill to the north, from which an attacker can fire into the town and, secondly, the water supply is located outside the walls.
Preston arrives at Duncannon on January 20 and proceeds to construct a ring of trenches which cut off Duncannon on its landward side. From the hill that overlooks the town to the north, his guns are able to fire on a squadron of four Parliamentarian ships that are docked off Duncannon and providing the town with supplies. The flagship, the Great Louis, is badly damaged, its mast wrecked by cannon fire, and it takes several more hits from the mortar as it tries to get away. The ship sinks in deep water, drowning its crew and 200 soldiers who are on board.
Having cut off Duncannon’s supply from the sea, Preston proceeds to dig saps closer to the walls, the ultimate aim being to bring his cannon close enough to the walls in order to blast a breach and open the way for an assault. His engineers also dig a mine underneath one of the town’s bastions. All the while, the town’s defenders are kept under a bombardment by the mortar and, as the Confederate troops get closer to the walls, by sharpshooters. On March 12, one such sniper kills the fort’s second in command, one Captain Lurcan, who is hit in the head by a bullet.
On March 16, by which time the Irish trenches are “within pistol shot of the walls,” Preston orders the mine to be exploded, opening a breach in Duncannon’s outer walls. The Irish infantry then assault the town, but are beaten off with some losses. The following day, Saint Patricks Day, Preston tries again and this time his troops succeed in taking the town’s outer, more modern walls but are stopped at Duncannon’s inner, medieval ramparts. They succeed in occupying one of the town’s towers for an hour before being beaten back. Geoffrey Baron, a Confederate politician, who keeps a diary of the siege, reports that 24 Irish soldiers are killed in the two assaults.
At this point, Preston summons Esmonde to surrender, before he has to “proceed to extremities.” This is a delicate threat, implying that if the town falls to an assault, its defenders will be put to the sword – as is customary in contemporary siege warfare. Esmonde is also advised to surrender by the Parliamentarian vice admiral, William Smith, who is anchored offshore with seven ships, but cannot break through to relieve the town. In a letter that reaches Esmonde on March 11, Smith warns him that “if the rebels take the fort by storming it, they will undoubtedly put you all to death…you should agree with thy adversary while thou art in the way.” Esmond has Smith’s letter publicly read to his troops after the assaults of March 16-17 to discourage those who favour holding out.
Alongside the risk of massacre, the English garrison is also very low on gunpowder and water. The town’s only source of fresh water, a well, is behind the Confederate siege lines.
In light of these facts, Esmonde formally surrenders Duncannon to Preston on March 18. The Confederates take possession of the town but its garrison is allowed to march away to Youghal, which is in Protestant hands. However, they have to leave behind the town’s 18 artillery pieces. Esmonde himself dies a feways after the end of the siege. Preston goes on to briefly besiege Youghal, but bad weather, a lack of supplies and squabbling with James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven, the Confederate Munster general, puts an end to his campaign for the winter.
The siege is of importance in that it reopens the sea route into Waterford and eliminates a hostile English garrison in Confederate territory. Preston, who had for many years been the Spanish military governor of Leuven, is highly experienced in siege warfare and his conduct of the siege draws widespread praise. Not only does he take the town, but he does so at a relatively low cost. Sixty-seven Confederate soldiers die in the siege, of whom roughly 30 die of disease. Given that the campaign is conducted in mid-winter, in an age when disease routinely kills many more soldiers than combat, this represents a considerable logistical achievement on the part of the Irish general.
The Great Lewis, the Parliamentarian ship sunk during the siege, is rediscovered in 1999 and raised in 2004.
O’Hegarty is born to John and Katherine (née Hallahan) Hegarty. His parents’ families emigrate to the United States after the Great Famine, and his parents are married in Boston, Massachusetts. His father is a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).
O’Hegarty is educated at North Monastery CBS, where he forms an enduring friendship with Terence MacSwiney. In 1888, his father dies of tuberculosis at the age of 42. Left destitute, his mother pawns her wedding ring to pay for an advertisement looking for work, and eventually becomes a cook.
O’Hegarty serves at the main Postal Sorting Office in Mount Pleasant, London, from 1902 to 1913. Along with J. J. Walsh, he spends three years at King’s College London, studying for the Secretary’s Office. While he succeeds in his studies, Walsh does not and returns to Ireland. O’Hegarty becomes the IRB representative for South East England and joins the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin and becomes a strong advocate of the Irish language. In 1905, he is elected secretary of the local Dungannon Club, which draws in as members Robert Lynd, Herbert Hughes and George Cavan. In 1907, as Sinn Féin’s London Secretary, he approves and signs the membership card of Michael Collins, later becoming friend and mentor to Collins.
O’Hegarty has to return to Ireland for a break due to overwork in 1909 and gives up some of his work for the Gaelic League. However, he takes over as editor of the IRB publication, Irish Freedom. It is in this publication that he famously writes, concerning the visit of King George V to Ireland in 1911: “Damn your concessions, England: we want our country!” In 1912, at the height of the Playboy riots, he writes four articles entitled “Art and the Nation” in Irish Freedom, which take a very liberal and inclusionist approach to Anglo-Irish literature and art in general but invokes the wrath of many of the paper’s readers.
In 1913, he is re-posted to Queenstown (present-day Cobh) as postmaster. He continues editing nationalist newspapers such as Irish Freedom (founded in 1910 and suppressed in December 1914 on account of its seditious content) and An tÉireannach and joins the Irish Volunteers. At the outbreak of war he is moved to Shrewsbury, probably on account of his political activities. In 1915, he marries Wilhelmina “Mina” Smyth, a schoolteacher and suffragist, and is then moved to Welshpool, Montgomeryshire. In the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising, he is opposed to physical force. In 1918, he refuses to take the British Oath of Allegiance and resigns his position in the Post Office.
O’Hegarty feels that the Abbey Theatre is “doing good for Ireland” and supports W. B. Yeats against attacks from Arthur Griffith and like-minded Nationalists. He opposes the extremist views of D. P. Moran, who seeks a Roman Catholic Irish-speaking Ireland.
O’Hegarty is Secretary of the Irish Department of Post and Telegraphs from 1922 to 1945. He is elected a member of the Irish Academy of Letters in 1954.
O’Hegarty’s son, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, is a founder of the Irish-language publishing house Sáirséal agus Dill. His daughter Gráinne, a harpist, marries Senator Michael Yeats, son of W. B. Yeats.
Séamus Ennis (Irish: Séamas Mac Aonghusa), Irish musician, singer and Irish music collector, dies in Naul, County Dublin, on October 5, 1982. He is most noted for his uilleann pipe playing and is partly responsible for the revival of the instrument during the twentieth century, having co-founded Na Píobairí Uilleann, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the promotion of the uilleann pipes and its music. He is recognised for preserving almost 2,000 Irish songs and dance-tunes as part of the work he does with the Irish Folklore Commission. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest uilleann pipers of all time.
Ennis’s father, James, works for the Irish civil service at Naul, County Dublin. In 1908, James Ennis is in a pawn shop in London and purchases a bag containing the pieces of a set of old uilleann pipes. They were made in the mid nineteenth century by Coyne Pipemakers of Thomas Street in Dublin. In 1912, he comes in first in the Oireachtas competition for warpipes and second in the uilleann pipes. He is also a prize-winning dancer. In 1916, he marries Mary Josephine McCabe, an accomplished fiddle player from County Monaghan. They have six children, Angela, Séamus, Barbara, and twins, Cormac and Ursula (Pixie) and Desmond. Séamus is born on May 5, 1919, in Jamestown in Finglas, Dublin. James Ennis is a member of the Fingal trio, which includes Frank O’Higgins on fiddle and John Cawley on flute, and performs regularly with them on the radio. At the age of thirteen, Séamus starts receiving lessons on the pipes from his father. He attends a Gaelscoil, Cholmcille, and a Gaelcholáiste, Coláiste Mhuire, which gives him a knowledge of the Irish language that serves him well in later life. He sits in an exam to become Employment Exchange clerk but is too far down the list to be offered a job. He is twenty and unemployed.
Colm Ó Lochlainn is editor of Irish Street Ballads and a friend of the Ennis family. In 1938, Ennis confides in Colm that he intends to move to England to join the British Army. Colm immediately offers him a job at The Three Candles Press. There Ennis learns all aspects of the printing trade. This includes writing down slow airs for printed scores – a skill which later proves important. Colm is director of an Irish language choir, An Claisceadal, which Ennis joins. In 1942, during The Emergency, shortages and rationing mean that things become difficult in the printing trade. Professor Seamus Ó Duilearge of the Irish Folklore Commission hires the 23-year-old to collect songs. He is given “pen, paper and pushbike” and a salary of three pounds per week. Off he goes to Connemara.
From 1942 to 1947, working for the Irish Folklore Commission, Ennis collects songs in west Munster; counties Galway, Cavan, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry; the Aran Islands and the Scottish Hebrides. His knowledge of Scottish Gaelic enables him to transcribe much of the John Lorne Campbell collection of songs. Elizabeth Cronin of Ballyvourney, County Cork, is so keen to chat to Ennis on his visits that she writes down her own songs and hands them over as he arrives, and then gets down to conversation. He has a natural empathy with the musicians and singers he meets. In August 1947, he starts work as an outside broadcast officer with Raidió Éireann. He is a presenter and records Willie Clancy, Seán Reid and Micho Russell for the first time. There is an air of authority in his voice. In 1951, Alan Lomax and Jean Ritchie arrived from the United States to record Irish songs and tunes. The tables are turned as Ennis becomes the subject of someone else’s collection. There is a photograph from 1952/53 showing Ritchie huddled over the tape recorder while Ennis plays uilleann pipes.
Late in 1951, Ennis joins the BBC. He moves to London to work with producer Brian George. In 1952, he marries Margaret Glynn. They have two children, the organist Catherine Ennis and Christopher. His job is to record the traditional music of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and to present it on the BBC Home Service. The programme is called As I Roved Out and runs until 1958. Meeting up with Alan Lomax again, he is largely responsible for the album Folk and Primitive Music (volume on Ireland) on the Columbia Records label.
In 1958, after his contract with the BBC is not renewed, Ennis starts doing freelance work, first in England then back in Ireland, with the new TV station Teilifis Éireann. Soon he is relying totally on his musical ability to make a living. About this time, his marriage breaks down and he returns to Ireland. He suffers from tuberculosis and is ill for some time. In 1964, he performs at the Newport Folk Festival. His father gives him the pipes he had bought in 1908. Although most pipers can be classed as playing in a tight style or an open style, Ennis is in between. He is a master of the slow air, knowing how to decorate long notes with taste and discreet variation.
Two events will live in legend among pipers. The first is in Bettystown, County Meath, in 1968, when the society of Irish pipers, Na Píobairí Uilleann, is formed. Breandán Breathnach is playing a tape of his own piping. Ennis asks, “What year?” Breandán replies, “1948.” Ennis says, “So I thought.” For a couple of hours the younger players perform while Ennis sits in silence. Eventually he is asked to play. Slowly he takes off his coat and rolls up his sleeves. He spends 20 minutes tuning up his 130-year-old pipes. He then asks the gathering whether all the tape recorders are ready and proceeds to play for over an hour. To everyone’s astonishment he then offers his precious pipes to Willie Clancy to play a set. Clancy demurs but eventually gives in. Next, Liam O’Flynn is asked to play them, and so on, round the room. The second unforgettable session is in Dowlings’ Pub in Prosperous, County Kildare. Christy Moore is there, as well as most of the future members of Planxty.
Ennis never runs any school of piping but his enthusiasm infuses everyone he meets. In the early 1970s, he shares a house with Liam O’Flynn for almost three years. Finally, he purchases a piece of land in Naul and lives in a mobile home there. One of his last performances is at the Willie Clancy Summer School in 1982. He dies on October 5, 1982. His pipes are bequeathed to Liam O’Flynn. Radio producer Peter Browne produces a compilation of his performances, called The Return from Fingal, spanning 40 years.
Séamus Ennis Road in his native Finglas is named in his honour. The Séamus Ennis Arts Centre in Naul is opened in his honour, to commemorate his work and to promote the traditional arts. He is also the subject of Christy Moore’s song “The Easter Snow.” This is the title of a slow air Ennis used to play, and one after which he named his final home in Naul.
Kettle is one among six children of Thomas Kettle, a prosperous farmer, and his wife, Alice (née Kavanagh). His maternal grandmother, Mary O’Brien, had smuggled arms to United Irishmen in the district in 1798, while her future husband, Billy Kavanagh, had been a senior figure in the movement. He is educated at Ireland’s most prestigious Catholicboarding school, Clongowes Wood College. His education is cut short when he is called to help full-time on the farm. Though an autodidact and always a forceful writer, he is beset later by an exaggerated sense of his “defective education and want of talking powers.” Fascinated by politics, he enjoys the repeal excitement of 1841–44 and in his late teens speaks once or twice at Tenant Right League meetings in Swords. Through the 1850s and most of the 1860s he sets about expanding the family farm into a composite of fertile holdings in Swords, St. Margaret’s, Artane, and Malahide (c.150 acres). Getting on well with the Russell-Cruise family of Swords, his first landlords, he benefits from a favourable leasehold arrangement on their demesne in the early 1860s. The farm is mostly in tillage, though Kettle also raises some fat cattle and Clydesdale horses, which he eventually sells to Guinness’s.
Kettle first enters politics in 1867, when he disagrees with John Paul Byrne of Dublin Corporation in public and in print over the right of graziers to state aid during an outbreak of cattle distemper. In 1868, he joins an agricultural reform group initiated by Isaac Butt. He becomes friendly with Butt and later claims to have converted him to support tenant-right. His memoirs, which are somewhat egocentric, contain a number of such questionable claims. It is, however, the case that he habitually writes up, for his own use, cogent summaries of the direction of current political tendencies, which sometimes become useful confidential briefs for Butt and later Charles Stewart Parnell. He is among the published list of subscribers to the Home Rule League in July 1870.
In 1872, disappointed by the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870, Kettle organises a Tenants’ Defence Association (TDA) in north County Dublin, soon sensing the need for a central body to coordinate the grievances of similar groups around the country. The Dublin TDA effectively acts as this central body, under his guidance as honorary secretary. At the 1874 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, the Dublin TDA decides to challenge the electoral control of certain corporation interests in County Dublin. Kettle secures the cautious approval of CardinalPaul Cullen for any candidate supporting the principle of denominational education. He is also one of a deputation to ask Parnell to fight the constituency, which the latter loses. He becomes closely acquainted with Parnell, who frequently attends Dublin TDA meetings after his election for Meath in April 1875.
Taking a sombre view of the threat of famine in the west of Ireland after evidence of crop failure appears in early summer 1879, Kettle calls a conference of TDA delegates at the European Hotel in Bolton Street, Dublin, in late May. After a heated debate in which a proposal for a rent strike is greatly modified, Parnell comes to seek Kettle’s advice on whether to become involved in the evolving land agitation in County Mayo. Kettle urges him to go to the Westport meeting set for June 8, 1879, and claims later to have stressed in passing that “if you keep in the open you can scarcely go too far or be too extreme on the land question.” If the incident is correctly recounted, this is a most important statement, which virtually defines Parnell’s oratorical strategy throughout the land war. In October 1879, Kettle agrees to merge the TDA with a new Irish National Land League, set up at a meeting in the Imperial Hotel, Dublin, chaired by Kettle. As honorary secretary of the Land League, Kettle frankly admits that he is able to attend meetings without “the necessity of working.” His attendance is, however, among the most regular of all League officers, with him taking part in 73 of 107 meetings scheduled between December 1879 and October 1881.
In March 1880, Kettle disputes Michael Davitt‘s reluctance to use League funds in the general election. He canvasses vigorously together with Parnell in Kildare, Carlow, and Wicklow and is later pressed by his party leader into standing for election in County Cork, though aware that the local tenant movement has already prepared their own candidates. His association with Parnell antagonises the catholic hierarchy in Munster, who issues a condemnation of his candidacy. The hurly-burly of this election creates the persistent impression that Kettle is anti-clerical in politics, and he is defeated by 151 votes.
On a train journey to Ballinasloe in early April 1880, Kettle confides to Parnell his idea that land purchase can be facilitated by the recovery of tax allegedly charged in excess on Ireland by the British government since the act of union. At League meetings in June and July 1880, he advances his “catastrophist” plan: to cease attempts to prevent the development of an irresistible crisis among the Irish smallholding population, by diverting the application of League funds from general relief solely to the aid of evicted tenants, who might be temporarily housed “encamped like gypsies and the land lying idle,” in the belief that the British government will thereby be compelled to introduce radical remedial legislation. Smallholders do not have enough faith in either League or parliamentary politicians to listen.
At a meeting of the League executive in London and in Paris, before and after Davitt’s arrest on February 3, 1881, Kettle presents his plan that the parliamentary party should, if faced with coercive legislation, withdraw from Westminster, “concentrate” in Ireland, and call a general rent strike. Republicans on the League executive continually find themselves embarrassed by Kettle’s radical calls to action motivated solely by the project of agrarian reform. Parnell is later supposed to have lamented party failure to execute the plan at this juncture.
Kettle is arrested in June 1881 for calling for a collective refusal of rent. After two weeks in Naas jail he is transferred to Kilmainham Gaol, where in October he is, with some misgivings, one of the signatories to the No Rent Manifesto. Discharged from Kilmainham in late December 1881 owing to poor health, he returns principally to work on the family farm for most of the 1880s, though he claims to have formulated a draft solution for the plight of the agricultural labourer and “pushed it through” in correspondence with Parnell. He reemerges in 1890 to defend Parnell after the divorce scandal breaks. Attempting to establish a new ”centre” party independent of extreme Catholic and Protestant interests, he stands for election as a Parnellite at the 1891 County Carlow by-election, where he is comprehensively beaten, having endured weeks of insinuating harangues by Tim Healy, and raucous mob insults to the din of tin kettles bashed by women and children at meetings around the county. He is intermittently involved in County Dublin politics in the 1890s and 1900s and maintains a brusque correspondence on matters of the day in the national press.
Kettle dies on September 22, 1916, at his residence, St. Margaret’s, County Dublin, anguished by the death on September 9 of his brilliant son, Tom Kettle, near the village of Ginchy during the Battle of the Somme. He is buried at St. Colmcille’s cemetery, Swords.
Kettle marries Margaret McCourt, daughter of Laurence McCourt of Newtown, St. Margaret’s, County Dublin, farmer and agricultural commodity factor. They have five sons and six daughters.
Doire Leathan is on the eastern shores of Teelin Bay, being just across from the village of Teelin. The battle is part of the ongoing succession dispute for the leadership of the Gaelic lordship of O’Donnell. A combined force of Irish clans and ScottishRedshankmercenaries hired by Iníon Dubh (pronounced “In-neen Doo”) defeat and kill Sir Domhnall Ó Domhnaill (Sir Donnell O’Donnell). The Tanist of Tír Conaill, Sir Domhnall’s younger half-brother and Iníon Dubh’s son, Red Hugh O’Donnell, is still imprisoned in Dublin Castle, but later rises following a subsequent escape to lead Clan O’Donnell and is a prominent figure during the Nine Years’ War.
According to the Annals of the Four Masters, “The son of O’Donnell, i.e. Donnell, the son of Hugh, son of Manus, son of Hugh Duv, son of Hugh Roe, son of Niall Garv, son of Turlough of the Wine, attempt to depose his father, after he had grown weak and feeble from age, and after his other son had been imprisoned in Dublin; so that Donnell brought under his power and jurisdiction that part of Tirconnell from the mountain westwards, i.e. from Bearnas to the River Drowes; and also the people of Boylagh and Tir-Boghaine. It was a cause of great anguish and sickness of mind to Ineenduv, the daughter of James Mac Donnell, that Donnell should make such an attempt, lest he might attain the chieftainship of Tirconnell in preference to her son, Hugh Roe, who was confined in Dublin, and who she hoped would become chief, whatever time God might permit him to return from his captivity; and she, therefore, assembled all the Kinel-Connell who were obedient to her husband, namely, O’Doherty, with his forces; Mac Sweeny-na dTuath (Owen Oge), with his forces; and Mac Sweeny Fanad, with his forces; with a great number of Scots along with them. After Donnell O’Donnell had received intelligence that this muster had been made to oppose him, he assembled his forces to meet them. These were they who rose up to assist him on this occasion: Mac SweenyBanagh (Donough, the son of Mulmurry); a party of the Clan Sweeney of Munster, under the conduct of the three sons of Owen, the son of Mulmurry, son of Donough, son of Turlough, and their forces; and O’Boyle (Teige Oge, the son of Teige, son of Turlough), with all his forces, assembled. The place where the son of O’Donnell happened to be stationed along with these chieftains was Doire-leathan at the extremity of Tir-Boghaine, to the west of Gleann Choluim Cille. The other party did not halt until they came to them to that place; and a battle ensued between them, which was fiercely fought on both sides. The Scots discharged a shower of arrows from their elastic bows, by which they pierced and wounded great numbers, and, among the rest, the son of O’Donnell himself, who, being unable to display prowess or defend himself, was slain at Doire-leathan, on one side of the harbour of Telinn, on the 14th of September. Seldom before that time had his enemies triumphed over him; and the party by whom he was slain had not been by any means his enemies until they encountered on this occasion; and although this Donnell was not the rightful heir of his father, it would have been no disgrace to Tirconnell to have elected him as its chief, had he been permitted to attain to that dignity. In this conflict were slain along with Donnell the three sons of Owen, son of Mulmurry, son of Donough above mentioned, together with two hundred others, around Donnell.”
(Pictured: Hugh Roe O’Donnell, otherwise known in history and lore as Red Hugh O’Donnell)
In the 19th century, association football outside of Ulster is largely confined to Dublin and a few provincial towns. The British Army teams play a role in the spread of the game to these areas, especially in Munster, as local clubs are initially reliant on them to form opposition teams, leading to the nickname “the garrison game.” Association football is played in relatively few Catholic schools as middle-class schools favour rugby union while others favour Gaelic games. The Irish Football Association (IFA) had been founded in 1880 in Belfast as the football governing body for the whole of Ireland, which was then a part of the United Kingdom and considered a Home Nation. The Leinster Football Association was an affiliate, founded in 1892 to foster the game in Leinster, outside of the Ulster heartlands. This was followed by the establishment of the Munster Football Association in 1901.
By 1913, the Leinster FA becomes the largest divisional association within the IFA, displacing the North East Ulster Football Association, yet all but two clubs in the 1913–14 Irish League are based in Ulster. While this largely reflects the balance of footballing strength within Ireland, southern members feel the IFA is doing little to promote the game outside of the professional clubs in its northern province. In the other provinces, association football is also under pressure from the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), which has banned members from playing or watching the sport as it is considered a “foreign” game. Furthermore, there is a growing feeling in Dublin of alleged Belfast bias when it comes to hosting matches and player selection for internationals. This view is not helped by the composition of the IFA’s sub-committees, with over half of the membership consisting of delegates hailing from the North-East, and the International Committee, who chooses the national team, containing just one member from Leinster. The Belfast members are mainly unionist, while the Dublin members are largely nationalist. World War I increases the gulf between the northern teams and the clubs in the south as the Irish League is suspended and replaced by regional leagues, foreshadowing the ultimate split. Tensions are then exacerbated by the Irish War of Independence of 1919–21, which disrupts contact between northern and southern clubs further and prevents resumption of the Irish League. The security situation prompts the IFA to order the March 1920-21 Irish Cup semi-final replay between Glenavon and Shelbourne to be replayed in Belfast, rather than in Dublin as convention dictates. This proves to be the final straw and the Leinster FA confirms their decision to disaffiliate from the IFA at a meeting on June 8, 1921.
The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) is formed in Dublin on September 2, 1921, by the Leinster FA. The Free State League (originally the Football League of Ireland and now the League of Ireland) is founded in June of that year when the Leinster FA withdraws from the IFA. This is the climax of a series of disputes about the alleged Belfast bias of the IFA. Both bodies initially claim to represent the entire island. The split between Southern Ireland (which becomes the Irish Free State in December 1922) and Northern Ireland (which comes into existence as a jurisdiction in 1921) does not produce a split in the governing bodies of other sports, such as the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU). The Munster Football Association, originally dominated by British Army regiments, falls into abeyance on the outbreak of World War I, and is re-established in 1922 with the help of the FAI, to which it affiliates. The Falls League, based in the Falls Road of nationalist West Belfast, affiliates to the FAI, and from there Alton United wins the FAI Cup in 1923. However, when the FAI applies to join FIFA in 1923, it is admitted as the Football Association of the Irish Free State (FAIFS) based on a 26-county jurisdiction. (This jurisdiction remains, although Derry City, from Northern Ireland, are given an exemption, by agreement of FIFA and the IFA, to join the League of Ireland in 1985.) Attempts at reconciliation followed. At a 1923 meeting, the IFA rejects an FAIFS proposal for it to be an autonomous subsidiary of the FAIFS. A 1924 meeting in Liverpool, brokered by the English FA, almost reaches agreement on a federated solution, but the IFA insists on providing the chairman of the International team selection committee. A 1932 meeting agrees on sharing this role, but founders when the FAIFS demands one of the IFA’s two places on the International Football Association Board (IFAB). Further efforts to reach agreement are made through a series of conferences between the IFA and FAI from 1973 to 1980 during the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The IFA does not feel obliged to refrain from selecting Free State players for its international team. The name Football Association of Ireland is readopted by the FAIFS in 1936, in anticipation of the change of the state’s name in the pending Constitution of Ireland, and the FAI begins to select players from Northern Ireland based on the Constitution’s claim to sovereignty there. A number of players play for both the FAI “Ireland” (against FIFA members from mainland Europe) and the IFA “Ireland” (in the British Home Championship, whose members had withdrawn from FIFA in 1920). Shortly after the IFA rejoins FIFA in 1946, the FAI stops selecting Northern players. The IFA stops selecting southern players after the FAI complains to FIFA in 1950.
From the late 1960s, association football begins to achieve more widespread popularity. Donogh O’Malley, TD and then Minister for Education, begins a new programme of state-funded schools in 1966, many with association football pitches and teams. The Gaelic Athletic Association’s ban on members playing “foreign” games is lifted in 1971. RTÉ television, founded in 1962, and British television (available nearly everywhere on cable or microwave relay from the 1970s), broadcast association football regularly. Above all, the increasing success of the international side from the late 1980s gives increased television exposure, more fans, and more funds to the FAI.
However, increased media exposure also highlights some inadequacies of its hitherto largely amateur organisation. In January 1999, the FAI announces a planned national association football stadium, to be called Eircom Park after primary sponsors Eircom. This is to be a 45,000-seat stadium in City West, modeled on the GelreDome in Arnhem. It gradually becomes apparent that the initial forecasts of cost and revenue have been very optimistic. FAI and public support for the project is also undermined by the announcement of the Stadium Ireland in Abbotstown, which would have 65,000 seats and be available free to the FAI, being funded by the state. The Eircom Park project is finally abandoned in March 2001, amid much rancour within the FAI.
During preparation for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the captain of the senior football team, Roy Keane, leaves the training camp and returns to his home. He is critical of many aspects of the organisation and preparation of the team for the upcoming games, and public opinion in Ireland is divided. As a result of the incident, the FAI commissions a report from consultants Genesis into its World Cup preparations. The “Genesis Report” makes a number of damning criticisms regarding corruption and cronyism within the association, but is largely ignored. The complete report is never published for legal reasons. The FAI subsequently produces its own report of itself titled “Genesis II” and implements a number of its recommendations.
In 2002, the FAI announces a deal with British Sky Broadcasting to sell broadcasting rights to Ireland’s international matches, as well as domestic association football, to be televised on its satellite subscription service. The general public feels it should be on RTÉ, the free-to-air terrestrial service, in spite of their offering much lower rates. Faced with the prospect of the government legislating to prevent any deal, the FAI agrees to accept an improved, but still lower, offer from RTÉ.
Following the respectable performance of the national team in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the team’s fortunes decline under the management of Mick McCarthy, Brian Kerr and Steve Staunton.
In September 2006, Lars-Christer Olsson, CEO of UEFA, is quoted as anticipating that Lansdowne Road in Dublin (actually owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union) will stage the UEFA Cup Final in 2010, and that the FAI and the IFA will co-host the 2011 UEFA European Under-21 Championship. The 2010 final is ultimately awarded to Hamburg, but in January 2009, UEFA nameS Lansdowne Road as the host stadium for the renamed 2011 UEFA Europa League Final. In August 2010, an FAI spokesman says they will have repaid all of their stadium debt of €46 million within 10 years despite the disastrous sale of 10-year tickets for premium seats at the Aviva Stadium.
In November 2007, the FAI moves to new headquarters at the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown. Its headquarters since the 1930s had been a Georgian terraced house at 80 Merrion Square, which is sold for a sum variously reported as “in excess of €6m” and “almost €9m.”
seamus dubhghaill 