Dunne is born as Bernard Dunn in the village of Rostrevor, County Down, on May 19, 1908. He is the eldest son and second among three children of Barney Dunn, a businessman, and Margaret (née Byrne). His father inherits the Woodside Restaurant Temperance Refreshment Rooms and an auctioneering firm, and his mother runs a drapery business and later a shipping agency. He attends St. Mary’s School in Rostrevor until he is fourteen years old. While still in school he takes on a number of jobs, including repairing bicycles, rearing sheep, and working as a boot-boy at the home of Sir John Foster George Ross of Bladensburg. He is convinced not to emigrate to the United States by a family friend, Edward Whitaker.
Dunne moves to Drogheda in the newly established Irish Free State in 1926. He is employed as an apprentice first in Anderson’s of West Street, Drogheda, and later in Cameron’s Drapery store in Longford. It is after his move to Longford that he adds an “e” to his surname. In the mid-1930s, he moves to Cork, where he works as a buyer for Roches Stores in the menswear department. In 1944, he leaves Roches Stores to open a drapery shop with his friend, Des Darrer, across the road from Roches Stores on St. Patrick’s Street. A high-profile advertising campaign, combined with low prices, launches the venture successfully.
A second store opens on North Main Street, Cork, in 1947, which is followed by stores in Waterford and Mallow. Dunne and Darrer remain in partnership until 1952, when it is dissolved and Darrer takes ownership of the Waterford Dunnes Stores, renaming it Darrers.
The tenth store, in Wexford, opens in 1955, and the first store in Dublin opens in 1958. In 1960, Dunne launches the store’s first own-brand product, a lady’s jacket under the label St. Bernard. By 1964, Dunnes Stores has expanded into grocery and has an annual turnover of £6 million. He purchases two other Dublin stores, Bolger’s and Cassidy’s, in 1972, which have eleven shops across Dublin combined. Dunnes Stores opens its first branch in Northern Ireland in 1976.
Dunne meets his wife, Nora Maloney, while working at Roches Stores. They are married in September 1939 and have six children, including Margaret (Dunne) Heffernan, Frank, Elizabeth (Dunne) McMahon, Therese, and Ben Junior. Ben and later Margaret go on to work in the family business.
The family lives in Douglas, Cork, at Brownington Park, and in Blackrock, Cork, at Barnstead and at Ringmahon House. Following the establishment of the Dunnes Stores headquarters in Dublin in the early 1970s, the family moves to Jury’s Hotel, Dame Street. He and Nora later move to the Shelbourne Hotel, where they live until his death on April 14, 1983.
Ewart Milne, Irish poet, dies in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, of a heart attack on January 14, 1987. He describes himself on various book jackets as “a sailor before the mast, ambulance driver and courier during the Spanish Civil War, a land worker and estate manager in England during and after World War II” and also “an enthusiast for lost causes – national, political, social and merely human.”
Milne is born in Dublin on May 25, 1903, to English and Welsh Irish parents and is educated at Christchurch Cathedral Grammar School. In 1920 he signs on as a seaman and works on boats, off and on, until 1935. During the 1930s he begins writing and has his first poems published in 1935.
The background to the Spanish Civil War contributes to Milne’s political awakening and he comes to England to work as a voluntary administrator for the Spanish Medical Aid Committee in London, for whom he often acts as a medical courier. He also was once unwillingly involved in an arms deal while visiting Spain on their behalf.
After Spanish Medical Aid Committee is wound up, Milne returns to Ireland but remains politically active in support of the campaign for the release of Frank Ryan, the leader of the Connolly Column of Irish volunteers on the Republican side, who had been captured and imprisoned in Spain. At one point he takes part in a delegation to Westminster seeking Labour Party support for this. In August 1938 he is reported in The Worker’s Republic as being one of the twelve-member committee of the James Connolly Irish club in London.
During his time in England and Spain, Milne gets to know the left-leaning poets who support the Republican cause, including W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. In 1938 his first collection of poems, Forty North Fifty West, is published in Dublin, followed by two others in 1940 and 1941. Having taken a pro-British line in neutral Ireland, he is informed by Karl Petersen, the German press attaché in Dublin, that he is on the Nazi death list. This convinces him to help in the British war effort and he returns to England with the help of John Betjeman, then working at the British embassy in Ireland.
Between 1942–1962 Milne is resident in England and an active presence on the English literary scene. In particular he becomes associated with the poets grouped around the magazine Nine, edited by Peter Russell and Ian Fletcher. He and his wife Thelma also back the young Irish poet Patrick Galvin when he launches his own magazine, Chanticleer. This generous encouragement of younger writers is later extended to several others, including John F. Deane, Gerald Dawe and Maurice Scully.
Milne regards his return to Dublin in 1962 as a disaster, as his four-year stay is overshadowed by quarrels with the establishment, the discovery of betrayal by a friend and the death of his wife from lung cancer. The misery of those events is recorded in Time Stopped (1967). The artistic frustration of the time also results in the poems included in Cantata Under Orion (1976). Returning to England in 1966, he settles in Bedford. Politically he remains involved and speaks alongside Auberon Waugh at the rally on behalf of Biafra in 1968, but his views move further to the right in later years. He writes to The Irish Times on April 13, 1976, saying that he has been “taken in by Stalin and that Leninism is Satanism.” He also sides with the Loyalist position in the Ulster conflict. He dies in Bedford of a heart attack on January 14, 1987.
Milne is twice married, first to Kathleen Ida Bradner in 1927, by whom he has two sons; then in 1948 to Thelma Dobson, by whom he has two more sons.
(Pictured: A portrait of Ewart Milne by Cecil F. Salkkeld, as it appears in Milne’s book Forty North Fifty West)
Hamilton begins his commentary career with BBC Sport, before joining RTÉ eight years later in 1984. He had previously worked for RTÉ during the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Since 2003, he works for RTÉ lyric fm, Ireland’s classical radio station, on Saturday mornings. For many years, he fronts a popular weekly quiz show on RTÉ, Know Your Sport, alongside fellow commentator Jimmy Magee.
Hamilton is chief commentator for RTÉ Sport‘s coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the ninth one in which he has been involved. He is RTÉ’s chief commentator at UEFA Euro 2012 and commentates on all of Ireland’s matches in the competition. He is involved in the coverage of the Olympic Games since the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
Hamilton is known for his use of colourful phrases and memorable quotes when commentating on games, his phrase describing David O’Leary‘s penalty against Romania in the 1990 FIFA World Cup, “The nation holds its breath,” is used for a book of Irish football quotations, compiled by Eoghan Corry, for which Hamilton writes the foreword.
The sports humour website, DangerHere.com, takes its title from another quote by Hamilton: “And Bonner has gone 165 minutes of these championships without conceding a goal. Oh, danger here…”
Price and her sister, Marian, also an IRA member, are the daughters of Albert Price, a prominent Irish republican and former IRA member from Belfast. Their aunt, Bridie Dolan, is blinded and loses both hands in an accident while handling IRA explosives.
Price becomes involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s and she and Marian participate in the Belfast to Derrycivil rights march in January 1969 and are attacked in the Burntollet Bridge incident.
In 1971 Price and her sister join the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 1972 she joins an elite group within the IRA called “The Unknowns” commanded by Pat McClure. The Unknowns are tasked with various secretive activities and transport several accused traitors across the border into the Republic of Ireland where they are “disappeared.” She personally states that she had driven Joe Lynskey across the border to face trial. In addition, she states that she, Pat McClure and a third Unknown were tasked with killing Jean McConville, with the third Unknown actually shooting her.
Price leads the car bombing attacks in London on March 8, 1973, which injure over 200 people and is believed to have contributed to the death of one person who suffers a fatal heart attack. The two sisters are arrested, along with Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney and six others, on the day of the bombing as they are boarding a flight to Ireland. They are tried and convicted at the Great Hall in Winchester Castle on November 14, 1973. Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, which is to run concurrently for each criminal charge, their sentence is eventually reduced to 20 years. She serves seven years for her part in the bombing. She immediately goes on a hunger strike demanding to be moved to a prison in Northern Ireland. The hunger strike lasts for 208 days because the hunger strikers are force-fed by prison authorities to keep them alive.
On the back of the hunger-striking campaign, Price’s father contests Belfast West at the February 1974 United Kingdom general election, receiving 5,662 votes (11.9%). The Price sisters, Hugh Feeney, and Gerry Kelly are moved to Northern Ireland prisons in 1975 as a result of an IRA truce. In 1980 she receives the royal prerogative of mercy and is freed on humanitarian grounds in 1981, purportedly suffering from anorexia nervosa due to the invasive trauma of daily force feedings.
After her release in 1980, Price marries Irish actor Stephen Rea, with whom she has two sons, Danny and Oscar. They divorce in 2003.
The Price sisters remain active politically. In the late 1990s, Price and her sister claim that they have been threatened by their former colleagues in the IRA and Sinn Féin for publicly opposing the Good Friday Agreement (i.e. the cessation of the IRA’s military campaign). she is a contributor to The Blanket, an online journal, edited by former Provisional IRA member Anthony McIntyre, until it ceases publication in 2008.
In 2001, Price is arrested in Dublin and charged with possession of stolen prescription pads and forged prescriptions. She pleads guilty and is fined £200 and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
In February 2010, it is reported by The Irish News that Price had offered help to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains in locating graves of three men, Joe Lynskey, Seamus Wright, and Kevin McKee. The bodies of Wright and McKee are recovered from a singular grave in County Meath in August 2015. It is unclear if Price played a role in their recovery. The remains of Joe Lynskey have not been recovered as of April 2021.
Price is the subject of the 2018 feature-length documentary I, Dolours in which she gives an extensive filmed interview.
In 2010, Price claims Gerry Adams had been her officer commanding (OC) when she was active in the IRA. Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA, denies her allegation. She admits taking part in the murder of Jean McConville, as part of an IRA action in 1972. She claims the murder of McConville, a mother of ten, was ordered by Adams when he was an IRA leader in West Belfast. Adams subsequently publicly further denies Price’s allegations, stating that the reason for them is that she is opposed to the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s abandonment of paramilitary warfare in favour of politics in 1994, in the facilitation of which Adams has been a key figure.
Oral historians at Boston College interview both Price and her fellow IRA paramilitary Brendan Hughes between 2001 and 2006. The two give detailed interviews for the historical record of the activities in the IRA, which are recorded on condition that the content of the interviews is not to be released during their lifetimes. Prior to her death in May 2011, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) subpoena the material, possibly as part of an investigation into the disappearance of a number of people in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. In June 2011, the college files a motion to quash the subpoena. A spokesman for the college states that “our position is that the premature release of the tapes could threaten the safety of the participants, the enterprise of oral history, and the ongoing peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland.” In June 2011, U.S. federal prosecutors ask a judge to require the college to release the tapes to comply with treaty obligations with the United Kingdom. On July 6, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agrees with the government’s position that the subpoena should stand. On October 17, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily blocks the college from handing over the interview tapes. In April 2013, after Price’s death, the Supreme Court turns away an appeal that seeks to keep the interviews from being supplied to the PSNI. The order leaves in place a lower court ruling that orders Boston College to give the Justice Department portions of recorded interviews with Price. Federal officials want to forward the recordings to police investigating the murder of Jean McConville.
Price dies in her Malahide, County Dublin, home on January 23, 2013, from a toxic effect of mixing prescribed sedative and anti-depressant medication. Her body is found the following day. The inquest returns a verdict of death by misadventure. She is buried at Milltown Cemetery in West Belfast.
IRA intelligence establishes that an Auxiliary patrol usually leaves Victoria Barracks (in the north of the city) each night at 8:00 p.m. and makes its way to the city centre via Dillon’s Cross. On December 11, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue receives intelligence that two lorries of Auxiliaries will be leaving the barracks that night and travelling with them will be British ArmyIntelligence Corps Captain James Kelly.
A unit of six IRA volunteers commanded by O’Donoghue take up position between the barracks and Dillon’s Cross, a “couple of hundred yards” from the barracks. Their goal is to destroy the patrol and capture or kill Captain Kelly. Five of the volunteers hide behind a stone wall while one, Michael Kenny, stands across the road dressed as an off-duty British officer. When the lorries near he is to beckon the driver of the first lorry to slow down or stop.
At 8:00 p.m., two lorries, each carrying 13 Auxiliaries, emerge from the barracks. The first lorry slows when the driver spots Kenny and, as it does so, the IRA unit attacks with grenades and revolvers. The official British report says that 12 Auxiliaries are wounded and that one, Spencer Chapman, a former Officer in the 4th Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), dies from his wounds shortly after. As the IRA unit makes its escape, some of the Auxiliaries fire on them while others drag the wounded to the nearest cover: O’Sullivan’s pub.
The Auxiliaries break into the pub with weapons drawn. They order everyone to put their hands over their heads to be searched. Backup and an ambulance are sent from the nearby barracks. One witness describes young men being rounded up and forced to lie on the ground. The Auxiliaries drag one of them to the middle of the crossroads, strip him naked and forced him to sing “God Save the King” until he collapses on the road.
Angered by an attack so near their headquarters and seeking retribution for the deaths of their colleagues at Kilmichael, the Auxiliaries gather to wreak their revenge. Charles Schulze, an Auxiliary and a former British Army Captain in the Dorsetshire Regiment during World War I, organizes a group of Auxiliaries to burn the centre of Cork.
At 9:30 p.m., lorries of Auxiliaries and British soldiers leave the barracks and alight at Dillon’s Cross, where they break into houses and herd the occupants onto the street. They then set the houses on fire and stand guard as they are razed to the ground. Those who try to intervene are fired upon and some are badly beaten. Seven buildings are set on fire at the crossroads. When one is found to be owned by Protestants, the Auxiliaries quickly douse the fire.
British forces begin driving around the city firing at random as people rush to get home before the 10:00 p.m. curfew. A group of armed and uniformed Auxiliaries surround a tram at Summerhill, smash its windows, and forced all the passengers out. Some of the passengers, including at least three women, are repeatedly kicked, hit with rifle butts, threatened, and verbally abused. The Auxiliaries then force the passengers to line up against a wall and search them, while continuing the physical and verbal abuse. Some have their money and belongings stolen. One of those attacked is a Catholicpriest, who is singled out for sectarian abuse. Another tram is set on fire near Father Mathew‘s statue. Meanwhile, witnesses report seeing a group of 14–18 Black and Tans firing wildly for upwards of 20 minutes on nearby MacCurtain Street.
Soon after, witnesses report groups of armed men on and around St. Patrick’s Street, the city’s main shopping area. Most are uniformed or partially uniformed Auxiliaries and some are British soldiers, while others wear no uniforms. They are seen firing into the air, smashing shop windows and setting buildings on fire. Many report hearing bombs exploding. A group of Auxiliaries are seen throwing a bomb into the ground floor of the Munster Arcade, which houses both shops and flats. It explodes under the residential quarters while people are inside the building. They manage to escape unharmed but are detained by the Auxiliaries.
The Cork City Fire Brigade is informed of the fire at Dillon’s Cross shortly before 10:00 p.m. and are sent to deal with it at once. On finding that Grant’s department store on St. Patrick’s Street is ablaze, they decide to address it first. The fire brigade’s Superintendent, Alfred Hutson, calls Victoria Barracks and asks them to tackle the fire at Dillon’s Cross so that he can focus on the city centre. The barracks take no heed of his request. As he does not the resources to deal with all the fires at once, he has to prioritize the order in which the fires are addressed. He oversees the operation on St. Patrick’s Street and meets The Cork Examiner reporter Alan Ellis. He tells Ellis that “all the fires were being deliberately started by incendiary bombs, and in several cases, he had seen soldiers pouring cans of petrol into buildings and setting them alight.”
British forces hindered the firefighter’s attempts to tackle the blazes by intimidating them and cutting or driving over their hoses. Firemen are also shot at, and at least two are wounded by gunfire. Shortly after 3:00 a.m. on December 12, reporter Alan Ellis comes upon a unit of the fire brigade pinned down by gunfire near City Hall. The firemen say that they are being shot at by Black and Tans who have broken into the building. They also claim to see uniformed men carrying cans of petrol into the building from nearby Union Quay barracks.
At about 4:00 a.m. there is a large explosion and City Hall and the neighbouring Carnegie Library go up in flames, resulting in the loss of many of the city’s public records. According to Ellis, the Black and Tans had detonated high explosives inside City Hall. When more firefighters arrive, British forces shoot at them and refuse them access to water. The last act of arson takes place at about 6:00 a.m. when a group of policemen loot and burn the Murphy Brothers’ clothes shop on Washington Street.
After the ambush at Dillon’s Cross, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue and volunteer James O’Mahony make their way to the farmhouse of the Delaney family at Dublin Hill on the northern outskirts of the city, not far from the ambush site. Brothers Cornelius and Jeremiah Delaney are members of F Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Cork Brigade IRA. O’Donoghue hides some grenades on the farm and the two men go their separate ways.
At about 2:00 a.m., at least eight armed men enter the house and go upstairs into the brothers’ bedroom. The brothers get up and stand at the bedside and are asked their names. When they answer, the gunmen open fire. Jeremiah is killed outright, and Cornelius dies of his wounds on December 18. Their elderly relative, William Dunlea, is wounded by gunfire. The brothers’ father says the gunmen wore long overcoats and spoke with English accents. It is thought that, while searching the ambush site, Auxiliaries had found a cap belonging to one of the volunteers and had used bloodhounds to follow the scent to the family’s home.
Over 40 business premises and 300 residential properties are destroyed, amounting to over five acres of the city. Over £3 million worth of damage (1920 value) is caused, although the value of property looted by British forces is not clear. Many people become homeless and 2,000 are left jobless. Fatalities include an Auxiliary killed by the IRA, two IRA volunteers killed by Auxiliaries, and a woman who dies from a heart attack when Auxiliaries burst into her house. Several people, including firefighters, are reportedly assaulted or otherwise wounded.
Conservative Party leader Bonar Law says, “in the present condition of Ireland, we are much more likely to get an impartial inquiry in a military court than in any other.” Greenwood announces that a military inquiry would be carried out by General Peter Strickland. This results in the “Strickland Report,” but Cork Corporation instructs its employees and other corporate officials to take no part. The report blames members of the Auxiliaries’ K Company, based at Victoria Barracks. The Auxiliaries, it is claimed, burned the city centre in reprisal for the IRA attack at Dillon’s Cross. The British Government refuses to publish the report.
(Pictured: Workers clearing rubble on St. Patrick’s Street in Cork after the fires)
McGarry is born at 17 Pembroke Cottages, Dundrum, Dublin, on August 2, 1886. An active member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, he is a close friend of Bulmer Hobson and is frequently arrested or imprisoned by British authorities for his activities with the IRB during the early 1900s. He participates in the 1916 Easter Rising as an aide-de-camp to Tom Clarke and is sentenced to eight years penal servitude for his role in the failed rebellion.
McGarry is sent to Frongoch internment camp in Wales but is eventually released. He assists Michael Collins in his efforts to reorganise the Irish Republican Brotherhood and, at the Volunteer Executive Meeting held in late 1917, he is elected General Secretary of the Irish Volunteers.
On the night of May 17, 1918, McGarry is arrested, along with seventy-three other Irish nationalist leaders, and deported to England, where they are held in custody without charge. The day following their arrest, he and the others are charged with conspiring “to enter into, and have entered into, treasonable communication with the German enemy.” In his absence, Harry Boland is selected for the Supreme Council and becomes his successor as president of the IRB.
McGarry is only imprisoned a short time when he takes part in the famous escape from Lincoln Jail with Seán Milroy and Éamon de Valera on February 3, 1919. He and Milroy manage to smuggle out a postcard, a comical sketch of McGarry to his wife, allowing a copy of the key to their cell to be made. They are later assisted by Harry Boland and Michael Collins who await them outside the prison.
A month later, McGarry gives a dramatic speech at a Sinn Féin concert held at the Mansion House, Dublin, before going into hiding.
Throughout the Irish War of Independence, McGarry serves as a commander and is eventually elected to Second Dáil in the 1921 Irish elections as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) representing Dublin Mid. He, like the majority of those in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty and is involved in debates against de Valera during the controversy, most especially discussing the status of Sinn Féin as a political entity.
McGarry is re-elected as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD in the 1922 Irish general election, siding with the Free State government during the Irish Civil War. Liam Lynch and other members of the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army plan the assassination of McGarry among other TDs supporting the Public Safety Bill. As one anti-Treaty volunteer tells Ernie O’Malley, “Seán McGarry was often drunk in Amiens Street and the boys wanted to shoot him and the Staters there, but I wouldn’t let them.”
On December 10, 1922, shortly before the first meeting of the Free State parliament, a fire is deliberately set by irregulars (anti-Treatyites) at McGarry’s family home. His seven-year-old son, Emmet, is badly burned and dies as a result. McGarry is one of four targeted by anti-Treatyites during the December Free State executions. De Valera publicly denounces the attack.
After retiring from politics, McGarry works for the Irish Hospitals Trust, writes articles for newspapers and journals, and engages in broadcasting. After residing from the mid-1920s at several addresses in Dún Laoghaire, from 1938 he lives at 25 Booterstown Avenue, Blackrock, Dublin. With his wife Tomasina he has two sons and one daughter. He dies suddenly on December 9, 1958, of a heart attack in his son’s home at 44 Richmond Avenue, Monkstown, County Dublin.
MacManus begins writing while still teaching, first publishing a trilogy set in Penal times and concerning the life of the Gaelic poet Donncha Rua Mac Conmara comprising the novels Stand and Give Challenge (1934), Candle for the Proud (1936) and Men Withering (1939). A second trilogy follows which turns its attention to contemporary Ireland: This House Was Mine (1937), Flow On, Lovely River (1941), and Watergate (1942). The location is the fictional “Dombridge,” based on Kilkenny, and deals with established themes of Irish rural life including obsessions with land, sexual frustration, and the trials of emigration and return. Other major works include the novel The Greatest of These (1943), concerning religious conflict in nineteenth-century Kilkenny, and the biographies Boccaccio (1947) and Saint Columban (1963). In his last two novels, he descends into the depths of theological debate: The Fire in the Dust (1950) is followed by American Son (1959), a remarkable dialogue between conflicting modes of belief which reveals the strong influence of Roman Catholicism on the author.
Francis MacManus dies of a heart attack at the age of 56 in Dublin on November 27, 1965.
The RTÉ Francis MacManus Short Story Award is established in his memory in 1985. The competition is run by RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, and is open to entries written in Irish or English from authors born or resident in Ireland. The total prize fund is €6000, out of which the winning author receives €3,000. Sums of €2,000 and €1,000 are awarded to the second and third prize winners.
Cole starts his career in print journalism in 1945, joining the Belfast Telegraph as a reporter and industrial correspondent. He subsequently works as a political reporter for the paper. He gains a scoop when he interviews the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, who is holidaying in Ireland.
Cole joins The Guardian, then The Manchester Guardian, in 1956, reporting on industrial issues. He transfers to the London office in 1957 as the paper’s labour correspondent. Appointed news editor in 1963, succeeding Nesta Roberts, he takes on the task of reorganising the paper’s “amateurish” system for gathering news. He heads opposition to a proposed merger with The Times in the mid-1960s, and later serves as deputy editor under Alastair Hetherington. When Hetherington leaves in 1975, Cole is in the running for the editorship, but fails to secure the post, for reasons which may include his commitment to the cause of unionism in Northern Ireland, as well as what is seen by some as inflexibility and a lack of flair. Unwilling to continue at The Guardian, he then joins The Observer as deputy editor under Donald Trelford, remaining there for six years.
After Tiny Rowland takes over as proprietor of The Observer in 1981, Cole gives evidence against him at the Monopolies Commission. The following day he receives a call from the BBC offering him the job of political editor, succeeding John Simpson. He has little previous television experience but proves a “natural broadcaster.” Reporting through most of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, he becomes a familiar figure on television and radio.
Cole’s health is put under strain by the workload, and he suffers a heart attack in February 1984. Returning to report on that year’s conference season, he covers the Brighton hotel bombing, getting a “memorable” interview with Thatcher on the pavement in its immediate aftermath, in which she declares that the Tory conference will take place as normal. An astute observer of the political scene, he is one of the earliest to forecast Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister in 1990, in what colleague David McKie refers to as “perhaps his greatest exclusive.”
Cole establishes a strong reputation for his “gentle but probing” interviewing style, for his political assessments, and for presenting analysis rather than “bland reporting.” Held in enormous affection by viewers, he is trusted by both politicians and the public. He is known for speaking in the language used by ordinary people rather than so-called Westminster experts. His distinctive Northern Irish accent leads the way for BBC broadcasters with regional accents.
Cole retires as political editor in 1992 at the age of 65, compulsory at the time, but continues to appear on television, including making programmes on golf and travel. He also continues to appear on the BBC programme Westminster Live for several years after he retired as political editor.
In addition to his journalistic writing, Cole authors several books. The earliest are The Poor of the Earth, on developing countries, and The Thatcher Years (1987). After his retirement as BBC political editor, he spends more time writing. His political memoir, As It Seemed to Me, appears in 1995 and becomes a best-seller. He also publishes a novel, A Clouded Peace (2001), set in his birthplace of Belfast in 1977.
In 2007, Cole writes an article for the British Journalism Review, blaming both politicians and the media for the fact that parliamentarians are held in such low esteem, being particularly scathing of Alastair Campbell‘s influence during Tony Blair‘s premiership.
In 1966, the Eisenhower Fellowships selects Cole to represent Great Britain. He receives the Royal Television Society‘s Journalist of the Year award in 1991. After his retirement in 1992, he is awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University and receives the Richard Dimbleby Award from BAFTA in 1993. He turns down a CBE in 1993, citing the former The Guardian newspaper rule that journalists can only accept gifts which can be consumed within 24 hours.
In his private life Cole is a supporter of the Labour Party and is a believer in the trades union movement. He considers that the combating of unemployment is one of the most important political issues. He is a British Republican and a committed Christian, associating in the latter part of his life with the United Reformed Church at Kingston upon Thames.
Cole suffers health problems in retirement including heart problems and two minor strokes. In 2009, he is diagnosed with cancer. He subsequently develops aphasia. He dies at his home at Claygate in the county of Surrey on November 7, 2013.
Tributes are paid by journalists, broadcasters and politicians across the political spectrum. Prime Minister David Cameron calls Cole a “titan at the BBC” and an “extraordinary broadcaster.” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband says that “my generation grew up watching John Cole. He conveyed the drama and importance of politics.” The Scottish First MinisterAlex Salmond says that Cole is “an extremely able journalist but also extraordinarily helpful and generous to a young politician.” The BBC’s political editor at the time, Nick Robinson, writes that Cole “shaped the way all in my trade do our jobs.”
Flannery edits the Dominican bi-monthly journal entitled Doctrine and Life from 1958 to 1988, while at St. Saviour’s Priory, Dublin, where he also serves as prior from 1957 to 1960. He also edits the Religious Life Review. During and after the Second Vatican Council he makes available in English all the documents from the event.
From August 1969, Flannery is a member of the executive committee of the Northern Relief Coordination Committee, raising funds on behalf of the families of those interned without trial in Northern Ireland during the early 1970s.
Flannery embodies the post-Vatican II conception of the priest as a social catalyst engaged by the gospel, closer to his flock than to the clerical hierarchy. He has a great gift for friendship, is indefatigably interested in people, and courts religious affairs commentators and journalists at a time when the hierarchy ignores them, magnifying his influence.
Flannery dies of a heart attack on October 21, 2008, at Kiltipper Woods Care Centre, Dublin. Following a funeral mass at St. Saviour’s Priory, he is buried in the Dominican plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, on October 24, 2008.
Born in Newry, County Down, on February 24, 1921, Hall receives little more than a primary education as he leaves school at the age of twelve to work in a local shop. He later works as a waiter in London before moving to Dublin. On his return he joins the art department of the Irish Independent. He subsequently works with the Evening Herald where he writes a column on dance bands.
After that, Hall moves to RTÉ where he works in the newsroom. From 1964 to 1971 he presents Newsbeat, a regional news programme. He also presents The Late Late Show for the opening of the 1964 season, but his lack of success in that seat leads to the return of the previous presenter, Gay Byrne. When Newsbeat ends, he starts writing and presenting Hall’s Pictorial Weekly, a political satire show that runs for over 250 episodes until 1980. A successor show, Hall and Company, runs from 1980 until his retirement from television in 1986. He serves as spokesperson for the Irish jury in the Eurovision Song Contest 1965 and 1966.
Hall wins two Jacob’s Awards, in 1966 and 1975, for his work on Newsbeat and Hall’s Pictorial Weekly respectively.
In 1978, Hall is appointed Ireland’s national film censor. During his period as censor, he is known for his strict application of Irish censorship and his defence of family values. Among the films banned by him is Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which he describes as “offensive to Christians and to Jews as well, because it made them appear a terrible load of gobshites.”
Hall has a long running affair with a young colleague from RTÉ, though married to Aideen Kearney at the time. It is also widely accepted that he has a daughter in 1956 with RTÉ presenter Frankie Byrne, although this is disputed at the time by his family members. His relationship with Frankie Byrne is placed in the public domain in a Mint Productions programme, Dear Frankie, screened on RTÉ in January 2006. In 2010, a play written by Niamh Gleeson, also entitled Dear Frankie, opens in the Liberty Hall theatre. Later in 2012, it opens again in the Gaiety Theatre, going on to play in theatres across the country.
Hall dies of a heart attack in Dublin on September 21, 1995. He is buried in Dardistown Cemetery in Northside, Dublin.
seamus dubhghaill 