Five days earlier, Corcoran refuses tickets to a ball in the prince’s honor, telling those who invited him that he is “not desirous of joining in the festivity.”
As for the order to march, Corcoran says he refuses to ask the sons of Erin to honor the son of “a sovereign under whose reign Ireland was made a desert and her sons forced to exile.” He is also heard to refer to the prince as “the bald-faced son of our oppressor.”
Corcoran’s actions cause a firestorm of outrage around the country and especially in New York. U.S. citizens, most completely ignorant of the conditions under which many of these men had lived in British-controlled Ireland, see the actions of the men of the 69th Infantry Regiment as an insult to American hospitality in welcoming these immigrants to their adopted country, though in truth, the welcome is much less than lukewarm.
Corcoran has written his name forever in the pantheon of Irish heroes in America. New York’s Irish present the regiment with a green flag commemorating the event.
Corcoran is arrested and stripped of his command by New York and a court martial is planned. But before he can be tried on the charge, Fort Sumter is fired upon, and the country is more worried about saving the Union than honoring visiting princes. With the outbreak of war, the court martial is dropped and Corcoran is restored to his command because he had been instrumental in bringing other Irish immigrants to the Union cause.
Corcoran leads the 69th Infantry Regiment to Washington, D.C. and serves for a time in the Washington defenses building Fort Corcoran. On July 21, 1861, he leads the regiment into action at the First Battle of Bull Run with what is now called the “Prince of Wales Flag” flying proudly above his men.
After promotion to brigadier general, Corcoran leaves the 69th Infantry Regiment and forms the Corcoran Legion, consisting of at least five other New York regiments.
The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, unveils Ireland’s national monument to the Fighting 69th in Ballymote, County Sligo, on August 22, 2006. The monument is sculpted by Philip Flanagan. The inscription around the top of the monument reads “Michael Corcoran 1827–1863” Around the base is inscribed “New York Ballymote Creeslough Bull Run.” Underneath the monument is a piece of steel from the World Trade Center, donated by the family of Michael Lynch, who died in the tower on September 11, 2001. Lynch’s family are from County Sligo.
(Pictured: Michael Corcoran, Irish American general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and a close confidant of President Abraham Lincoln)
McCourt is the son of Irish parents Angela (née Sheehan) and Malachy McCourt. He is the last survivor of their seven offspring, following the death of his younger brother Alphonsus in 2016. He is raised in Limerick, County Limerick, and returns to the United States in 1952. He has four children: Siobhán, Malachy III, Conor, and Cormac, the latter two by his second wife, Diana. He also has a stepdaughter, Nina. He is portrayed by Peter Halpin in the film version of his brother’s memoir Angela’s Ashes. He is also one of the four founding members of the Manhattan Rugby Football Club in 1960. He appears in Frank McCourt’s memoirs.
In 1970, McCourt releases an album, And the Children Toll the Passing of the Day. Also, in the 1970s he hosts a talk show on WMCA.
In recent years McCourt occasionally appears on various programs on New York City’s political radio station, WBAI. Among the shows on which he appears is Radio Free Éireann. He is also a regular guest artist at the Scranton Public Theatre in Pennsylvania, having performed in Inherit the Wind, Love Letters and A Couple of Blaguards, which he co-wrote with brother Frank McCourt. Currently, he has been hosting a call-in radio forum on WBAI, airing on Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m. He also has a short-lived role as a Catholic priest on the HBO prison drama Oz. He is the owner of Malachy’s, a bar on Third Avenue in New York City. One of his frequent patrons was actor, and friend, the late Richard Harris, who although famous works for a short time behind the bar for McCourt. He plays Francis Preston Blair in Gods and Generals (2003).
McCourt has written two memoirs titled, respectively, A Monk Swimming and Singing My Him Song, detailing his life in Ireland and his later return to the United States. He has also authored a book on the history of the ballad Danny Boy, and put together a collection of Irish writings, called Voices of Ireland.
On April 18, 2006, McCourt announces that he will run as a Green Party candidate to become governor of New York in the November 2006 election. Running under the slogan “Don’t waste your vote, give it to me,” he promises to recall the New York National Guard from Iraq, to make public education free through college, and to institute a statewide comprehensive “sickness care” system. He polls at 5% in an October 10 Zogby poll, versus 25% for RepublicanJohn Faso and 63% for Democrat Eliot Spitzer. He is endorsed by Cindy Sheehan, mother of a fallen soldier in the Iraq War. The League of Women Voters exclude him from the gubernatorial debate. He comes in a distant third in the general election, receiving 40,729 votes (or just under 1%), 9,271 votes short of what is required to gain automatic access in the 2010 election.
Shiels is born on June 24, 1881, in Milltown, Ballybrakes, near Ballymoney, County Antrim, one of seven sons of Robert Shiels, a railway worker, and Eliza Shiels (née Sweeney), who also has one daughter. The family soon moves to Castle Street, Ballymoney, where he attends the local Roman Catholicnational school. His elder brothers emigrate to the United States when young. With there being no chance of further schooling even if he wanted it, he leaves Ireland when he is 19 years old. He works as a casual labourer in many places in western North America: as a farmworker and miner in Idaho and Montana, and as a lumber camp worker in British Columbia, Canada. In 1904 he is employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway to supervise a gang of workers who are building a stretch of railway in Saskatchewan. In a serious accident, he is badly injured. Despite surgery on his back, he is never able to walk again, and he receives a disability pension from the railway company.
After a long convalescence in Canada, Shiels returns to his mother’s house in Ballymoney around 1908. He sets up in business in Main Street as a shipping agent and as an agent for the Canadian Pacific Railway, taking bookings from intending emigrants. He is encouraged by his parish priest, Fr. John Hasson, by a local solicitor, Jack Pinkerton, and by James Pettigrew, a teacher, to write short stories. To try to preserve anonymity in a small community, he at first uses the pseudonym “George Morshiel,” and is successful with Western stories and other short fiction. His friends urge him to try writing dramas, and in 1918 Away from the Moss is produced by the Ulster Literary Theatre in Belfast.
After further success there with two short plays in which Shiels is learning his craft, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin accepts a one-act play, Bedmates, which is performed in January 1921. With great regularity for the next twenty years, he writes twenty-two plays for the Abbey Theatre. His work forms the basis of the repertoire in the 1920s and 1930s and attracts large audiences. Plays such as The New Gossoon (1930) provide Dublin theatregoers with entertainment, but also help form the style of acting and production which for many years characterises the Abbey and its actors. Three of his plays, Paul Twyning (1922), Professor Tim (1925) and The New Gossoon, are later performed in theatres in London and are also published in a 1945 volume, which is twice reprinted. Professor Tim, produced by the touring Abbey Theatre, receives enthusiastic reviews in Philadelphia, and The New Gossoon appears successfully on Broadway in New York City in 1932, 1934, and 1937.
Shiels’s earlier work is perhaps easiest for audiences to enjoy. Comedies such as Moodie in Manitoba (1918) portray characters so realistic that north Antrim people believe with some alarm that it might be possible to identify who Shiels had in mind when he created them, and he is at first somewhat less than popular in Ballymoney. He superbly reproduces local language and thoroughly understands the local way of life. Plays he writes late in his career are first performed by the Group Theatre in Belfast, and in these productions (and in the radio versions broadcast by the BBC) his work becomes widely known, almost beloved, in the north of Ireland. During the first half of the twentieth century amateur drama groups throughout Ireland are much more important in local life than they have been since the advent of television. Probably all such societies have at some time staged a Shiels play, and this tradition continues. His plays contain amusing dialogue, carefully crafted plots, and usually more or less happy endings.
However, Shiels’s later works, notably The Passing Day (1936), first broadcast as a radio play, and The Rugged Path (1940), which breaks all records at the Abbey Theatre in a run of three months, tackle darker subject matter and feature characters still less sympathetic even than the rogues and hypocrites of the earlier work. In The Rugged Path and its sequel, The Summit (1941), he explores the moral crisis facing Ireland after the political changes of the 1920s. One critic sees in it an allegory for the contemporary struggle against Adolf Hitler. His view of life in the small towns and farms of Ireland is never in the slightest rosy-tinted, but in the symbolism of The Passing Day, he achieves “bitter intensity” (The Irish Times review, quoted by Casey).
Shiels’s modesty leads him to refuse an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), in 1931. He is reticent about his experiences and beliefs and does little to foster his own reputation. In one early interview he expresses the belief that Ulster theatre needs dramatic material that reflects the psychology and setting of the region. His own work, at its best, achieves this and more. The very qualities which make his work popular in the north of Ireland permit some metropolitan literary critics to dismiss his plays as “kitchen comedies.” However, with the passage of time, his importance as a chronicler of a vanishing way of life can be set alongside the recognition due to him as a prolific and gifted dramatist.
Shiels suffers from a lengthy illness, and though he undergoes an operation in Ballymoney in 1949, dies soon afterwards at his house, New Lodge, in Carnlough, County Antrim, on September 19, 1949. He is buried in the graveyard of Our Lady and St. Patrick in Ballymoney. In the month that he dies, the Group Theatre and Garvagh Young Farmers’ Club are both rehearsing Shiels plays, and there have since been many productions of his plays in the north and elsewhere. Ballymoney Drama Festival presents a portrait of Shiels to the Abbey Theatre, and a new production of The Passing Day is staged there to celebrate his centenary in 1981.
McGarrity is born on March 28, 1874, in Carrickmore, County Tyrone. His family grows up in poverty, motivating his need to immigrate later in life. He grows up hearing his father discussing Irish politics, including topics such as the Fenians, the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and Irish Home Rule. By the time he is an adult, he has developed a keen interest in politics himself.
McGarrity immigrates to the United States in 1892 at the age of 18. He is reputed to have walked to Dublin before boarding a cattle boat to Liverpool disguised as a drover, and then sailing to the United States using a ticket belonging to someone else. He settles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and becomes successful in the liquor business. His business fails, however, on three occasions, twice due to embezzlement by his business partner.
In 1893 McGarrity joins Clan na Gael, an Irish organisation based in the United States committed to aiding the establishment of an independent Irish state. Clan na Gael had been heavily involved with the Fenian Brotherhood that McGarrity had grown up hearing about, and by the latter half of the 19th century had become a sister organisation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). In the decade just before McGarrity joins, Clan na Gael and the Fenian movement had waged the Fenian dynamite campaign, where they attempted to force the British state to make concessions in Ireland by bombing British infrastructure. However, this had caused a split within Clan na Gael that is not mended until seven years after McGarrity joins when, in 1900, the factions reunite and plead to support “the complete independence of the Irish people, and the establishment of an Irish republic.” In the years that follow the 1880s and 1890s, he is, amongst others, credited with helping to stitch the organisation back together and bring it renewed strength.
McGarrity helps sponsor several Irish Race Conventions and founds and runs a newspaper called The Irish Press from 1918-22 that supports the Irish War of Independence. He is the founder of the Philadelphia chapter of Clan Na Gael.
When Éamon de Valera arrives in the United States in 1919 they strike up an immediate rapport and McGarrity manages de Valera’s tour of the country. He persuades de Valera of the benefits of supporting him and the Philadelphia branch against the New York branch of the Friends of Irish Freedom organisation led by John Devoy and Judge Daniel F. Cohalan. He becomes president of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. He christens his newborn son Éamon de Valera McGarrity, although their relationship becomes strained upon de Valera’s entry back into Dáil Éireann in the Irish Free State.
The Irish Civil War sees a split in Clan na Gael just as it had split Sinn Féin back in Ireland. McGarrity and a minority of Clan na Gael members support the anti-treaty side but a majority support the pro-treaty side, including John Devoy and Daniel Cohalan. Furthermore, in October 1920 Harry Boland informs the Clan na Gael leadership that the IRB will be cutting their ties to the Clan unless the IRB is given more influence over their affairs. Devoy and Cohalan resist this, but McGarrity sees the Clan’s connection with the IRB as vital. While McGarrity’s faction is initially labelled “Reorganised Clan na Gael,” they are able to inherit total control of the Clan na Gael name as Devoy is not able to keep effective organisation of the group. In general, however, the in-fighting amongst the Irish on both sides of the Atlantic is quite disheartening for Irish Americans and in the years to come neither pro nor anti-treaty sides of Clan na Gael see much in the way of donations.
With the scope of Clan na Gael now narrowed, and Devoy and Cohalan removed from the picture, McGarrity becomes chairman of the organisation. He does not support the founding of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and opposes the party’s entry into the Dáil in 1927. Even after the Irish Civil War, he still supports the idea that a 32-county Irish Republic can be achieved through force. in the spring of 1926, he receives Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican ArmyAndrew Cooney to the United States. Cooney and Clan na Gael formally agree that each organisation will support the other and that Clan na Gael will raise funds, purchase weapons and build support for the IRA in the United States.
Going into the late 1920s though Clan na Gael, as are most Irish American organisations, is struggling. Having limped past the split caused by the Irish Civil War, the rejection of Fianna Fáil has caused a second split in the membership. Many Irish Americans see the IRA and Fianna Fáil as one and the same at that point and Clan na Gael and McGarrity’s hostility to them causes much friction.
By July 1929, the Clan’s membership in one of its strongholds, New York City, is down to just 620 paid members. Then in October of that same year Wall Street crashes and the Great Depression hits. In 1933 McGarrity is left almost bankrupt after he is found guilty of “false bookkeeping entries.” His livelihood is saved when he becomes one of the main ticket agents in the United States for the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake. He is a personal friend of Joseph McGrath, one of the founders of the Sweepstake. The sweepstakes allow him to turn his fortunes around.
Despite the trying times of both Clan na Gael and his personal life, McGarrity holds fast in his belief in physical force Irish Republicanism. In 1939 he supports the demand from Seán Russell for the “S-Plan” bombing campaign in Britain, which proves disastrous. He allegedly meets Hermann Göring in Berlin in 1939 to ask for aid for the IRA, which leads indirectly to “Plan Kathleen.”
McGarrity is a lifelong friend of fellow Carrickmore native and avid Republican, Patrick McCartan. When he dies on September 4, 1940 a mass is held in the St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. He remains an unrepentant physical force republican all his life. A number of McGarrity’s papers are in the National Library of Ireland. He donates his personal Library to Villanova University.
The IRA signs all its statements ‘J.J. McGarrity’ until 1969 when the organisation splits into the ‘Official‘ and ‘Provisional‘ movements. Thereafter the term continues to be used by the Officials while the Provisionals adopt the moniker ‘P.O’Neill.’
Dillon is born in Glanmire, County Cork, in 1830. As a child, he is injured in a heavy fall which results in curvature of the spine and general ill health. His family moves to a house near the corner of Old Youghal Road and Ballyhooly Road. He attends the School of Art for several years and becomes quite talented with brush and pencil. He lives through the Great Famine and becomes an ardent nationalist.
Dillon is appointed a Fenian leader in Cork by James Stephens, the head of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Under his supervision the Fenian recruits drill on the Fair Field and at Rathpeacon and are hoping for a rebellion in 1865 when the Fenians are at their strongest. He often associates with other Cork Fenians such as John J. Geary, James Mountaine and John Lynch. He chairs the Fenian meetings at Geary’s pub.
In September 1865, police arrest Fenian leaders James Stephens and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in Dublin, and Dillon in Cork. The police search his home and find a pair of field glasses, some drawings and some incriminating letters sewn into the mattress of his bed. He is remanded in Cork City Gaol until his trial.
On December 18, Dillon and another Cork Fenian, John Lynch, are tried together in the dock in Cork Courthouse by Judge Keogh. The charges are primarily based on information provided by an informer named John Warner, an ex-military pensioner. Isaac Butt and Mr. Waters represent the defendants. The charges are “in one indictment with having conspired to depose the Queen, &c., and with illegally drilling and being drilled in furtherance of that design.” Both are found guilty, based primarily on the testimony of informants, although John Warner’s account is very weak and unsatisfactory under cross-examination. The defendants are sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude.
Dillon is brought under armed guard by train from Cork to Dublin and then thrown into Mountjoy Gaol. He spends nearly a month there and suffers from lack of sleep. In January 1866, he and John Sarsfield Casey are handcuffed together on the tough and rough sea crossing between Kingstown and Holyhead. On arrival at Holyhead, they are then taken by train to Pentonville Prison. This is a very cold prison, and he becomes seriously ill in May 1866. He is transferred to the hospital wing of Woking Convict Invalid Prison, and this is to be his home for the next four-and-a-half years. Here he becomes Convict Number 2658.
In 1870, after five years imprisonment, a commission is set up to investigate the Fenian prisoners, and on account of his bad health, this commission recommends that Dillon be allowed home to Cork. In January 1871 he is transferred to Millbank PrisonLondon and is set free two weeks later on February 8. The following day he arrives in Dublin and after a few days’ rest, he returns to Cork by train. All along the route thousands of people wait on the platforms to greet him and read special addresses of welcome. The train reaches Cork at 8:00 p.m. and even though a carriage and pair are waiting, he is glad to seek refuge in the first covered car he can find, so dense is the crowd all around him wanting to shake his hand. The triumphal procession from the station to his home then begins and the hills all along the route are lighted with tar barrels.
Amid emotional scenes Dillon meets his family and afterwards appears at one of the windows of the house and thanks the people of Ireland for the great reception he has received everywhere on his journey home to Cork. He is now in very poor health and his mother begins the task of nursing him back to health. Everything that loving care and money could do is done, and from New York comes a cheque for £50 from the generous-hearted O’Donovan Rossa. Other friends also contribute, but all to no avail. On Saturday, August 17, 1872, he dies at his home surrounded by his sorrowing relatives.
Dillon’s funeral is one of the biggest ever seen in Cork. The cortege is headed by the Barrack Street Band, and at least ten other bands take part. All have their instruments dressed in sombre black. On Monday, August 18, his remains are privately borne to St. Joseph’s cemetery, to a temporary resting place, as it has been decided to build a vault in the family burial ground in Rathcooney which will not be ready for a few days. Later the funeral route travels from Turners Cross along Anglesea Street, South Mall, Grand Parade, Patrick Street, McCurtain Street and St. Luke’s. The funeral procession stops outside his home and prayers are recited for the repose of his soul. The procession then moves on toward Ballyvolane and up the steep hill toward the graveyard at Rathcooney. On arrival at the newly built tomb, so dense is the crowd milling around the hearse that considerable difficulty is experienced in getting the coffin to the grave. The priests then read the burial service, and, in a hushed silence, Canon Freeman asks the entire assembly to kneel and recite the Lord’s Prayer aloud. He blesses the grave, and the mortal remains of Brian Dillon are lowered to rest. The coffin is then covered, and after Colonel Ricard O’Sullivan Burke‘s oration, the crowd quietly disperses.
Today Dillon’s name is inscribed in the National Monument on the Grand Parade and in street names like Dillon’s Cross, Brian Dillon Park and Brian Dillon Crescent. The Brian Dillons GAA club in the same area of Cork city is also named after him.
Cooney is encouraged to become a professional fighter by his father. His brother, Tommy Cooney, is also a boxer and reaches the finals of the New York Golden Gloves Sub-Novice Heavyweight division. His grandparents lived in Placentia, Newfoundland, in Canada.
Fighting as an amateur, Cooney wins international tournaments in England, Wales, and Scotland, as well as the New York Golden Gloves titles. He wins two New York Golden Gloves Championships, defeating Larry Derrick to win the 1973 160-lb Sub-Novice Championship and Earlous Tripp to win the 1976 Heavyweight Open Championship. In 1975 he reaches the finals of the 175-lb Open division, but is defeated by Johnny Davis. He trains at the Huntington Athletic Club in Long Island, New York, where his trainer is John Capobianco. His amateur record consists of 55 wins and 3 losses.
When Cooney turns professional, he signs with co-managers Mike Jones and Dennis Rappaport. He is trained by Victor Valle. Known for his big left-hook and his imposing size, he has his first paid fight on February 15, 1977, beating Billy Jackson by a knockout in one round. Nine wins follow and he gains attention as a future contender, although his opponents are carefully chosen. He moves up a weight class and fights future world cruiserweight champion S. T. Gordon in Las Vegas, winning by a fourth round disqualification. He has eleven more wins, spanning 1978 and 1979. Among those he defeats are Charlie Polite, former U.S. heavyweight champion Eddie Lopez, and Tom Prater. These are not rated contenders, however.
By 1980, Cooney is being featured on national television. Stepping up, he beats one-time title challengers Jimmy Young and Ron Lyle, both by knockout. The Young fight is stopped because of cuts sustained by Young. By then Cooney is ranked number 1 by the World Boxing Council (WBC) and eager for a match with champion Larry Holmes.
In 1981, Cooney defeats former world heavyweight champion Ken Norton by knockout just 54 seconds into the first round with a blisteringly powerful attack. This ties the record set in 1948 by Lee Savold for the quickest knockout in a main event in Madison Square Garden. Since his management team is unwilling to risk losing a big future pay day with Holmes by having him face another viable fighter, Cooney does not fight for 13 months after defeating Norton.
The following year, Holmes agrees to fight Cooney with the fight held on June 11, 1982. With a purse of ten million dollars for the challenger, it is the richest fight in boxing history to that time. The promotion of the fight takes on racial overtones that are exaggerated by the promoters, something Cooney does not agree with. He believes that skill, not race, should determine if a boxer is good. However, if he wins, he would become the first Caucasian world heavyweight champion since SwedeIngemar Johansson defeated Floyd Patterson 23 years earlier. Don King calls Cooney “The Great White Hope.” The bout draws attention worldwide, and Larry Holmes vs. Gerry Cooney is one of the biggest closed-circuit/pay-per-view productions in history, broadcast to over 150 countries.
Cooney fights bravely after he is knocked down briefly in the second round. He is fined three points for repeated low blows. After 12 rounds, the more skillful and experienced Holmes finally wears him down. In round 13, his trainer, Victor Valle, steps into the ring, forcing the referee to stop the fight. Two of the three judges would have had Cooney ahead after the 12th round if it were not for the point deductions. He and Holmes become friends after the fight, a relationship that endures for them. On December 14, 1982, he fights Harold Rice, the heavyweight champion of Connecticut, in a four-round bout. No winner is declared, so he tells the crowd following the bout, “This is only an exhibition. I’m sorry if I disappointed anybody. I’m trying to work myself back in shape so I can knock out Larry Holmes. Everything is OK. I felt a little rusty, but that is normal. It has been a while. I felt good in front of the people.”
After a long layoff, Cooney fights in September 1984, beating Phillip Brown by a 4th-round knockout in Anchorage, Alaska. He fights once more that year and wins, but personal problems keep him out of the ring.
Although Cooney fights only three official bouts in five years following his loss to Holmes, in 1987 he challenges former world heavyweight and world light heavyweight champion Michael Spinks in a title bout. He appears past his prime and Spinks, boxing carefully with constant sharp counters, knocks him out in the fifth round. His last fight is in 1990. He is knocked out in a match-up of power-punching veterans in two rounds by former world champion George Foreman. He does stagger Foreman in the first round, but he is over-matched, and Foreman knocks him out two minutes into the second round.
The losses to Holmes, Spinks, and Foreman exposes Cooney’s Achilles’ heel: his inability to clinch and tie up his opponent when hurt. In the Foreman fight, he rises from a second-round knockdown and stands in the center of the ring as Foreman delivers the coup de grâce.
Cooney compiles a professional record of 28 wins and 3 losses, with 24 knockouts. Not a single one of his fights ever goes the distance in a 12 or 15-round match. He is ranked number 53 on The Ring‘s list of “100 Greatest Punchers of All Time.”
Cooney founds the Fighters’ Initiative for Support and Training, an organization which helps retired boxers find jobs. He is deeply involved in J.A.B., the first union for boxers. He becomes a boxing promoter for title bouts featuring Roberto Durán, Héctor Camacho, and George Foreman. He is a supporter of the “hands are not for hitting” program, which tries to prevent domestic violence. He guides young fighters in the gym. In June 2010, he becomes the co-host of “Friday Night at the Fights” on Sirius XM radio.
Cooney resides in Fanwood, New Jersey, with his wife Jennifer and two of their three children, Jackson and Sarah. His son Chris resides in New York. He has been inducted into the Hall of Fame at Walt Whitman High School (New York), where he graduated.
Meagher is born on August 3, 1823, at Waterford, County Waterford, in what is now the Granville Hotel on the Quay. He is educated at Roman Catholicboarding schools. When he is eleven, his family sends him to the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare. It is at Clongowes that he develops his skill of oratory, becoming at age 15 the youngest medalist of the Debating Society. After six years, he leaves Ireland for the first time, to study in Lancashire, England, at Stonyhurst College, also a Jesuit institution. He returns to Ireland in 1843, with undecided plans for a career in the Austrian army, a tradition among a number of Irish families.
Meagher becomes a member of the Young Ireland Party in 1845 and in 1847 is one of the founders of the Irish Confederation, dedicated to Irish independence. In 1848 he is involved, along with William Smith O’Brien, in an abortive attempt to mount an insurrection against English rule. Arrested for high treason, he is condemned to death, but his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment in Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania.
Meagher escapes in 1852 and makes his way to the United States. After a speaking tour of U.S. cities, he settles in New York City, studies law and is admitted to the bar in 1855. He soon becomes a leader of the Irish in New York and, from 1856, edits the Irish News.
At the close of the war, Meagher is appointed secretary of Montana Territory where, in the absence of a territorial governor, he serves as acting governor.
In the summer of 1867, Meagher travels to Fort Benton, Montana, to receive a shipment of guns and ammunition sent by General William Tecumseh Sherman for use by the Montana Militia. On the way to Fort Benton, the Missouri River terminus for steamboat travel, he falls ill and stops for six days to recuperate. When he reaches Fort Benton, he is reportedly still ill.
Sometime in the early evening of July 1, 1867, Meagher falls overboard from the steamboat G. A. Thompson, into the Missouri River. His body is never recovered. Some believe his death to be suspicious and many theories circulate about his death. Early theories included a claim that he was murdered by a Confederate soldier from the war, or by Native Americans. In 1913 a man claims to have carried out the murder of Meagher for the price of $8,000 but then recants. In the same vein, American journalist and novelist Timothy Egan, who publishes a biography of Meagher in 2016, claims Meagher may have been murdered by Montana political enemies or powerful and still active vigilantes. On the frontier men are quick to kill rather than adjudicate. A similar theory shown on Death Valley Days (1960) has him survive the assassination attempt because his aide had been mistakenly murdered when he accepted one of his trademark cigars, and Meagher uses his apparent death as leverage over his political opponents.
Bateman attends Bangor Grammar School leaving at the age of 16 when he is hired by Annie Roycroft to join the County Down Spectator as a “cub” reporter, then columnist and deputy editor. A collection of his columns is published as Bar Stool Boy in 1989.
Bateman has been writing novels since his debut, Divorcing Jack, in 1994. Divorcing Jack wins a Betty Trask Award in the same year and is adapted into a 1998 film starring David Thewlis. Several of his novels feature the semi-autobiographical Belfast journalist, Dan Starkey.
Bateman’s book Murphy’s Law is adapted from the BBC television series Murphy’s Law (2001–2007), featuring James Nesbitt. He explains on his website that “Murphy’s Law was written specifically for James Nesbitt, a local actor who became a big TV star through Cold Feet. The ninety-minute pilot for Murphy’s Law on BBC One was seen by more than seven million people, and led to three TV series, on which I was the chief writer.”
Bateman’s eight-part series Scúp is written in English and translated into Irish. It is produced by Stirling Productions and BBC Northern Ireland. A second series has since been commissioned.
Richards is born to John William Richards, a lawyer, and Adelaide Roper, suffragist who had chained herself to the railings in St. Stephen’s Green. She goes to school at Alexandra College, Dublin, and after that she attends a finishing school in Paris. Though her family is not in the arts, her godmother is Beatrice Elvery. Shes attends Elvery’s salons with her parents as a child. She meets W. B. Yeats when she is sixteen. Her niece, Geraldine Fitzgerald, daughter of her sister, Edith Catherine Richards, is also one of Ireland’s pre-eminent actresses.
Richards’s acting career starts while attending the Dublin drama league and she is asked at short notice to replace Eileen Crowe in Juno and the Paycock, playing the role of Mary Boyle in the Abbey Theatre production. Richards gets the role of Nora Clithero in the 1926 production of The Plough and the Stars, Seán O’Casey‘s next production. This role means that she ends up with police protection for the duration of the run due to the disturbances the play engenders. Another important role is to take on playing the lead in The Player Queen by Yeats. Maire O’Neill had previously made the role her own and Yeats had let no one perform the part since then so taking on such a challenge is intimidating. Richards continues to take on leading roles with the Abbey Theatre but in 1926 she also begins to direct.
On December 28, 1928, Richards marries playwright Denis Johnston in St. Anne’s Church in Dublin. She tours the United States with the Abbey players in 1932 and with the Irish Players in the mid 1930s. A role in 1938 in Molly Keane‘s Spring Meeting starring Gladys Cooper and A. E. Matthews takes her to Broadway in New York City. War in Europe breaks out while the run is still going on and Richards is advised to stay in the United States. However, by then she has two children, producer Micheal and novelist Jennifer Johnston, so she returns to Dublin. There she runs her own theater company at the Olympia Theatre with Nigel Heseltine. Her marriage to Johnston, broken in 1938, ends with divorce in February 1945.
In 1961 Ireland launches its first television service, Raidió Teilifís Éireann. Richards is one of the first producers, recommended to the station by Hilton Edwards. She is one of the few women in the new station. The first Irish play produced during the opening week is directed by her and she is nominated for a Best Actress award in another production, Inquiry at Lisieux. She works as producer on a wide number of programs for the station including documentaries, soap operas and religious programming. Both Tolka Row and The Riordans are produced by her as well as Denis Johnston’s The Moon on the Yellow River, George Bernard Shaw‘s Arms and the Man and John Millington Synge‘s Riders to the Sea.
Richards retires from her RTÉ career in the early 1970s though she continues to raise funds for the Gate Theatre through the Edwards–MacLiammóir Playhouse Society. In 1983, for her 80th birthday, the Abbey puts on a party for her which includes a special rendition of “Nora” from The Plough and the Stars. Richards is the last living member of the original 1926 cast. The song is repeated at her funeral in 1985. She died in Ballybrack, County Dublin, on January 19, 1985. Her funeral is held in St. Anne’s Church in Dublin and she is cremated in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Gleeson is the daughter of Irish-born Edward Moloney Gleeson, a medical doctor, and Harriet (née Simpson), from Bolton, Lancashire. Her father has a practice in Knutsford but on a trip to Ireland he is struck by the poverty and unemployment and, with the advice of his brother-in-law, a textile manufacturer in Lancashire, he founds the Athlone Woollen Mills in 1859, investing all his money in the project. The family moves to Athlone in 1863, but Gleeson is educated in England, where she trains as a teacher. She later studies portraiture in London at the Atelier Ludovici from 1890–92. She goes on to study design with Alexander Millar, a follower of William Morris, who believes she has an exceptional aptitude for colour-blending. Many of her designs are bought by the exclusive Templeton Carpets of Glasgow.
Gleeson takes a keen interest in Irish affairs and, as a member of the Gaelic League and the Irish Literary Society, mixes with the Yeats family and the Irish artistic circle in London and is inspired by the Gaelic revival in art and literature. She is also involved in the suffrage movement and is chairwoman of the Pioneer Club, a women’s club in London. In 1900, an opportunity arises to make a practical contribution to the Irish renaissance and the emancipation of Irish women. She is suffering from ill-health, but her friend Augustine Henry, botanist and linguist, suggests she move away from the London smog to Ireland and open a craft centre with his financial assistance. She seizes the opportunity and discusses her plans with her friends the Yeats sisters, Elizabeth and Lily, who are talented craftswomen and have direct contact with William Morris and his followers. They have no money to contribute to the venture but are enthusiastic and can offer their skills and provide contacts. She seeks advice from W. B. and Jack Yeats, from Henry, who loans her £500, and from her cousin, T. P. Gill, secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.
During the summer of 1902 Gleeson finds a suitable house in Dundrum, County Dublin, ten minutes from the railway station. The house, originally called Runnymede, is renamed Dun Emer, after the wife of Cú-Chulainn, renowned for her craft skills. The printing press arrives in November 1902, and soon three craft industries are in operation. Lily Yeats runs the embroidery section, since she had trained with Morris’s daughter May. Elizabeth Yeats operates the press, having learned printing at the Women’s Printing Society in London. Gleeson manages the weaving and tapestry and looks after the financial affairs of the industries. W. B. Yeats acts as literary adviser, an arrangement that often causes friction, and Gleeson’s sister, Constance McCormack, is also involved.
Local girls are employed and trained, and the industries seek to use the best of Irish materials to make beautiful, high-quality, lasting products of original design. Church patronage accounts for most of their orders and, in 1902–03, Loughrea cathedral commissions twenty-four embroidered banners portraying Irish saints. They also make vestments, traditional dresses, drapes, cushions and other items, all beautifully crafted and mostly employing Celtic design. The first book published is In the Seven Woods (1903), by W. B. Yeats, cased in full Irish linen.
Gleeson is in demand as an adjudicator in craft competitions around the country and at Feis na nGleann in 1904 she praises the workmanship of the entries but is critical of the lack of teaching in design. She gives lectures and tries to raise the status of craftwork from household occupation to competitive industry. There are tensions with the Yeats sisters, who complain that she is bad-tempered and arrogant. In truth she had taken on too much of a financial burden, even with the support of grants, and she is anxious to repay her debt to Augustine Henry, which he is prepared to forego. The sisters snub her and omit her name in an interview about Dun Emer in the magazine House Beautiful. Millar, her design teacher in London, likens the omission to Hamlet without the prince. In 1904, it is decided to split the industries on a cooperative basis: Dun Emer Guild Ltd. under Gleeson and Dun Emer Industries Ltd. under the Yeats sisters.
Work continues, and the guild and industries exhibit separately at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and other craft competitions. In 1907, the National Museum of Ireland commissions a copy of a Flemish tapestry. It takes far longer than anticipated to complete, but the result is beautiful and is exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland in 1910. The guild wins a silver medal at the Milan International exhibition in 1906. The guild and industries both show work at the New York exhibition of 1908. The guild alone shows work in Boston. By now cooperation has turned to rivalry, and there is a final split as the Yeats sisters leave, taking the printing press with them to their house in Churchtown, Dublin. Gleeson writes off a debt of £185 owed to her, on condition that they do not use the name Dun Emer.
The business thrives at Dundrum, with her niece Katherine (Kitty) MacCormack and Augustine Henry’s niece, May Kerley, assisting with design. Later they move the workshops to Hardwicke Street, Dublin. In 1909, Gleeson becomes one of the first members of the Guild of Irish Art Workers and is made master in 1917. The Irish Women Workers’ Union commissions a banner from her about 1919, and, among numerous other notable successes, a Dun Emer carpet is presented to Pope Pius XI in 1932, the year of the Eucharistic Congress of Dublin.
Gleeson dies at the age of 89 at Dun Emer on February 20, 1944, with Kitty carrying on the Guild after her death. The final home of Dun Emer is a shop on Harcourt Street, Dublin, which finally closes in 1964.
(From: “Gleeson, Evelyn” by Ruth Devine, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
seamus dubhghaill 