The RMS Royal Adelaide, captained by John Batty, leaves Cork fully laden with cargo and about 250 passengers on Wednesday, March 27,1850, touching off at Plymouth, Devon, England, on Thursday evening. By the time the ship leaves Plymouth for London at 3:00 a.m. on Friday, March 29, there are almost three hundred deck passengers.
The ship is totally lost at about 11:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 30 on Tongue Sands north of Margate, Kent, England, with the loss of all on board. News only reaches London late on Sunday as the river pilot waiting for the ship happens to meet a Deal, Kent, pilot, Charles Gillham, who reports seeing a ship of a similar description in distress the previous evening (The Illustrated London News, April 6 and 13, 1850).
The dead include more than one hundred fifty deck passengers from Ireland, during a time when the Great Famine is at its height.
(Pictured: “The Wreck of the Royal Adelaide,” illustration for The Illustrated London News, April 13, 1850)
Jack “Legs” Diamond, an Irish Americangangster in Philadelphia and New York City during the Prohibition era also known as John Nolan and Gentleman Jack, is born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1897, to Sara and John Moran, who emigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia in 1891. A bootlegger and close associate of gambler Arnold Rothstein, he survives a number of attempts on his life between 1916 and 1931, causing him to be known as the “clay pigeon of the underworld.” In 1930, his nemesis Dutch Schultz remarks to his own gang, “Ain’t there nobody that can shoot this guy so he don’t bounce back?”
In 1899, Diamond’s younger brother Eddie is born. He and Eddie both struggle through grade school, and their mother suffers from severe arthritis and other health problems. She passes away on December 24, 1913, following complications brought on by a bacterial infection and a high fever. John Moran then moves his family to Brooklyn, New York.
Diamond soon joins a Manhattan street gang called the Hudson Dusters. His first arrest for burglary occurs when he breaks into a jewelry store on February 4, 1914. He serves in the United States Army in World War I but is convicted and jailed for desertion in 1918 or 1919. He serves two years of a three- to five-year sentence at Leavenworth Military Prison. After being released in 1921, he becomes a hired thug and later personal bodyguard for crime boss Arnold Rothstein.
Diamond is known for leading a rather flamboyant lifestyle. He is an energetic individual, his nickname “Legs” derived either from his being a good dancer or from how fast he could escape his enemies. His wife Alice is never supportive of his life of crime but does not do much to dissuade him from it. He is a womanizer, with his best-known mistress being a showgirl and dancer, Marion “Kiki” Roberts.
In the late 1920s, Prohibition is in force, and the sale of beer and other alcoholic beverages is illegal in the United States. Diamond travels to Europe to acquire beer and narcotics but fails. However, he does obtain liquor, which is dumped overboard in partially full barrels that float to Long Island as ships enter New York Harbor. He pays children a nickel for every barrel they bring to his trucks.
Following the death of Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen, Diamond oversees illegal alcohol sales in downtown Manhattan via the Hotsy Totsy Club, an establishment partly owned by Diamond on Broadway. This work brings him into conflict with Dutch Schultz, who wants to move beyond his base in Harlem. He also runs into trouble with other gangs in the city. On July 14, 1929, he and fellow gang member Charles Entratta shoot three drunken brawlers in the Hotsy Totsy Club. Two of the brawlers, William Cassidy and Simon Walker, are killed, while the survivor, Peter Cassidy, is severely wounded. The club’s bartender, three waiters, and the hat check girl vanish, with one of them being found shot dead in New Jersey. He is not charged but is forced to close the club.
In 1930, Diamond and two henchmen kidnap truck driver Grover Parks in Cairo, New York, demanding to know where he had obtained his load of hard cider. When Parks denies carrying anything, Diamond and his men beat and tortured Parks, eventually letting him go. A few months later, he is charged with the kidnapping of James Duncan. He is sent to Catskill, New York, for his first trial, but is acquitted. However, he is convicted in a federal case on related charges and sentenced to four years in jail. He is tried in December 1931 in Troy, New York, also for kidnapping, and is once again acquitted.
On August 23, 1930, Diamond, under the false name John Nolan, boards the ocean liner SS Belgenland, bound for Europe. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) suspect that he might have left the U.S. aboard RMS Olympic or RMS Baltic, but he is not found on either ship when they reach Europe. The NYPD then sends a wireless telegraph message to the crew of SS Belgenland, who reply that a man similar to Diamond’s description is among the passengers. Diamond spends much of the voyage in the ship’s smoking-room playing poker, with one report claiming that he won thousands of dollars in this game. The SS Belgenland‘s officers, however, refute this, saying his winnings were small.
The NYPD telegraphs police in England, France and Belgium with the warning that Diamond is an undesirable character. When SS Belgenland reaches Plymouth on August 31, Scotland Yard officers tell Diamond he will not be allowed to land in England. He tells reporters that he wants to travel to the French spa town of Vichy for “the cure.” He disembarks in Antwerp on September 1, where Belgian police take him to their headquarters. Eventually, he agrees to voluntarily leave Belgium and is put on a train to Germany. When his train reaches Aachen, German police arrest him. On September 6, the German government decides to deport Diamond. He is driven to Hamburg and put on the cargo ship Hannover for passage to Philadelphia.
On September 23, Hannover arrives in Philadelphia, and Diamond is immediately arrested by the Philadelphia police. At a court hearing that day, the judge says he will release him if he leaves Philadelphia within the hour. Diamond agrees.
On October 24, 1924, Diamond is shot and wounded by shotgun pellets, reportedly after trying to hijack liquor trucks belonging to a rival crime syndicate.
On October 16, 1927, Diamond tries to stop the murder of “Little Augie” Orgen. His brother Eddie is Orgen’s bodyguard, but Diamond substitutes for Eddie that day. As Orgen and he are walking down a street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, three young men approach them and start shooting. Orgen is fatally wounded, and Diamond is shot twice below the heart. He is taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he eventually recovers. Police interview him in the hospital, but he refuses to identify any suspects or help the investigation in any way. Police initially suspect that he is an accomplice and charge him with homicide, but the charge is dropped. The assailants are supposedly hired by Lepke Buchalter and Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, who are seeking to encroach on Orgen’s garment-district labor rackets.
On October 12, 1930, Diamond is shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello on Manhattan’s West Side. Two men force their way into his room and shoot him five times. Still in his pajamas, he staggers into the hallway and collapses. When asked later by the police commissioner how he managed to walk out of the room, he says he drank two shots of whiskey first. He is rushed to the Polyclinic Hospital, where he eventually recovers. He is discharged from Polyclinic on December 30, 1930.
On April 21, 1931, Diamond is arrested in Catskill on assault charges for the Parks beating in 1930. Two days later, he is released from the county jail on $25,000 bond. Five days later, he is again shot and wounded at the Aratoga Inn, a roadhouse near Cairo. After eating in the dining room with three companions, he is shot three times and collapses by the front door. A local resident drives him to a hospital in Albany, where he eventually recovers. On May 1, while he is still in the hospital, the New York State Police seize over $5,000 worth of illegal beer and alcohol from his hiding places in Cairo and at the Aratoga Inn.
In August 1931, Diamond and Paul Quattrocchi go on trial for bootlegging. The same month, he is convicted and sentenced to four years in state prison. In September 1931, he appeals his conviction.
On December 18, 1931, Diamond’s enemies finally catch up with him. He is staying in a rooming house on Dove Street in Albany while on trial for kidnapping in Troy. On the night of his acquittal, December 17, he and his family and friends visit a restaurant in Albany. At 1:00 a.m., he and mistress, Marion “Kiki” Roberts, entertain themselves at the Rain-Bo Room of the Kenmore Hotel on North Pearl Street.
At 4:30 a.m., Diamond drunkenly goes back to the rooming house and passes out on his bed. Two gunmen enter his room about an hour later. One man holds Diamond down and the other shoots him three times in the back of the head.
There is much speculation as to who is responsible for the murder. Likely candidates include Schultz, the Oley Brothers, the Albany Police Department, and relatives of Red Cassidy, another Irish American gangster at the time. According to author William Kennedy in his book O Albany, Dan O’Connell, who runs the local Democraticpolitical machine, orders Diamond’s execution, which is carried out by the Albany police.
Given the power that the O’Connell machine holds in Albany and its determination to prevent organized crime, other than their own, from threatening their monopoly of vice in the city, some accept this account of the story. For those believing this theory, William Fitzpatrick’s promotion to chief of police is said to be a reward for executing Diamond. In 1945, Chief Fitzpatrick is shot and killed in his own office by John McElveney, an Albany police detective. McElveney is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He is released in 1957 when his sentence is commuted by GovernorW. Averell Harriman.
On December 23, 1931, Diamond is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens. There is no church service or graveside ceremony. Family and spectators numbering 200 attend the interment. No criminal figures are spotted.
On July 1, 1933, Alice Kenny Diamond, Diamond’s 33-year-old widow, is found shot to death in her Brooklyn apartment. It is speculated that she is shot by Diamond’s enemies to keep her quiet.
Thomas (Tom) Steele, engineer and political activist, is born on November 3, 1788, at Derrymore, County Clare, the son of William Steele, gentleman, and Catherine Steele (née Bridgeman).
In July 1805 Steele enters Trinity College Dublin, graduating BA in the spring of 1810. He then studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduates MA in 1820, becoming an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in the same year. In 1821 he inherits Cullane House, near Craggaunowen, County Clare, on the death of his uncle. Of an enthusiastic and adventurous nature, in 1823 he decides to support the cause of the liberals in Spain who had rebelled against the autocratic rule of Ferdinand VII in 1820. Mortgaging the house and lands at Cullane, he purchases a large quantity of arms and ships them to Spain on board the ship Iris. Commissioned in the Legion Estrenjera of the liberal army, he distinguishes himself in the Battle of Trocadero and the defence of Madrid. He later publishes an account of his experiences, Notes on the war in Spain (London, 1824).
Returning from Spain with his fortunes ruined, Steele begins experiments with underwater diving apparatus, patenting “Steele’s improved diving-bell” in 1825. In the same year he becomes a partner in the Vigo Bay Co., which attempts to recover gold and silver bullion from Spanish ships which sank in Vigo Bay in 1702. After extensive diving operations using Steele’s diving-bell, the company is wound up at an acrimonious meeting of shareholders in September 1826. Despite claims by some of the shareholders that bullion had been found, the scheme is a total failure.
Steele is involved in the Catholic Association and, a close friend of Daniel O’Connell, is active in the emancipation campaign although himself a protestant. In 1828 he seconds O’Connell’s nomination for Clare in the general election of that year. Appointed by O’Connell as ‘Head Pacificator,’ he tours the country collecting weapons and discouraging the rural population from engaging in faction fighting. There is a certain irony in this appointment, as Steele’s own volatile temper is well known. A noted duelist, he fights an inconclusive duel in 1829 with William Smith O’Brien, who had opposed O’Connell’s second candidature for County Clare. In 1828 he is a founder of the Limerick Independent Club.
An associate of the diving pioneers John and Charles Deane, Steele dives on the wreck of the Intrinsic, off the Clare coast in January 1836, using their new diving helmet. He then begins developing equipment to provide underwater illumination, and in 1840 dives with the Deane brothers off Plymouth on the wreck of Henry VIII‘s ship, the Mary Rose. Yet he is in serious financial difficulties, which are not helped by some of his more eccentric building projects. It is said of him that “he seemed utterly incapable of rationally estimating the value of money in his own case.” He begins renovating, at great expense, a ruined castle that stands on his land at Cullane. He also later has a large standing stone, known as the ‘Umbilicus Hiberniae’ (‘Navel of Ireland’), removed from Birr, King’s County (now County Offaly), and taken to his house. At Cullane it is set up as an altar and used for mass whenever O’Connell or members of the Catholic Association visit. It is not returned to Birr until 1974.
Known as “Honest Tom Steele,” Steele is deeply devoted to O’Connell, and is one of his key lieutenants during the repeal campaigns of the 1830s and 1840s. He takes his title and responsibilities as O’Connell’s “Head Pacificator” so seriously and generally expresses himself with such long-winded pomposity that he becomes something of a figure of fun for opponents of O’Connell and for many of the younger men in the Repeal Association. Tried on conspiracy charges after the prohibition of the Clontarf monster meeting, he is one of the six “traversers” imprisoned with O’Connell in Richmond jail from May to September 1844. Strongly supporting O’Connell’s repudiation of physical force, he chairs and takes a prominent part in the peace resolution debates of July 1846 in which the Young Ireland group walks out of the Repeal Association.
After the death of O’Connell on May 15, 1847, Steele falls into a deep depression and, financially ruined, jumps from Waterloo Bridge in London on April 19, 1848. Pulled from the river by a Thames boatman, he survives for a number of weeks. Former political opponents, including Lord Brougham, offer financial help but he refuses. He dies on June 15, 1848, and his remains are taken to Dublin, where he is waked at Conciliation Hall, the headquarters of the Repeal Association, on Burgh Quay. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, beside O’Connell’s tomb. He appears as one of the figures on the O’Connell memorial in O’Connell Street, Dublin.
Steele never marries but harbours an unrequited passion for a Miss Eileen Crowe of Ennis, County Clare, and is often to be seen standing on a large rock, which comes to be known as “Steele’s Rock,” on the banks of the River Fergus in Ennis as he tries to catch a glimpse of Miss Crowe, who lives across the river.
(From: “Steele, Thomas (Tom)” by David Murphy, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie | Pictured: (L to R) Thomas Steele, Daniel O’Connell and O’Gorman Mahon by Joseph Patrick Haverty)
Molesworth Phillips, sailor and companion of Captain James Cook, is born in Swords, County Dublin on August 15, 1755.
Phillips is the son of John Phillips of Swords. His father is a natural son of Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, whence Phillips acquires his Christian name. He first enters the Royal Navy, but on the advice of his friend Sir Joseph Banks he accepts a commission as second lieutenant in the Royal Marines on January 17, 1776. In this capacity he is selected to accompany Captain Cook on his last voyage, extending over nearly three years. He sails with Cook from Plymouth on July 12, 1776, and is with the marines who escort Cook when he lands at Hawaii on February 14, 1779.
In John Webber‘s painting “The Death of Captain Cook” Phillips is represented kneeling and firing at a native who is clubbing Cook. Phillips is himself wounded, but, after swimming back to the boat, he turns back and helps another wounded marine to the boats.
On November 1, 1780, Phillips is promoted to captain. On January 10, 1782, he marries Susanna Elizabeth, third daughter of Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814), and sister of Frances Burney and of James Burney, Phillips’s friend, who, like him, had accompanied Cook on his last voyage. He has no further active service, but is promoted brevetmajor on March 1, 1794, and brevet lieutenant colonel on January 1, 1798. From 1784, for the sake of his wife’s health, he lives for a time at Boulogne, but after the French Revolution he resides chiefly at Mickleham, Surrey, not far from Juniper Hall, where Frances Burney entertains numbers of French emigres. From 1796 to 1799, during the alarm of a French invasion of Ireland, Phillips feels it his duty to reside on the Irish estates at Beleotton, which he had inherited from an uncle. On January 6, 1800, his wife dies.
After the Treaty of Amiens, Phillips visits France in 1802, and he is one of those who are seized by Napoleon on the renewal of the war. He is detained in France until the peace of 1814. During this detention he makes friends with the Prince of Talleyrand and other well-known Frenchmen. After his return to England, he becomes acquainted with Robert Southey, Mary and Charles Lamb, who describe him as “the high-minded associate of Cook, the veteran colonel, with his lusty heart still sending cartels of defiance to old Time,” and with John Thomas Smith (1766-1833), whom he supplies with various anecdotes for his Nollekens and his Times.
Phillips dies of cholera at his house in Lambeth on September 11, 1832, and is buried in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, where an inscription commemorates him and James and Martin Burney (1788-1852).
(Pictured: Etching of Molesworth Phillips by Andrew Geddes, circa 1825, bequeathed by Frederick Leverton Harris, 1927, National Portrait Gallery, London)
A worse-than-expected storm on the third day of the race wreaks havoc on over 303 yachts that started the biennial race resulting in 24 yachts being abandoned, of which five are lost and believed to be sunk due to high winds and severe sea conditions. The nineteen fatalities consist of fifteen yachtsmen and four spectators.
Rescue efforts begin after 6:30 AM on August 14, once the winds drop to severe gale Force 9 on the Beaufort scale. Emergency services, naval forces, and civilian vessels from around the west side of the English Channel are summoned to aid what becomes the largest ever rescue operation in peacetime. This involves some 4,000 people, including the entire Irish Naval Service‘s fleet, lifeboats, commercial boats, tugs, trawlers, tankers and helicopters.
The handicap winner is the yacht Tenacious, designed by Sparkman & Stephens, owned and skippered by Ted Turner. The winner on elapsed time in the race is the 77-foot Condor of Bermuda, skippered by Peter Blake, which gains around 90 minutes on the leader at the Fastnet rock, the Kialoa IV, by chancing a spinnaker. Jim Kilroy of the Kialoa IV has broken his ribs and there is damage to the yacht’s runners. Condor of Bermuda breaks the Fastnet record by nearly eight hours (71h 25m 23s).
The disaster results in a major rethink of racing, risks and prevention.
(Pictured: Memorial to those who died in the 1979 Fastnet Race, Lissarnona, Cape Clear Island, Cork, Ireland)
The British become aware of Conyngham’s plans and manage to maneuver him out of his ship with the help of the Dutch. After the loss of his ship, he heads back to France, hoping to connect with an ally to the United States. It is there he meets Benjamin Franklin, who helps him in his adventures many times in the future. They form a lasting relationship, and Conyngham eventually awards Franklin the nickname “the Philosopher” for his intellectual fortitude and resourcefulness. Franklin is entrusted with several commissions of the Continental Navy, and on March 1, 1777, Conyngham is appointed Captain of the luggerSurprise.
Conyngham scores a first victory that would warm the heart of any Irishmen, capturing the British merchant shipPrince of Orange on May 3, 1777. Later that year he is commissioned a captain in the Continental Navy and given command of the USS Revenge. He begins a series of highly successful raids into British waters from the port of Dunkirk, thus earning his sobriquet “The Dunkirk Pirate.”
In 1778 Conyngham sets sail for the West Indies and terrorizes British vessels there before finally returning to Philadelphia on February 21, 1779. He and his men had claimed 60 prize vessels in just 18 months. When he sets sail again his luck runs out and his ship is captured by the British vessel HMS Galatea on April 27, 1779. Conyngham was taken to prison in England and treated harshly by his British captors.
After two failed escape attempts, Conyngham tunnels his way out of Mill Prison in Plymouth and manages to make his way to the continent. He joins John Paul Jones on a cruise on the Alliance before returning to the United States. He is captured by the British again in March 1780 and spends another year in Mill Prison.
After the war Conyngham fails in his efforts to continue his naval career or to gain recognition from the United States Congress for his service during the war. He had lost the commission papers given to him by colonial representatives in Paris in 1777. It is said that he assists in the defense of Philadelphia against his old British foes during the War of 1812.
Gustavus Conyngham dies in Philadelphia seven years later on November 27, 1819. Nearly a century later, John Sanford Barnes, a retired navy captain and naval historian, acquires a cache of autographs and documents from a sale by Charavay of Paris. In the collection is Conyngham’s commission from Benjamin Franklin. Barnes publishes his discovery in September 1902, proving that the “Dunkirk Pirate” had never been a pirate at all, but one of the first heroes of the United States Navy.
(Pictured: Captain Gustavus Conyngham, Continental Navy. Painting by V. Zveg, 1976, based on a miniature by Louis Marie Sicardi. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.)
seamus dubhghaill 