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Gerry Adams & Hillary Clinton Meet in New York City

On March 16, 2015, the eve of Saint Patrick’s Day, two ascendant politicians—one from Ireland, one from the United States—meet in a ballroom at the Essex House, in New York City. Hillary Clinton is there to be inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame, in recognition of her “outstanding leadership” in bringing peace to Northern Ireland during the 1990s, when her husband was president of the United States. Gerry Adams, the president of the Irish Republican political party Sinn Féin, is there because for many Americans he is a living symbol of that peace. One of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland that is known as the Troubles, he is very popular in the United States and makes regular trips here to raise funds for his party. According to a report in The Irish Times, Sinn Féin has raised twelve million dollars in the United States over the prior two decades, from construction companies, labor unions, and movie stars like Anjelica Huston and Martin Sheen.

Adams, however, remains a polarizing figure in Ireland. Though he is a longtime figurehead of the Republican movement, he insists that he was never a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and that he played no role in the violence of the Troubles. Some people in Ireland do not actually believe this story, and, in recent years leading up to this meeting, some of his former compatriots in the Republican movement have said that he authorized a series of wartime atrocities, including the murder and secret burial of Jean McConville, a mother of ten. Adams denies these claims, and generally derides those who ask questions about his past as political foes with an agenda or opponents of the peace process.

“I remember very well when the request came, back in 1993, that my husband approve a visa for Gerry Adams,” Clinton told the crowd at the Essex House. Bill Clinton granted the visa, which was a controversial move at the time, because of Adams’s alleged association with the IRA, but also a crucial moment in the peace process, because it helped cement Adams’s transformation from a revolutionary to a statesman. “Absent that first step, that first risk, we might not have had the momentum to move forward, to get to the Good Friday accords and all that has followed,” Clinton said.

There is no way of knowing whether Clinton, dressed in Kelly green, felt any distaste at the prospect of sharing a table with Adams. There is some thirty-five million Irish Americans, a great many of whom regard Adams as a kind of Nelson Mandela, and no prospective presidential candidate can decline a Saint Patrick’s Day invitation. And to be sure, the IRA is not alone in standing accused of atrocities during the Troubles. Loyalist paramilitary groups and British government forces also perpetrated war crimes for which they have not been brought to account. But Clinton does indicate, obliquely, that the transition in Northern Ireland is not entirely complete. “There is still work to be done,” Clinton acknowledges. “You cannot bring peace and security to people just by signing an agreement.” The question for the people of Northern Ireland, and for Adams’s supporters in the United States, is whether you can bring enduring peace and security without some reckoning—by all parties in the conflict—with the crimes of the past.

(From: “Gerry Adams and Hillary Clinton in New York” by Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, http://www.new yorker.com, March 17, 2015 | Photo: Hillary Clinton at a previous meeting with Gerry Adams at the State Department in 2009. Photograph by Mark Wilson/Getty)


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Enda Kenny Meets Barack Obama & Joe Biden in Washington, D.C.

On March 15, 2016, acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny is in Washington, D.C. for the traditional festivities to mark Saint Patrick’s Day.

Kenny holds a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. This is President Obama’s last Saint Patrick’s Day in the White House and, pending government formation negotiations, it may also be Kenny’s last as Taoiseach. Obama criticises the vicious nature of the current U.S. political cycle and pledges to continue to push for immigration reform while he is still in office. He is speaking as he attends several engagements with Kenny to mark Saint Patrick’s Day.

Earlier in the day at a breakfast reception at Number One Observatory Circle, the official residence of the vice president of the United States, Kenny tells Vice President Joe Biden that Ireland will be able to put together a stable government during the next “short period ahead.” The recent General Election is mentioned several times during speeches from both men. Biden says that he is surprised at the outcome saying “he did a hell of a job, is still the most popular guy, and he lost.” Biden says Kenny had assured him that it was “going to work out.”

The traditional Speaker’s Lunch to mark Saint Patrick’s Day is hosted for the first time by Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

In the evening, Kenny presents the traditional bowl of shamrock to Obama at a reception at the White House. The bowl is mouth-blown and hand-cut at the House of Waterford Crystal factory in Ireland. The piece is designed by Tom Cooke and inspired by the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin. It features the five themes of the Irish 2016 Centenary Programme – Remembering, Reconciling, Presenting, Imagining and Celebrating – which are inscribed on the piece.

Kenny also presents Obama with a pair of cufflinks modeled on the buttons of the coat Michael Collins was wearing when he was killed, and a limited-edition, fine-press collection of poetry and art, to celebrate the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, published by Stoney Road Press, in association with An Post and Poetry Ireland. First Lady Michelle Obama receives a ring designed by Paul Kelly, inspired by the Ring of Kerry, and a hamper of Irish food items. Daughters Malia and Sasha Obama are given two Newbridge Silverware compact mirrors.

Speaking to reporters after visiting the Oval Office, Kenny says Fine Gael is talking to like-minded parties and individuals on government formation and is working on drawing-up a set of priorities. “We’re actually determining our set of priorities that will be important in the discussions that Fine Gael will have in putting together a government. Some of that comes from our own programme, some of it comes from the parties and the alliances that we’ve been talking to. And some of it clearly comes from the concerns raised by people during the course of the election, like housing and homelessness, health issues and so on.”

Kenny adds, “We expect to have that finalised next week and that gives us really the basis for negotiations and for discussions about putting a government together.”

The following day, Kenny returns to Ireland for a short time before traveling to Brussels for a European Council meeting on Saint Patrick’s Day.

(From: “Kenny meets Obama and Biden in Washington,” RTÉ News, http://www.rte.ie, March 15, 2016)


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Birth of Garret FitzGerald, Eighth Taoiseach of Ireland

Garret Desmond FitzGerald, Fine Gael politician, economist and barrister who serves twice as Taoiseach (1981 to 1982 and 1982 to 1987), is born into a very politically active family in Ballsbridge, Dublin on February 9, 1926, during the infancy of the Irish Free State. He serves as Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 1965 to 1969, a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1969 to 1992, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1973 to 1977, Leader of Fine Gael from 1977 to 1987 and twice Leader of the Opposition between 1977 and 1982.

FitzGerald’s father, Desmond FitzGerald, is the Free State’s first Minister for External Affairs. He is educated at the Jesuit Belvedere College, University College Dublin and King’s Inns, Dublin, and qualifies as a barrister. Instead of practicing law, however, in 1959 he becomes an economics lecturer in the department of political economy at University College, Dublin, and a journalist.

FitzGerald joins Fine Gael, attaching himself to the liberal wing of the party. and in 1969 is elected to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. He later gives up his university lectureship to become Minister for Foreign Affairs in the coalition government of Liam Cosgrave (1973–1977). When the coalition government is resoundingly defeated in the 1977 Irish general election, Cosgrave yields leadership of Fine Gael to FitzGerald. In his new role as Leader of the Opposition and party leader, he proceeds to modernize and strengthen the party at the grass roots. He briefly loses power in 1982 when political instability triggers two snap elections.

By the time of the 1981 Irish general election, Fine Gael has a party machine that can easily match Fianna Fáil. The party wins 65 seats and forms a minority coalition government with the Labour Party and the support of a number of Independent TDs. FitzGerald is elected Taoiseach on June 30, 1981. To the surprise of many FitzGerald excludes Richie Ryan, Richard Burke and Tom O’Donnell, former Fine Gael stalwarts, from the cabinet.

In his prime ministry, FitzGerald pushes for liberalization of Irish laws on divorce, abortion, and contraception and also strives to build bridges to the Protestants in Northern Ireland. In 1985, during his second term, he and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sign the Anglo-Irish (Hillsborough) Agreement, giving Ireland a consultative role in the governing of Northern Ireland. After his party loses in the 1987 Irish general election, he resigns as its leader and subsequently retires in 1992.

On May 5, 2011, it is reported that FitzGerald is seriously ill in a Dublin hospital. Newly elected Fine Gael Taoiseach Enda Kenny sends his regards and calls him an “institution.” On May 6 he is put on a ventilator. On May 19, after suffering from pneumonia, he dies at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin at the age of 85.

In a statement, Irish President Mary McAleese hails FitzGerald as “a man steeped in the history of the State who constantly strove to make Ireland a better place for all its people.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny pays homage to “a truly remarkable man who made a truly remarkable contribution to Ireland.” Henry Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State, who serves as an opposite number to FitzGerald in the 1970s, recalls “an intelligent and amusing man who was dedicated to his country.”

FitzGerald’s death occurs on the third day of Queen Elizabeth II‘s state visit to the Republic of Ireland, an event designed to mark the completion of the Northern Ireland peace process that had been “built on the foundations” of FitzGerald’s Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher in 1985. In a personal message, the Queen offers her sympathies and says she is “saddened” to learn of FitzGerald’s death.

On his visit to Dublin, United States President Barack Obama offers condolences on FitzGerald’s death. He speaks of him as “someone who believed in the power of education; someone who believed in the potential of youth; most of all, someone who believed in the potential of peace and who lived to see that peace realised.”

FitzGerald is buried at Shanganagh Cemetery in Shankill, Dublin.

FitzGerald is the author of a number of books, including Planning in Ireland (1968), Towards a New Ireland (1972), Unequal Partners (1979), All in a Life: An Autobiography (1991), and Reflections on the Irish State (2003).


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General Patrick Cleburne Commands Division in the Battle of Stones River

Irish-born Confederate States Army General Patrick Cleburne commands a division in the Battle of Stones River, also known as the Second Battle of Murfreesboro, one of the fiercest battles of the Western theater of the American Civil War. The battle takes place in Middle Tennessee from December 31, 1862 to January 2, 1863.

In early December 1862, the transfer of Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner creates a vacancy for a division command in General Braxton Bragg‘s Army of Tennessee. There is no man in that Army who can breathe a word against the promotion of Patrick Ronayne Cleburne to that post, nor the promotion to major general that goes with it. Usually the months of December and January are quiet times, with soldiers in winter camps, but Union Major General William S. Rosecrans intends to drive Bragg’s army from Tennessee, winter or not.

Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland marches from Nashville, Tennessee, on December 26, 1862, to challenge Bragg’s Army of Tennessee at Murfreesboro. Bragg awaits his advance along Stones River, just west of Murfreesboro.

On December 31, each army commander plans to attack his opponent’s right flank, but Bragg has a shorter distance to go and thus strikes first. Cleburne’s division is on the Confederate left. A massive assault by the corps of Major General William J. Hardee, followed by that of Leonidas Polk, overruns the wing commanded by Major General Alexander M. McCook and drives the corps from the field. Union General Thomas Crittenden, observing from a distance, says it is the first time the Army of the Cumberland has ever seen such panic.

A stout defense by the division of Brigadier General Philip Sheridan in the right center of the line prevents a total collapse, and the Union assumes a tight defensive position backing up to the Nashville Turnpike. Repeated Confederate attacks are repulsed from this concentrated line, most notably in the cedar “Round Forest” salient against the brigade of Colonel William B. Hazen. Bragg attempts to continue the assault with the division of Major General John C. Breckinridge, but the troops are slow in arriving and their multiple piecemeal attacks fail.

Later, Confederate Corps commander William Hardee expresses his belief that had a fresh division followed up Cleburne’s, Rosecrans entire army would have been routed. Night falls, however, and the two armies bring in the New Year sleeping on their arms. Rosecran’s army is badly whipped, but it stays put on January 1st.

Bragg is cautious and only probes to discover if the Union army is still there. The Union army has fortified their position to the west of the river, in front of Cleburne. Bragg decides to attack them east of the river. Fighting resumes on January 2, 1863, when Bragg orders Breckinridge to assault a lightly defended Union position on a hill to the east of the Stones River. Chasing the retreating Union forces, this attack is successful at first, but they are led into a deadly trap. Faced with overwhelming artillery, the Confederates are repulsed with heavy losses. Bragg chooses to withdraw his army on January 3 to Tullahoma, Tennessee. Though his army has abandoned the field, Cleburne’s performance in his first battle as a major general has been outstanding. His eventual rise to corps command seems certain, but factors away from the battlefield prevent that.

The battle ends in a victory for the Union army following the Confederate army’s withdrawal on January 3, largely due to a series of tactical miscalculations by Confederate General Braxton Bragg, but the victory is costly for the Union army. Nevertheless, it is an important victory for the Union because it provides a much-needed boost in morale after the Union’s recent defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg and also reinforces President Abraham Lincoln‘s foundation for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which ultimately discourages European powers from intervening on the Confederacy’s behalf.


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Death of James Hoban, Irish American Architect

James Hoban, Irish American architect best known for designing the White House in Washington, D.C., dies in Washington, D.C., on December 8, 1831.

Hoban is a Roman Catholic raised on the Desart Court estate belonging to the Earl of Desart near Callan, County Kilkenny. He works there as a wheelwright and carpenter until his early twenties, when he is given an “advanced student” place in the Dublin Society‘s Drawing School on Lower Grafton Street. He studies under Thomas Ivory. He excels in his studies and receives the prestigious Duke of Leinster‘s medal for drawings of “Brackets, Stairs, and Roofs” from the Dublin Society in 1780. He is an apprentice to Ivory, from 1779 to 1785.

Following the American Revolutionary War, Hoban emigrates to the United States, and establishes himself as an architect in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1785.

Hoban is in South Carolina by April 1787, where he designs numerous buildings including the Charleston County Courthouse (1790–92), built on the ruins of the former South Carolina Statehouse, which was burned in 1788. President George Washington admires Hoban’s work on his Southern Tour and may have met with him in Charleston in May 1791. Washington summons the architect to Philadelphia, the temporary national capital, in June 1792.

In July 1792, Hoban is named winner of the design competition for the White House. His initial design has a 3-story facade, nine bays across, like the Charleston courthouse. Under Washington’s influence, he amends this to a 2-story facade, eleven bays across, and, at Washington’s insistence, the whole presidential mansion is faced with stone. It is unclear whether any of Hoban’s surviving drawings are actually from the competition.

It is known that Hoban owns at least three slaves who are employed as carpenters in the construction of the White House. Their names are recorded as “Ben, Daniel, and Peter” and appear in a James Hoban slave payroll.

Hoban is also one of the supervising architects who serves on the United States Capitol, carrying out the design of Dr. William Thornton, as well as with The Octagon House. He lives the rest of his life in Washington, D.C., where he works on other public buildings and government projects, including roads and bridges.

Local folklore has it that Hoban designed Rossenarra House near the village of Kilmoganny in County Kilkenny in 1824.

Hoban’s wife, Susanna “Susan” Sewall, is the sister of the prominent Georgetown City Tavern proprietor, Clement Sewall, who enlists as a sergeant at age 19 in the Maryland Line during the Revolutionary War, is promoted six months later to ensign and then severely wounded at the Battle of Germantown.

After the District of Columbia is granted limited home rule in 1802, Hoban serves on the twelve-member city council for most of the remainder of his life, except during the years he is rebuilding the White House. He is also involved in the development of Catholic institutions in the city, including Georgetown University, St. Patrick’s Parish, and the Georgetown Visitation Monastery founded by another Kilkenny native, Teresa Lalor of Ballyragget.

Hoban dies in Washington, D.C., on December 8, 1831. He is originally buried at Holmead’s Burying Ground, but is disinterred and reburied at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C. His son, James Hoban, Jr., said to closely resemble his father, serves as district attorney of the District of Columbia.

(Pictured: Portrait of James Hoban, Irish architect, wax bas-relief on glass, attributed to John Christian Rauschner, circa 1800)


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The Fenian Invasion of Canada

On June 1, 1866, a group of Fenian soldiers cross the border from the United States into Canadian territory. The events of the so-called Fenian invasion of Canada leave the organisation utterly discredited and cause much dismay among Irish American communities.

The roots of the invasion go back to 1865 when the Fenians in the United States break into two factions, one headed by William Roberts and the other by John O’Mahony, a founding member of the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States. It is the Roberts wing which proposes a Fenian invasion of Canada. A number of facts are put forward by Roberts and others in support of this plan. In 1865 there are tens of thousands of battle-hardened Irish veterans of the American Civil War, as well as many officers from both the Union and Confederate armies. It is initially proposed to utilise these soldiers for an incursion into Canada that would be timed to coincide with a revolution in Ireland, thus causing Great Britain to be engaged in two widely separated theatres of war.

When it becomes apparent that the hoped-for rising in Ireland is not going to take place, the goal of the invasion is changed. The Fenians now hope that they can engineer a border incident that will entangle British forces in a war with the United States.

At the time the U.S. Government has a fractious relationship with their British counterparts, a remnant of the British Empire‘s partiality towards the Confederacy during the American Civil War. During the war the British Government comes close to granting diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy and British shipyards provide raiding vessels such as the notorious USS Alabama to the South. While this ill-feeling is unlikely to lead to full-scale conflict, the U.S. Government is in no mood to provide any aid to the British in Canada. President Andrew Johnson is aware of the Fenian’s plans but does little to hinder them.

The two competing Fenian factions launch separate operations. In April 1866, the O’Mahony wing attempts to seize Campobello Island near New Brunswick but the Fenian attackers are easily dispersed by U.S. naval forces. The Roberts wing launches its attack on Canada under the command of a civil war veteran, General John Charles O’Neill, on June 1, 1866.

General O’Neill leads a force of over one thousand men into Canadian territory near Fort Erie, Ontario. His invading army has some initial success, winning two engagements including the so-called Battle of Ridgeway with around ten fatalities (with a similar number on the Canadian side). O’Neill’s troops keep their discipline and local civilians are respected, as are Canadian prisoners of war. One soldier, Lance Corporal William Ellis, later writes, “the Fenians treatment of myself and the other prisoners was kind and considerate in the extreme.”

Yet, O’Neill is aware that far larger Canadian forces are approaching and on June 3 feels it prudent to take his army back to American territory, while they await reinforcements. However, the U.S. government is now fearful that events are spiralling out of control. Once back across the border, O’Neill’s army is met by American troops who intervene to prevent the Fenians from making any further attacks. Over the following days the Fenian army is broken up by American forces. O’Neill is arrested by U.S. Marshals and temporarily incarcerated. A second, smaller, incursion into Canada follows on June 6 but this, too, makes little headway. This second Fenian army is also broken up by U.S. forces when back on American soil. By June 8 the Fenian invasion of Canada is over.

The whole invasion demonstrates the futility of the Fenian strategy. It proves that the Canadians would fight to preserve their territory and that they could mobilise thousands of their population to do so. There is little hope that the Fenians could muster the required number of troops necessary to seize and then to hold Canadian territory. Most importantly, there could be no doubt now that the U.S. Government would not, despite its tempestuous relationship with the British Empire, offer any support to a Fenian invasion. Nor would the U.S. Government allow itself to be embroiled in a border war with British or Canadian forces. Nevertheless, these lessons are ignored by some Fenians for whom the idea of attacking Canada is a worthwhile objective over the following few years.

In 1870 another convention takes place amid more internal wrangling within the Brotherhood. There, a decision is made to launch a new attack on Canada. Once again John O’Neill commands the Fenians, among whose army is John Boyle O’Reilly, a young journalist. O’Reilly makes detailed reports on the invasion, an event that proves disastrous for Fenianism in the United States.

(From: “The Fenian Invasion Of Canada, 1866” by Ian Kenneally, The Irish Story, http://www.theirishstory.com)


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Brig. Gen. Thomas Smyth Mortally Wounded in the American Civil War

Thomas Alfred Smyth, a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, is mortally wounded in a battle near Farmville, Virginia, on April 7, 1865. He dies two days later. He is the last Union general killed in the war.

Smyth is born on December 25, 1832 in Ballyhooly, Cork County, and works on his father’s farm as a youth. He emigrates to the United States in 1854, settling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He participates in William Walker‘s expedition to Nicaragua. He is employed as a wood carver and coach and carriage maker. In 1858, he moves to Wilmington, Delaware.

Smyth is a Freemason. He is raised on March 6, 1865 in Washington Lodge No. 1 in Wilmington, Delaware.

Smyth enlists in 1861 in the Union Army in an Irish American three-months regiment, the 24th Pennsylvania, and quickly makes the rank of captain. He is later commissioned as major of the 1st Delaware Infantry, a three-years regiment. He serves at the battles of Fredericksburg (following which he is promoted to lieutenant colonel and then to colonel) and Chancellorsville. During the Gettysburg campaign, he commands the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division of the II Corps. During the Battle of Gettysburg, his men help defend Cemetery Ridge and advance to the area of the Bliss farm to oust enemy sharpshooters. He is wounded on the third day of the battle and relinquishes command briefly.

Smyth retains brigade command during the reorganization of II Corps before General Ulysses S. Grant‘s Overland Campaign. He leads the second brigade of the first division from March 25 to May 17, 1864. When Col. Samuel S. Carroll is wounded, Smyth is transferred to his command, the third brigade of second division, the Gibraltar Brigade. In October 1864, he is promoted to brigadier general during the Siege of Petersburg. He retains command of his brigade throughout the siege.

Between July 31, 1864 and August 22, 1864 and between December 23, 1864 and February 25, 1865, Smyth commands the 2nd division of the corps. On April 7, 1865 near Farmville, Virginia, he is shot through the mouth by a Confederate sniper, with the bullet shattering his cervical vertebrae and paralyzing him. He dies two days later at Burke’s Tavern, the same day Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his army surrender at Appomattox Court House.

On March 18, 1867, President of the United States Andrew Johnson nominates Smyth for posthumous appointment to the grade of brevet major general of volunteers to rank from April 7, 1865, the date he was mortally wounded, and the United States Senate confirms the appointment on March 26, 1867. Smyth is the last Union general killed or mortally wounded during the war, and is buried in Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware.


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Death of Supreme Court Judge Adrian Hardiman

Adrian Hardiman, Irish judge who serves as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland from 2000 to 2016, dies in Portobello, Dublin, on March 7, 2016. He writes a number of important judgments while serving on the Court. He also presides, as does each Supreme Court judge on a rotating basis, over the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Hardiman is born on May 21, 1951, in Coolock, Dublin. His father is a teacher and President of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI). He is educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, and University College Dublin, where he studies history, and the King’s Inns. He is president of the Student Representative Council at UCD and Auditor of the Literary and Historical Society (UCD) and wins The Irish Times National Debating Championship in 1973.

Hardiman is married to Judge Yvonne Murphy, from County Donegal, a judge of the Circuit Court between 1998 and 2012, who conducts important inquiries relating to sex abuse including the Murphy Report and the Cloyne Report. She serves as chair of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation. They have three sons, Eoin, who is a barrister and has been a member of the Mountjoy Prison Visiting Committee, Hugh, who is a personal assistant to Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell, and Daniel, a doctor.

Hardiman joins Fianna Fáil while a student in University College Dublin, and stands unsuccessfully for the party in the local elections in Dún Laoghaire in 1985. In 1985, he becomes a founder member of the Progressive Democrats, but leaves the party when he is appointed to the Supreme Court. He remains very friendly with the former party leader and ex-Tánaiste, Michael McDowell, who is a close friend at college, a fellow founding member of the party, and best man at his wedding.

Hardiman is called to the Irish Bar in 1974 and receives the rare honour of being appointed directly from the Bar to Ireland’s highest court. Prior to his elevation to the Supreme Court in 2000, he has a successful practice as a barrister, focusing on criminal law and defamation.

Politically, Hardiman supports the liberal side in Ireland’s debates over abortion, being active in the “anti-amendment” campaign during the 1982 Abortion Referendum and later represents the Well Woman Centre in the early 1990s. After his death, he is described by Joan Burton as a liberal on social issues. But he could be an outspoken opponent of Political Correctness, such as when he rejects the Equality Authority‘s attempt to force Portmarnock Golf Club to accept women as full members. He also believes that certain decisions, such as those involving public spending, are better left to elected politicians rather than unelected judges, regardless of how unpopular that might sometimes be in the media (which he tends to hold in low esteem) and among what he describes as the “chattering classes.”

Hardiman’s concern for individual rights is not confined to Ireland. In February 2016, he criticizes what he describes as the radical undermining of the presumption of innocence, especially in sex cases, by the methods used in the UK‘s Operation Yewtree inquiry into historical sex allegations against celebrities, and he also criticizes “experienced lawyer” and then United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for allegedly declaring in January that “every accuser was to be believed, only to amend her view when asked if it applied to women who had made allegations against her husband”, former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

In a tribute following his death in 2016, President Michael D. Higgins says Justice Hardiman “was one of the great legal minds of his generation”, who was “always committed to the ideals of public service.” He is described as a “colossus of the legal world” by Chief Justice Susan Denham.

One commentator writes that “Hardiman’s greatest contribution …was the steadfast defence of civil liberties and individual rights” and that “He was a champion of defendants’ rights and a bulwark against any attempt by the Garda Síochána to abuse its powers.”


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Birth of John Morrissey, Irish American Politician & Boxing Champion

John Morrissey, Irish American politician, bare-knuckle boxing champion and criminal also known as ‘Old Smoke,’ is born on February 12, 1831 at Templemore, County Tipperary.

Morrissey is the only son among eight children of Timothy Morrissey, factory worker, and Julia (or Mary) Morrissey. In 1834 the family emigrates to Canada and then the United States, settling at Troy, New York. From the age of ten he works, first in a mill, and then as an iron worker due to his size and strength. He becomes involved in various street gangs, developing a reputation as a pugilist of great strength and resolve. As leader of the Down-Town gang, he defeats six members of the rival Up-Town gang in a single afternoon in 1848. He takes work on a Hudson River steamer and marries Sarah Smith, daughter of the ship’s captain, around 1849. They have one child who dies before reaching adulthood.

In a New York saloon Morrissey challenges Charley ‘Dutch’ Duane to a prize fight and, when he is not to be found, with typical bravado he extends the challenge to everyone present. This impresses the owner, Isaiah Rynders, the Tammany Hall politician, and he employs Morrissey to help the Democratic Party, which involves intimidating voters at election time. A fistfight with gang rival Tom McCann earns him the nickname ‘Old Smoke.’ Mid-fight he is forced onto a bed of coals, but despite having his flesh burned, refuses to concede defeat. He fights his way back and beats McCann into unconsciousness. Stowing away to California to challenge other fighters, he begins a gambling house to raise money, and embarks on a privateering expedition to the Queen Charlotte Islands in a quixotic attempt to make his fortune.

In his first professional prize fight on August 21, 1852, Morrissey defeats George Thompson at Mare Island, California, in dubious circumstances, and begins calling himself the ‘champion of America.’ However, it is only on October 12, 1853 that he officially earns this title, when he wins the heavyweight championship of America in a bout at Boston Corner, New York, against Yankee Sullivan. The fight lasts thirty-seven rounds, and Morrissey has the worst of most of them, but he is awarded the contest after a free-for-all in the ring.

Increasingly involved in New York politics, Morrissey and his supporters fight street battles against the rival gang of William Poole, known as ‘Bill the Butcher,’ a Know Nothing politician later fictionalised in the film Gangs of New York (2002). On July 26, 1854 the two men fight on the docks, but Morrissey is beaten badly and forced to surrender. This marks the beginning of a bitter feud between the two parties, with heavy casualties on both sides, which climaxes on March 8, 1855 when Poole is murdered. Morrissey is indicted as a conspirator in the crime, but is soon released because of his political connections.

On October 20, 1858 Morrissey fights John C. Heenan (1835–73) in another heavyweight championship bout. Heenan breaks his hand early in the fight and is always at a disadvantage. After taking much punishment Morrissey finally makes his dominance count. There is a rematch on April 4, 1859, which Morrissey again wins, and after this he retires from the ring. Investing his prize money, he runs two saloons and a gambling house in New York. With the huge profits from his gambling empire he invests in real estate in Saratoga Springs, New York, opening the Saratoga Race Course there in 1863 which has endured to become America’s oldest major sports venue.

A political career beckons as a reward for Morrissey’s consistent support for the Democratic Party. He is elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1866 representing New York’s fifth district, is re-elected the following year, and serves until March 3, 1871. He supports President Andrew Johnson against demands for his impeachment and is skeptical about the Radicals’ plans for reconstruction in the south. In his final years he serves in the New York State Senate (1875–78).

After contracting pneumonia, Morrissey dies at the Adelphi Hotel, Saratoga Springs, on May 1, 1878, and is buried at Saint Peter’s Cemetery, Troy. On the day of his funeral, flags at New York City Hall are lowered to half-mast, while the National Police Gazette declares on May 4, 1878 that “few men of our day have arisen from beginnings so discouraging to a place so high in the general esteem of the community.” His name is included in the list of ‘pioneer’ inductees in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, and each year the John Morrissey Stakes are held at Saratoga Race Course in honour of its founder.

(Pictured: John Morrissey, U.S. Representative from New York, circa 1870s, source Library of Congress)


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Birth of Joe Doherty, Former Provisional Irish Republican Army Volunteer

Joe Doherty, former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), is born on January 20, 1955 in New Lodge, Belfast.

The son of a docker, Doherty is born into an Irish republican family, his grandfather being a member of the Irish Citizen Army which fought against British rule in the 1916 Easter Rising. Doherty leaves school at the age of 14 and begins work on the docks and as an apprentice plumber, before being arrested in 1972 on his seventeenth birthday under the Special Powers Act. He is interned on the prison ship HMS Maidstone and at Long Kesh Detention Centre, and while interned hears of the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry, where 14 civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British Army. This leads to him joining the IRA after he is released in June 1972. In the mid-1970s he is convicted of possession of explosives and sentenced to six years imprisonment in Long Kesh. He is released in December 1979.

After his release, Doherty becomes part of a four-man active service unit nicknamed the “M60 gang” due to their use of an M60 heavy machine gun, along with Angelo Fusco and Paul Magee. On April 9, 1980 the unit lures the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) into an ambush on Stewartstown Road, killing one constable and wounding two others. On May 2 the unit is planning another attack and has taken over a house on Antrim Road, when an eight-man patrol from the Special Air Service (SAS) arrive in plain clothes, after being alerted by the RUC. A car carrying three SAS members goes to the rear of the house, and another car carrying five SAS members arrives at the front of the house. As the SAS members at the front of the house exit the car, the IRA unit opens fire with the M60 machine gun from an upstairs window, hitting Captain Herbert Westmacott in the head and shoulder. Westmacott, who is killed instantly, is the highest-ranking member of the SAS killed in Northern Ireland. The remaining SAS members at the front, armed with Colt Commando automatic rifles, submachine guns and Browning pistols, return fire but are forced to withdraw. Magee is apprehended by the SAS members at the rear of the house while attempting to prepare the IRA unit’s escape in a transit van, while the other three IRA members remain inside the house. More members of the security forces are deployed to the scene and, after a brief siege, the remaining members of the IRA unit surrender.

The trial of Doherty and the other members of the M60 gang begins in early May 1981, on charges including three counts of murder. On June 10, Doherty and seven other prisoners, including Angelo Fusco and the other members of the IRA unit, take a prison officer hostage at gunpoint in Crumlin Road Gaol. After locking the officer in a cell, the eight take other officers and visiting solicitors hostage, also locking them in cells after taking their clothing. Two of the eight wear officers’ uniforms while a third wears clothing taken from a solicitor, and the group moves towards the first of three gates separating them from the outside world. They take the officer on duty at the gate hostage at gunpoint, and force him to open the inner gate. An officer at the second gate recognises one of the prisoners and runs into an office and presses an alarm button, and the prisoners run through the second gate towards the outer gate. An officer at the outer gate tries to prevent the escape but is attacked by the prisoners, who escape onto Crumlin Road. As the prisoners are moving towards the car park where two cars are waiting, an unmarked RUC car pulls up across the street outside Crumlin Road Courthouse. The RUC officers open fire and the prisoners return fire before escaping in the waiting cars. Two days after the escape, Doherty is convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum recommended term of thirty years.

Doherty escapes across the border into the Republic of Ireland, and then travels to the United States on a false passport. He lives with an American girlfriend in Brooklyn and New Jersey, working on construction sites and as a bartender at Clancy’s Bar in Manhattan, where he is arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on June 28, 1983. He is imprisoned in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, and a legal battle ensues with the British government seeking to extradite him back to Northern Ireland. Doherty claims he is immune from extradition as the killing of Westmacott was a political act, and in 1985 federal judge John E. Sprizzo rules Doherty cannot be extradited as the killing was a “political offense.” His legal battle continues as the United States Department of Justice then attempts to deport him for entering the country illegally.

Doherty remains in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and attempts to claim political asylum, and June 15, 1988 the United States Attorney General Edwin Meese overturns an earlier ruling by the Federal Board of Immigration Appeals that Doherty can be deported to the Republic of Ireland, and orders his deportation to Northern Ireland. In February 1989 new Attorney General Dick Thornburgh chooses not to support the decision made by his predecessor, and asks lawyers for Doherty and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to submit arguments for a review of the decision and Doherty’s claim for asylum. By this time Doherty’s case is a cause célèbre with his sympathisers including over 130 Congressmen and a son of then President of the United States George H. W. Bush, and in 1990 a street corner near the Metropolitan Correctional Center is named after him.

In August 1991, Doherty is transferred to a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and on January 16, 1992 the Supreme Court of the United States overturns a 1990 Federal Appeals Court ruling by a 5-to-3 decision, paving the way for his deportation. On February 19, 1992 he is deported to Northern Ireland, despite pleas to delay the deportation from members of Congress, Mayor of New York City David Dinkins, and the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, John Joseph O’Connor. He is returned to Crumlin Road Gaol before being transferred to HM Prison Maze, and is released from prison on November 6, 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. After his release he becomes a community worker specialising in helping disadvantaged young people. In 2006, he appears in the BBC television show Facing the Truth opposite the relatives of a soldier killed in the Warrenpoint ambush.