Sullivan is the son of Michael Sullivan from Abbeydorney, County Kerry, and Catherine Kelly from Drum, County Roscommon. He attends public schools in his native Boston, attending the Dwight Grammar School and performing well academically. His parents aspire for their son to enter the priesthood as a Catholic priest. To this end he enrolls at Boston College, but his passion for sports leads him to abandon formal education for professional baseball and later boxing. He quickly gains a reputation for raw power and aggression, earning the nickname “The Boston Strong Boy” during exhibition tours.
Sullivan holds the gloved heavyweight title from 1882 to 1892, with a record of 41–1–3 and 33 knockouts.
Sullivan’s fights are widely covered by newspapers, helping to launch modern sports journalism in the United States. He is one of the highest-paid athletes of his era, earning over $75,000 for a single bout. His “I can lick any man in the house” challenge becomes a symbol of Irish American defiance and determination.
After retiring in 1892, Sullivan opens the John L. Sullivan’s Theatre in New York City. He marries Annie Bates Lord in 1883 and has one daughter, Helen. He struggles with alcohol after his defeat to James J. Corbett in 1892 but later lectures against alcoholism. He dies at the age of 59 on February 2, 1918, in Abington, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. He is buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Roslindale, Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
Sullivan’s career transforms boxing from an underground, often illegal pastime into a national spectacle. He remains a cultural icon, celebrated in literature, film, and sports history.
Wilson begins his priestly career as a hospital chaplain, where he becomes aware of the systemic neglect and exploitation of women. This experience shapes his later advocacy for marginalized groups. In 1966, he is assigned to St. John’s parish in Ballymurphy, a heavily working class and nationalist area. Confronted with poverty, deprivation, and social neglect, he rejects a purely clerical role and chooses to live among his parishioners, earning deep community trust.
Wilson facilitates grassroots initiatives such as the Springhill Community House and the Conway Education Centre, establishing spaces for alternative education, vocational training, small business incubators, and cultural engagement. These efforts emphasize the empowerment of local communities, adult education, and economic development, drawing inspiration from liberation theology and Worker Priest models.
Wilson’s ministry coincides with some of the most violent years of the Northern Ireland Troubles. He provides support to families affected by violence, offers shelter and practical assistance, and maintains dialogue channels between republican and loyalist communities. He criticizes the Catholic Church for its detachment from the struggles of working class Catholics and refuses to condemn paramilitary groups acting as “alternative police and armies,” reflecting his nuanced approach to community protection and justice. Alongside figures like Fr. Alec Reid, he is instrumental in mediating discussions that contribute toward the peace process.
Wilson’s work earns widespread admiration for his courage, humanity, and commitment to justice. He hosts Mother Teresa in west Belfast, helping to establish charitable outreach in the community. Despite periods of estrangement with his bishop and being barred from celebrating Mass in churches, he continues his ministry at home and through community projects.
Wilson is also a prolific writer, recording diaries, pamphlets, and weekly columns, later commemorated in the documentary “Fr. Des – The Way He Saw It” narrated by Stephen Rea, and in theatre productions celebrating his life. PresidentMichael D. Higgins and countless individuals recognize his significant role in civil rights, education, and peacemaking.
Wilson dies in Belfast on November 5, 2019, at the age of 94, leaving a lasting impact on Belfast and a model for socially committed clergy worldwide. His approach to ministry stands as a testament to living faith in solidarity with marginalized communities, emphasizing education, dialogue, and justice over institutional authority.
The institutions Wilson helps create, notably the Springhill Community House and Conway Mill, continue to support education, enterprise, and community engagement in Belfast, embodying Wilson’s vision of an empowered, inclusive society. His life remains an inspiration for those committed to social justice, peacebuilding, and community-centered ministry.
Wilson is remembered as a priest,educator, community activist, and mediator, whose dedication to the underprivileged and commitment to peace has left an indelible mark on Northern Ireland.
Downey’s tenure sees the construction and dedication of the crypt of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, built to a design by Sir Edwin Lutyens, although the Cathedral itself is never completed as he had envisaged. A picture of Lutyens proposed cathedral is printed on postcards sold to raise funds.
In 1929, before the actual construction begins, Downey states, “Hitherto all cathedrals have been dedicated to saints. I hope this one will be dedicated to Christ himself with a great figure surmounted on the cathedral, visible for many a mile out at sea.” He also declares that while the Cathedral will not be medieval and Gothic, neither will it be as modern as the works of Jacob Epstein, a statement somewhat at odds with the design that is finally realised after his death.
Downey dies in Liverpool at the age of 72 on June 16, 1953, having served as Liverpool’s archbishop for twenty-four years. His remains are interred in a crypt at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool.
Doyle is awarded the Military Cross for his bravery during the assault on the village of Ginchy during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He is also posthumously recommended for both the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order, but is awarded neither. It is possible that anti-Catholicism played a role in the British Army’s decision not to grant him both awards.
General William Hickie, the commander-in-chief of the 16th (Irish) Division, describes Father Doyle as “one of the bravest men who fought or served out here.”
Irish folk singer Willie ‘Liam’ Clancy is named after Doyle due to his mother’s fondness for him, although they never meet.
In August 2022, the Father Willie Doyle Association is established to petition the Catholic Church to introduce a cause for canonisation for Doyle. In January 2022, the Supplex Libellus, the formal petition, is presented to Bishop Thomas Deenihan. Having consulted with the Irish Bishops’ Conference and the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Deenihan issues an edict on October 27, 2022, announcing the opening of a cause. The Opening Session takes place on November 20, 2022, at the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar.
Browne is born in Westport, County Mayo, on December 20, 1895. He is an important and outspoken member of the Irish hierarchy. His time as Bishop has been described by the historian James S. Donnelly Jr. as “far-reaching and … controversial,” while the historian of Irish CatholicismJohn Henry Whyte claims that Browne’s “readiness to put forward his views bluntly is welcome at least to the historian.”
On August 6, 1937, at the relatively young age of 41, Browne is appointed Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh by Pope Pius XI, receiving his episcopal consecration from Archbishop Thomas Gilmartin on the following August 10. He supports TaoiseachÉamon de Valera‘s defence of arrests and police searches for cached Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms, declaring, “Any Irishman who assists any foreign power to attack the legitimate authority of his own land is guilty of the most terrible crime against God’s law, and there can be no excuse for that crime – not even the pretext of solving partition or of securing unity.”
In 1939, Browne is selected by Éamon de Valera to chair the Commission on Vocational Organisation.
Browne is attentive to the state of public morality in the diocese, and James S. Donnelly Jr. has noted his role in directing episcopal and clerical censorship of newsagents and county librarians. He is also concerned about public intoxication and other misconduct at the Galway Races, controversies over dancing and the commercial dance halls, as well as immodesty in dress and the closely related issue of so-called “mixed bathing” in Galway and Salthill.
In 1957, in response to a growing tension between Catholics and Protestants at Fethard-on-Sea, including the Fethard-on-Sea boycott, Browne says, “non-Catholics do not protest against the crime of conspiring to steal the children of a Catholic father, but they try to make political capital when a Catholic people make a peaceful and moderate protest.”
The most enduring monument or physical legacy of Browne’s time as Bishop is the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas, commonly known as Galway Cathedral, which is dedicated in 1965 by CardinalRichard James Cushing of Boston, Massachusetts. The site of the old jail had come into the possession of the diocese in 1941 and Browne leads the campaign to construct a new Cathedral. This includes a 1957 audience with Pope Pius XII where the plans are approved.
Browne attends the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 and retires in 1976. He dies four years later in Galway, at the age of 84, on February 24, 1980.
Browne is parodied in Breandán Ó hÉithir`s novel Lig Sinn i gCathu, which fictionalises late 1940s Galway as “Baile an Chaisil” and Browne as “An tEaspag Ó Maoláin.”
The Irish cabinet minister Noël Browne (no known relation) in his 1986 memoir Against the Tide describes the physical attributes of his episcopal namesake:
“The bishop had a round soft baby face with shimmering clear cornflower-blue eyes, but his mouth was small and mean. Around his great neck was an elegant glinting gold episcopal chain with a simple pectoral gold cross. He wore a ruby ring on his plump finger and wore a slightly ridiculous tiny scullcap on his noble head. The well-filled semi-circular scarlet silk cummerbund and sash neatly divided the lordly prince into two.”
Gilmartin is the son of Michael Gilmartin, Rinshiona, Castlebar.[1] He is educated at the Franciscan monastery boys school in Errew and at O’Dea’s Academy in Castlebar. He attends St Jarlath’s College in Tuam, and then St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 1883, he becomes a professor of mathematics and natural science at St Jarlath’s.
In 1891, Gilmartin serves as Dean of Formation and Vice-President of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. He is awarded a Doctor of Divinity by Rome in 1905.
During the Irish War of Independence, Archbishop Gilmartin speaks out strongly against violence. In January 1920, he criticizes the “undisguised ruffianism” in the rebel ranks. He counsels his priests that whatever their personal political beliefs, they should not take an aggressive part on behalf of either side. However, many younger clerics support Sinn Féin and the IRA.
T.H. White describes meeting the Archbishop on the top of Croagh Patrick on an annual Reek Sunday pilgrimage during the 1930s in his book The Godstone and the Blackymor and having a cup of tea with him on the top after overenthusiastically kissing his ring.
Gilmartin dies at the age of 78 in office in Tuam on October 14, 1939.
Gilmartin writes the memoir of Primate Joseph Dixon in Healy’s Centenary History of Maynooth in 1895. He is also a contributor to the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, the Irish Theological Quarterly, and the Catholic Encyclopedia.
The Most Reverend William MacNeely, the Bishop of Raphoe from 1923 until 1963, is born in County Donegal on December 28, 1889. He has the distinction of being Raphoe’s first completely Roman-educated bishop.
MacNeely is the son of a butcher in Donegal Town. He is educated at the High School in Letterkenny, and in Rome from 1906–12. He is ordained to the priesthood on February 4, 1912, and upon his return to Ireland is appointed to the staff of St. Eunan’s College.
On July 27, 1923, at the comparatively young age of 35, MacNeely is ordained as Bishop of Raphoe in succession to Bishop Patrick O’Donnell who had been appointed coadjutorArchbishop of Armagh the previous year. In this role he is responsible for the completion of the Cathedral of St. Eunan and St. Columba in Letterkenny and negotiating with Harry Clarke to finish the work of glazing the cathedral.
Keen to develop religious life in his diocese, MacNeely invites the Capuchin Franciscans to the Creeslough area in 1930 to a site that becomes known as Ards Priory.
In a diocese where farming is the main industry, MacNeely maintains a strong interest in farming, being himself a successful breeder of Shorthorn cattle.
In 2008, it is reported that MacNeely was one of the two Irish episcopal coordinators who worked alongside “an intelligence-gathering secret service” set up in 1948 to monitor any sign of a “Communist takeover” of Ireland.
In 1953, MacNeely is a member of the inaugural Episcopal Commission for Emigrants reflecting the high levels of migration that afflict his diocese and wider Donegal for much of the twentieth century.
MacNeely serves as Bishop for over forty years, attending the early sessions of the Second Vatican Council. Shortly before his death, he is appointed Assistant to the Papal Throne. He dies on December 11, 1963, and is interred beside the Cathedral of St. Eunan and St. Columba.
Thomas Pelham, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, introduces a bill for the foundation of a Catholic college, and this is enacted by parliament. It is built to hold up to 500 students for the Catholic priesthood of whom up to 90 are to be ordained each year. It is once the largest seminary in the world.
The town of Maynooth is the seat of the FitzGeralds, Earls of Kildare. The ivy-covered tower attached to St. Mary’s Church of Ireland is all that remains of the ancient college of St. Mary of Maynooth, founded and endowed by Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. On October 7, 1515, Henry VIII grants licence for the establishment of a college. In 1518, the 9th Earl presents a petition to the Archbishop of Dublin, William Rokeby, for a license to found and endow a college at Maynooth, the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1535 the college is suppressed and its endowments and lands confiscated as part of the Reformation.
The present college is created in the 1790s against the background of the upheaval during the French Revolution and the gradual removal of the penal laws. The college is particularly intended to provide for the education of Catholic priests in Ireland, who until this Act had to go to Continental Europe for their formation and theological education. Many are educated in France, and the church and government are concerned at the Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution, and at the same time at the risk of revolutionary thinking arising from training in revolutionary France. A number of the early lecturers in Maynooth, are exiles from France. Also among the first professors is a layman, James Bernard Clinch, recommended by Edmund Burke. Also relevant is the enactment of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793.
The college is legally established on June 5, 1795, by the Maynooth College Act 1795 as The Royal College of St. Patrick, by act of the Parliament of Ireland, to provide “for the better education of persons professing the popish or Roman Catholic religion.” The college is originally established to provide a university education for Catholic lay and ecclesiastical students, the lay college is based in Riverstown House on the south campus from 1802. With the opening of Clongowes Wood College in 1814, the lay college is closed and the college functions solely as a Catholic seminary for almost 150 years.
In 1800, John Butler, 12th Baron Dunboyne, dies and leaves a substantial fortune to the college. Butler had been a Roman Catholic, and Bishop of Cork, who had embraced Protestantism in order to marry and guarantee the succession to his hereditary title. However, there are no children to his marriage, and it is alleged that he had been reconciled to the Catholic Church at his death. Were this the case, a Penal Law demands that the will is invalid, and his wealth is to pass to his family. Much litigation follows before a negotiated settlement in 1808 that leads to the establishment of a Dunboyne scholarship fund.
The land is donated by William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, who had argued in favour of Catholic emancipation in the Irish House of Lords. He lives nearby at Carton House and also at Leinster House. The building work is paid for by the British Government with the parliament continuing to give it an annual grant until the Irish Church Act 1869. When this law is passed the college receives a capital sum of £369,000. The trustees invest 75% of this in mortgages to Irish landowners at a yield of 4.25% or 4.75% per annum. This is considered a secure investment at the time but agitation for land reform and the depression of the 1870s erodes this security. The largest single mortgage is granted to the Earl of Granard. Accumulated losses on these transactions reaches £35,000 by 1906.
The first building to go up on the site is designed by, and named after, John Stoyte. Stoyte House, which can still be seen from the entrance to the old campus, is a well-known building to Maynooth students and stands very close to the very historic Maynooth Castle. Over the next 15 years, the site at Maynooth undergoes rapid construction so as to cater for the influx of new students, and the buildings which now border St. Joseph’s Square (to the rear of Stoyte House) are completed by 1824.
The Rev. Laurence F. Renehan (1797–1857), a noted antiquarian, church historian, and cleric, serves as president of St. Patrick’s from 1845 until 1857. Under Renehan, many of the college’s most important buildings are constructed by Augustus Pugin.
In 1876, the college becomes a constituent college of the Catholic University of Ireland, and later offers Royal University of Ireland degrees in arts and science. Even after the granting of the Pontifical Charter in 1896 the college becomes a recognised college of the National University of Ireland in 1910, and from this time its arts and science degrees are awarded by the National University of Ireland. However, during this time the Pontifical University of Maynooth continues to confer its degrees in theology, because until 1997 theology degrees are prohibited by the Royal University of Ireland and its successor the National University of Ireland.
In 1997, the Universities Act, 1997 is passed by the Oireachtas. Chapter IX of the Act provides for the creation of the separate Maynooth University. This new university is created from the college’s faculties of Arts, Celtic Studies and Philosophy, and Science.
In 1994, W. J. Smyth had been appointed to the position of Master of St. Patrick’s College Maynooth (NUI). In 1997, this position is converted into President of Maynooth University. After his 10-year term ends in 2004, he is replaced by John Hughes as president of Maynooth University and a new line of heads for the college.
By 2016, the number of resident seminarians has dropped from several hundreds to just 40 to 60. In August 2016, it is revealed that, due to frequent use of Grindr by college students, the then Archbishop of DublinDiarmuid Martin decides to transfer the students from his diocese to the Irish Pontifical College in Rome. According to Martin, “there are allegations on different sides,” one of which of an “atmosphere that was growing in Maynooth” of a “homosexual, a gay culture, that students have been using an app called Grindr,” which “would be fostering promiscuous sexuality, which is certainly not in any way the mature vision of sexuality one would expect a priest to understand.” Subsequently, the college trustees order a review of the college’s policy on social media use.
Higgins returns to Ireland and attends University College Dublin (UCD), studying English and French. For several years he is a teacher in several Dublin inner city schools. While at university he joins the Labour Party and becomes active in the Militant Tendency, an entryistTrotskyist group that operates within the Labour Party. Throughout his time in the Labour Party, he is a strong opponent of coalition politics, along with TDs Emmet Stagg and Michael D. Higgins. He is elected to the Administrative Council of the Labour Party by the membership in the 1980s. In 1989, he is expelled alongside 13 other members of Militant Tendency by party leader Dick Spring. The group eventually leaves the party and forms Militant Labour, which becomes the Socialist Party in 1996.
Higgins speaks out against the Iraq War while a TD, and addresses the Dublin leg of the March 20, 2003 International Day of Action. He is also prominent in the successful 2005 campaign to bring Nigerian school student Olukunle Eluhanla back to Ireland after he had been deported. He remains an opponent of the deportation policy.
Higgins uses his platform in the Dáil to raise the issue of exploitation of migrant and guest workers in Ireland. He and others claim that many companies are paying migrants below the minimum wage and, in some cases, not paying overtime rates. He expresses opposition in the Dáil to the jailing of the Rossport Five in July 2005. He raises the outsourcing of jobs by Irish Ferries in the Dáil in November 2005, requesting new legislation to regulate what he describes as “these modern slavers.”
Higgins is elected again as TD for Dublin West at the 2011 Irish general election. He wins the third seat (of four) with 8,084 first preference votes. In his first speech in the 31st Dáil, he opposed the nomination of Fine Gael‘s Enda Kenny as Taoiseach. On May 4, 2011, Kenny is forced to apologise to Higgins in the Dáil after falsely accusing him of being a supporter of Osama bin Laden after Higgins offers criticism of his assassination by the CIA. He had asked the Taoiseach, “Is assassination only justified if the target is a reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-human rights obscurantist like bin Laden?”
In the Dáil, Higgins accuses TánaisteEamon Gilmore of doing nothing for the 14 Irish citizens being held “incommunicado” by Israel in November 2011. In December 2011, he describes as a disgraceful campaign of intimidation the fines imposed by the government on people who are unable to pay a new household charge brought in as part of the latest austerity budget and says to Enda Kenny that he will be “the new Captain Boycott of austerity in this country.” He asks that Minister for FinanceMichael Noonan provide EBS staff with the 13th month end-of-year payment they are being denied.
In September 2012, Higgins publicly disagrees with former Socialist Party colleague Clare Daly, saying it is “unfortunate” that she has resigned from the party, but that it is impossible for Daly under the banner of the Socialist Party to continue to offer political support to Mick Wallace, who is at that time embroiled in scandal.
Higgins announces in April 2014 that he will not contest the next Dáil election. At the time he states his belief that the “baton of elected representation” should be carried by another generation of Socialist Party politicians — like Ruth Coppinger and Paul Murphy.
Browne is an important and outspoken member of the Irish hierarchy. His time as Bishop has been described by the historian James S. Donnelly Jr. as “far-reaching and … controversial,” while the historian of Irish CatholicismJohn Henry Whyte claims that Browne’s “readiness to put forward his views bluntly is welcome at least to the historian.”
On August 6, 1937, at the relatively young age of 41, Browne is appointed Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh by Pope Pius XI, receiving his episcopal consecration from Archbishop Thomas Gilmartin on the following August 10. He supports TaoiseachÉamon de Valera‘s defence of arrests and police searches for cached Irish Republican Army (IRA) arms, declaring, “Any Irishman who assists any foreign power to attack the legitimate authority of his own land is guilty of the most terrible crime against God’s law, and there can be no excuse for that crime – not even the pretext of solving partition or of securing unity.”
In 1939, Browne is selected by Éamon de Valera to chair the Commission on Vocational Organisation.
Browne is attentive to the state of public morality in the diocese, and James S. Donnelly Jr. has noted his role in directing episcopal and clerical censorship of newsagents and county librarians. He is also concerned about public intoxication and other misconduct at the Galway Races, controversies over dancing and the commercial dance halls, as well as immodesty in dress and the closely related issue of so-called “mixed bathing” in Galway and Salthill.
In 1957, in response to a growing tension between Catholics and Protestants at Fethard-on-Sea, including the Fethard-on-Sea boycott, Browne says, “non-Catholics do not protest against the crime of conspiring to steal the children of a Catholic father, but they try to make political capital when a Catholic people make a peaceful and moderate protest.”
The most enduring monument or physical legacy of Browne’s time as Bishop is the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas, commonly known as Galway Cathedral, which is dedicated in 1965 by CardinalRichard James Cushing of Boston, Massachusetts. The site of the old jail had come into the possession of the diocese in 1941 and Browne leads the campaign to construct a new Cathedral. This includes a 1957 audience with Pope Pius XII where the plans are approved.
Browne attends the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 and retires in 1976. He dies four years later, at the age of 84, on February 24, 1980.
Browne is parodied in Breandán Ó hÉithir`s novel Lig Sinn i gCathu, which fictionalises late 1940s Galway as “Baile an Chaisil” and Browne as “An tEaspag Ó Maoláin.”
The Irish cabinet minister Noël Browne (no known relation) in his 1986 memoir Against the Tide describes the physical attributes of his episcopal namesake:
“The bishop had a round soft baby face with shimmering clear cornflower-blue eyes, but his mouth was small and mean. Around his great neck was an elegant glinting gold episcopal chain with a simple pectoral gold cross. He wore a ruby ring on his plump finger and wore a slightly ridiculous tiny scullcap on his noble head. The well-filled semi-circular scarlet silk cummerbund and sash neatly divided the lordly prince into two.”
