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Birth of William Brown, Commander in the Argentine Navy

William Brown, Irish sailor, merchant, and naval commander who serves in the Argentine Navy during the wars of the early 19th century, is born on June 22, 1777, in Foxford, County Mayo. He is also known in Spanish as Guillermo Brown or Almirante Brown.

Comparatively little is known of his early life, and it has been suggested that he was illegitimate and took his mother’s surname and that his father’s surname was actually Gannon. He emigrates with his father to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1793, eventually settling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A short time after their arrival, the friend who had invited them and offered them food and hospitality dies of yellow fever. Several days later, his father also succumbs to the same disease.

One morning, while Brown is wandering along the banks of the Delaware River, he meets the captain of a ship then moored in port. The captain inquires if he wants employment and Brown agrees. The captain engages him as a cabin boy, thereby setting him on the naval promotion ladder, where he works his way to the captaincy of a merchant ship. After ten years at sea, where he develops his skills as a sailor and reaches the rank of captain, Brown is press-ganged into a Royal Navy warship. British impressment of American sailors is one of the primary issues leading to the War of 1812.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Brown escapes the ship he is serving on, a galley, and scuttles the vessel. However, the French do not believe he had assisted them and imprison him in Lorient. On being transferred to Metz, he escapes, disguised in a French officer’s uniform. However, he is recaptured and is imprisoned in the fortress of Verdun. In 1809, he escapes from there in the company of a British Army officer named Clutchwell, and eventually reaches German territory.

Returning to England, Brown renounces his maritime career and on July 29, 1809, he marries Elizabeth Chitty, daughter of an English shipping magnate, in Kent. As he is a Catholic and she a Protestant, they agree to raise their sons as Catholics and their daughters as Protestants. Despite lengthy periods of enforced separation, they have nine children. He leaves the same year for the Río de la Plata on board Belmond and sets himself up as a merchant in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Late in 1811 Brown settles in Buenos Aires just as a criollo rebellion against Spanish colonial rule in Argentina is gaining strength. By April 1812, he is developing a coastal shipping business in fruit and hides. As the Spanish naval blockade of 1812–14 begins to choke trade, he is first commissioned by the patriot government as a privateer licensed to raid Spanish merchantmen, and then, on March 1, 1814, invited to take charge of a small rebel naval squadron to contest Spanish control of the Río de la Plata estuary. Leading a fleet of nineteen ships, he fixes with great speed on a set of wartime naval routines and signaling methods, and organises a system of discipline, founding the navy on principles that pay exceptional attention to the welfare of ordinary seamen.

In early March 1814, Brown shows personal courage and incisive skill in outwitting and defeating a more powerful Spanish force near Martín García Island, thereby dividing the Spanish blockade. A Spanish attempt in May 1814 to break his blockade of Montevideo is decisively crushed by him and his makeshift navy, and the Spanish strongholds on the Atlantic coast collapse, ending open war. In 1815 and 1816, however, he carries out skirmishing raids on military and commercial targets belonging to Spanish South American possessions, until detained by a British colonial governor in Barbados in July 1816 for alleged infringements of international rules of trade.

Illness, and a tortuous but ultimately successful appeal process, take up most of 1817–18, but when Brown returns to Argentina in October 1818, political enemies set in motion a prosecution for alleged disobedience of orders. Cashiered in August 1819, then restored in rank but forced to retire, he attempts suicide the following month. Convalescence and resumption of his trading concern occupies him for several years.

A repentant government renews Brown’s command of the navy in December 1825, when war breaks out with Brazil. Though vastly outnumbered by the Brazilian fleet, he shows audacity and great finesse in a number of successful engagements in the Plate estuary in 1826, roving up the Brazilian coast on occasion to create great confusion. In February 1827, he triumphs in a series of actions known as the Battle of Juncal. After another year of commercial privateering against the Brazilian merchant fleet, he is one of two delegates selected to sign peace terms with Brazil in October 1828.

Retiring from active service that month, Brown tries to remain neutral as civil war erupts in Argentina, but reluctantly accepts the post of governor of Buenos Aires under General Juan Lavalle from December 1828 to May 1829, when he resigns in disgust at government excesses. During 1829–37 he holds aloof from the despotic government of Juan Manuel de Rosas. After French and British encroachments on the region in the later 1830s, he offers to take charge of the navy again to protect national independence and is available to defend Argentine interests when war breaks out with a French-backed Uruguay in early 1841. Though exasperated by a long and “stupid war,” he blockades the Uruguayan navy effectively until French and British fleets intervene in July 1845 with overwhelming force to capture his squadron and bring the war to an end.

Idolised by the Argentinian population for his high-principled and humane advocacy of independent democracy, Brown passes his last years trading and farming a country estate. In late 1847, he journeys to Ireland, hoping to find relations in Mayo, and is shocked by the hunger and destitution of the Great Famine.

Brown dies on March 3, 1857, at his home in Buenos Aires and is buried with full military honours. The Argentine government issues a comuniqué: “With a life of permanent service to the national wars that our homeland has fought since its independence, William Brown symbolized the naval glory of the Argentine Republic.” During his burial, General Bartolomé Mitre famously says: “Brown in his lifetime, standing on the quarterdeck of his ship, was worth a fleet to us.” His grave is currently located in the La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.


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Death of Robert Bates, Member of the Shankill Butchers

Robert William Bates, Northern Irish loyalist, dies in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 11, 1997. He is a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the infamous Shankill Butchers gang, led by Lenny Murphy.

Bates is born into an Ulster Protestant family and grows up in the Shankill Road area of Belfast. He has a criminal record dating back to 1966, and later becomes a member of the Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Bates, employed as a barman at the Long Bar, is recruited into the Shankill Butchers gang in 1975 by its notorious ringleader, Lenny Murphy. 

The gang uses The Brown Bear pub, a Shankill Road drinking haunt frequented by the UVF, as its headquarters. Bates, a “sergeant” in the gang’s hierarchy, is an avid participant in the brutal torture and savage killings perpetrated against innocent Catholics after they are abducted from nationalist streets and driven away in a black taxi owned by fellow Shankill Butcher, William Moore.

The killings typically involve grisly-throat slashings preceded by lengthy beatings and torture. Bates is said to have been personally responsible for beating James Moorhead, a member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), to death on January 30, 1977, and to have played a central role in the kidnapping and murder of Catholic Joseph Morrisey three days later.  He also kills Thomas Quinn, a derelict, on February 8, 1976, and the following day is involved in shooting dead Archibald Hanna and Raymond Carlisle, two Protestant workmen that Bates and Murphy mistake for Catholics.

Martin Dillon reveals that Bates is also one of the four UVF gunmen who carries out a mass shooting in the Chlorane Bar attack in Belfast city centre on June 5, 1976. Five people (three Catholics and two Protestants) are shot dead. The UVF unit bursts into the pub in Gresham Street and orders the Catholics and Protestants to line up on opposite ends of the bar before they open fire. He later recounts his role in the attack to police; however, he claims that he never fired any shots due to his revolver having malfunctioned. Forensics evidence contradicts him as it proves that his revolver had been fired inside the Chlorane Bar that night. Lenny Murphy is in police custody at the time the shooting attack against the Chlorane Bar takes place.

Bates is arrested in 1977, along with Moore and other “Shankill Butcher” accomplices. His arrest follows a sustained attack by Moore and Sam McAllister on Catholic Gerard McLaverty, after which they dump his body, presuming him dead. However, McLaverty survives and identifies Moore and McAllister to the Royal Ulster Constabulary who drive him up and down the Shankill Road during a loyalist parade until he sees his attackers. During questioning both men implicate Bates, and other gang members, leading to their arrests. Following a long period spent on remand, he is convicted in February 1979 of murder related to the Shankill Butcher killings and given ten life sentences, with a recommendation by the trial judge, Justice Turlough O’Donnell, that he should never be released.

At the start of his sentence, Bates is involved in a series of violent incidents involving other inmates. He later claims that he had perpetrated these acts in order to live up to his “Basher” nickname. He serves as company commander of the UVF inmates and becomes noted as a stern disciplinarian.

However, while in the Maze Prison, Bates is said to have “found God,” and as a result becomes a born again Christian. He produces a prison testimony, which is later reprinted in The Burning Bush, and, after publicly advocating an end to violence, is transferred to HM Prison Maghaberry.

In prison, Bates forms a friendship with Provisional IRA member and fellow detainee Brendan Hughes. Bates foil a UVF assassination plot on Hughes.

It has been alleged that his image appears on the cover of Searching for the Young Soul Rebels by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

In October 1996, eighteen months prior to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Bates is cleared for early release by the Life Sentence Review Board. He is given the opportunity of participating in a rehabilitation scheme, spending the day on a work placement and returning to prison at night. As he arrives for work in his native Shankill area of Belfast early on the morning of June 11, 1997, he is shot dead by the son of a UDA man named James Curtis Moorehead, who Bates had killed in 1977. The killer identifies himself to Bates as the son of his victim before opening fire. The Sutton Index of Deaths attributes his assassination to a feud between the UVF and the UDA. Bates had been working at the Ex-Prisoners Interpretative Centre (EPIC), a drop-in centre for former loyalist prisoners.

Bates’s killing had not been sanctioned by the UDA leadership but nevertheless they refuse to agree to UVF demands that the killer should be handed over to them, instead exiling him from the Shankill. He is rehoused in the Taughmonagh area where he quickly becomes an important figure in the local UDA as a part of Jackie McDonald‘s South Belfast Brigade.

Bates’s name is subsequently included on the banner of a prominent Orange Lodge on the Shankill Road, called  Old Boyne Island Heroes. Relatives of Shankill Butchers victim Cornelius Neeson condemn the banner, stating that “it hurts the memory of those the butchers killed.” A fellow Lodge member and former friend of Bates defends the inclusion of his name to journalist Peter Taylor: “I knew him very well and he’d been a personal friend for twenty or thirty years and to me he was a gentleman.” He goes on to describe him as having been “an easy-going, decent fellow, and as far as the Lodge is concerned, a man of good-standing.”

Bates is buried in a Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster ceremony by Reverend Alan Smylie. His funeral is attended by a large representation from local Orange Lodges. Peace activist Mairead Maguire is also among the mourners, arguing that Bates had “repented, asked for forgiveness and showed great remorse for what he had done,” while a memorial service held at the spot of his killing two days after the funeral is attended by Father Gerry Reynolds of Clonard Monastery.[8]


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Death of Mark Fulton, Loyalist & Loyalist Volunteer Force Leader

Mark Fulton, a Northern Irish loyalist and leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), is found hanged in his cell at Maghaberry Prison on June 10, 2002, an apparent suicide, while awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to murder a man from a rival loyalist paramilitary organisation.

Fulton is born in Portadown, County Armagh in 1961, one of the children of Jim Fulton, a former British soldier who works as a window cleaner. His mother, Sylvia (née Prentice), comes from a family of wealthy car dealers. He grows up in the working class Protestant Killycomain area.

Following the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s, Fulton’s father becomes a member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). According to journalist Susan McKay, senior Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) members Robin “the Jackal” Jackson and Harris Boyle are frequent visitors to the Fulton home in the early 1970s. Jackson, one of the alleged leaders of the gang which carried out the 1974 Dublin car bombings, becomes the commander of the UVF’s Mid-Ulster Brigade in July 1975. Four days later, Boyle is blown up after placing a bomb on the Miami Showband’s minibus after the band is stopped at a bogus checkpoint by UVF gunmen, and three band members shot dead.

Fulton leaves school early and promptly joins the Mid-Ulster UVF, being sworn in at the age of 15. His early activity includes being part of the UVF gang that opens fire on a Craigavon mobile sweetshop on March 28, 1991, killing two teenaged girls and one man, all Catholics. The attack is allegedly planned by Robin Jackson.

In the early 1990s, Billy Wright, also from Portadown, takes over command of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade from Jackson. The Mid-Ulster Brigade, founded in 1972 by its first commander, Billy Hanna, operates mainly in the Lurgan and Portadown areas. Fulton soon becomes Wright’s closest associate and right-hand man and has an “extreme fixation and obsession over Wright.” He even has an image of Wright tattooed over his heart.

Fulton is alleged to have perpetrated twelve sectarian killings in the 1990s, and reportedly is implicated in many other attacks. His victims are often questioned about their religion prior to their killings, and sometimes they are killed in front of their families. He is very violent and has a quick temper. Wright is the only person who is able to control him. A Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) detective who knows both of them says that whenever they are stopped by the police in the 1990s, Wright is “coolness personified,” while Fulton rage’s, shouts and makes threats.

Although he is brought up in the Church of Ireland religion, Fulton is a follower of the Reverend Ian Paisley, founder and moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. In appearance he is heavily tattooed and is known for his habit of always wearing a waistcoat.

The Mid-Ulster Brigade calls themselves the “Brat Pack,” which journalist Martin O’Hagan of the Sunday World altered to “Rat Pack.” After the nickname of “King Rat” is given to Wright by local Ulster Defence Association commander Robert John Kerr as a form of pub bantering, O’Hagan takes to describing Wright by that term. This soubriquet is thereafter used by the media, much to Wright’s fury. This leads him to issue threats against O’Hagan and all journalists who work for the newspaper. The unit initially welcomes the Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire in October 1994; however, things change drastically over the next few years.

Following the order given in August 1996 by the UVF’s Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) for Wright and the Portadown unit of the Mid-Ulster Brigade to stand down, Fulton remains loyal to Wright and defies the order. This comes after the Mid-Ulster UVF’s killing of a Catholic taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick, while the UVF are on ceasefire. After Wright defies a UVF order to leave Northern Ireland, he forms the breakaway Loyalist Volunteer Force, taking the members of the officially-disbanded Portadown unit with him, including Fulton.

Fulton, as Wright’s deputy, assumes effective control of the LVF when Wright is sent to the Maze Prison in March 1997. When Wright is shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in December 1997, in a prison van while being taken to the Maze’s visitor block, Fulton assumes control of the LVF. He is deeply affected by Wright’s death, and reportedly spends many nights alone by his grave. In May 1998, the LVF calls a ceasefire. It is accepted by the Northern Ireland Office six months later.

Fulton is arrested in 1998 after shooting at an off-duty soldier in Portadown. He is heavily intoxicated at the time and sentenced to four years imprisonment. While he is out on compassionate leave in early 1999, he allegedly organises the killing of Catholic lawyer Rosemary Nelson. During the Drumcree standoff, Nelson had represented the Catholic Portadown residents who opposed the Orange Order‘s march through the predominantly nationalist Garvaghy area. She is blown up by a car bomb on March 15, 1999, outside her home in Lurgan. The bomb is allegedly made by a man from the Belfast UDA but planted by Fulton’s associates acting on his orders.

Colin Port, the Deputy Chief Constable of  Norfolk Constabulary who heads the investigation into Nelson’s death, says “without question” Fulton is the person who had masterminded her killing. Although he is back in prison at the time, he is excited when he hears the news of her death on the radio. He is linked to the killing by police informers but not forensics. It is also revealed that prior to his own death, Wright had threatened to kill Nelson in the belief she had defended Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers. Fulton is released from prison in April 2001.

On June 10, 2002, Fulton, who has been held on remand in HM Prison Maghaberry since December 2001, is found dead in his prison cell with a leather belt around his neck. He is found on his bed rather than hanging from the ceiling, leading to speculation that his death had been accidentally caused by autoerotic asphyxiation. Friends claim he had expressed suicidal thoughts due to both his failure to recover from his close friend Wright’s death, as well as his fears that he was suffering from stomach cancer. Some reports suggest his unstable mental state had seen him stand down as leader several weeks before his death, with the LVF’s power base transferred to Belfast. He was also afraid that rival loyalist inmates wished to kill him inside the prison.

At the time of his death, Fulton is awaiting trial, having been charged with conspiracy to murder Rodney Jennett, a member of a rival loyalist paramilitary organisation, in connection with an ongoing feud. He leaves behind his wife, Louise and two children, Lee and Alana. His funeral is attended by 500 mourners, including a number of senior loyalist paramilitaries, including Johnny Adair and John White, who act as pallbearers alongside Fulton’s brother Jim and son, Lee. After a service at St. Columba’s Parish Church, he is interred in Kernan Cemetery in Portadown.


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Birth of Frank Duff, Lay Catholic & Author

Francis Michael Duff, Irish author, lay Catholic and founder of the Legion of Mary, known for bringing attention to the role of the Catholic laity during the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church, is born at 97 Phibsboro Road, Dublin, on June 7, 1889.

Duff is the eldest of seven children of John Duff, a civil servant with the local government board, and his wife, Susan Letitia (née Freehill), a civil servant with the post office. The wealthy family lives in the city at St. Patrick’s Road, Drumcondra. He attends Blackrock College.

In 1908, Duff enters the Civil Service and is assigned to the Irish Land Commission. In 1913, he joins the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and is exposed to the real poverty of Dublin. Many who live in tenement squalor are forced to attend soup kitchens for sustenance, and abject poverty, alcoholism, street gangs, and organized prostitution are rife in parts of Dublin. He joins and soon rises through the ranks to become President of the Saint Patrick’s Conference at Saint Nicholas of Myra Parish. Having concern for people he sees as materially and spiritually deprived, he has the idea to picket Protestant soup kitchens as he considers they are giving aid in the form of food and free accommodation at hostels, in return for not attending Catholic services. He sets up rival Catholic soup kitchens and, with his friend, Sergeant Major Joe Gabbett, who has already been working at discouraging Catholics from patronizing Protestant soup kitchens. They succeed in closing down two of them over the years.

In 1916, Duff publishes his first pamphlet, Can we be Saints?, where he expresses the conviction that all are called to be saints without exception, and that through Christian faith, all have the means necessary.

In 1918, a friend gifts Duff a copy of the book True Devotion to Mary by the seventeenth-century French cleric Louis de Montfort, which influences his views on Mary. He is additionally influenced by the writings of John Henry Newman.

Duff briefly acts as private secretary to Michael Collins, then-Chairman of the Provisional Government and commander-in-chief of the National Army. In 1924, he is transferred to the Department of Finance.

On September 7, 1921, along with Fr. Michael Toher and fifteen predominantly young women, he is present at the first meeting of the association which he would forge as the Legion of Mary. He models the Legion on the Roman legions, naming the local unit the “praesidium,” and he immerses himself in the apostolic work which dominates the rest of his life.

In 1922, Duff establishes the Sancta Maria hostel in Dublin as a refuge for prostitutes, and is the driving force behind the closure of “Monto,” Dublin’s notorious red-light district. In 1927, he establishes the Morning Star hostel for homeless men in Dublin, and in 1930 the Regina Coeli hostel for homeless women, which provides special units for unmarried mothers and their children at a time when neither church nor state favour helping unmarried women to keep their children.

While Duff enjoys the support of W. T. Cosgrave, Ireland’s head of government, and in May 1931 is granted an audience with Pope Pius XI, his efforts are opposed internally in the Dublin diocese. In the 1930s and 1940s, he creates the Mercier Society, a study group designed to bring together Catholics and Protestants, as well as the Pillar of Fire, a group designed to promote dialogue between Irish Catholics with Ireland’s Jewish community.

Duff retires from the Civil Service in 1934 to devote all of his time to the Legion of Mary. For the rest of his life, with the help of many others, he guides the Legion’s worldwide extension.

In 1965, Pope Paul VI invites Duff to attend the Second Vatican Council as a lay observer. When he is introduced to the assembly by Archbishop John Heenan of Liverpool, he receives a standing ovation.

Duff makes the promotion of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus part of the Legion’s apostolate.

Duff dies in Dublin at the age of 91 on November 7, 1980. He Is interred in Glasnevin Cemetery. In July 1996, the cause of Duff’s beatification is introduced by Cardinal Desmond Connell.

Today, the Legion of Mary has an estimated four million active members and 10 million auxiliary members in close to 200 countries in almost every diocese in the Catholic Church.


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The 1886 Belfast Riots

The 1886 Belfast riots are a series of intense riots that begin in Belfast on June 4, 1886, and continue throughout the summer and autumn of 1886.

In the late 19th century, Catholics began to migrate in large numbers to the prosperous city of Belfast in search of work. By the time of the riots, Catholics make up over one-third of the population of the city. This migration brings with it sectarian tensions as Catholics and Protestants competed for jobs. As the minority, Catholics find themselves discriminated against in this area and are kept at the lower end of the labour market.

At this time there is a real possibility that the British government will establish a devolved Irish parliament (see Irish Home Rule Movement). Belfast Catholics believe that a devolved Irish government will be sympathetic to their situation and end the discrimination. Belfast Protestants believe this as well, and fear the end of their privileged position.

In April 1886, Prime Minister William Gladstone introduces a Home Rule Bill. The Bill is defeated in the House of Commons on June 8. The future Leader of the Conservative Party, Lord Randolph Churchill visits Belfast after the defeat of the Bill where he makes speeches against the possibility of future Home Rule Bills. He is said to have “…excited sectarian passions which expressed themselves in horrible assaults on the Nationalist minority.”

The introduction of the Bill leads to renewed sectarian tensions in Belfast. On June 3, a Catholic navvy sneers to a Protestant co-worker that under an Irish government Protestants will never get hired, even in Belfast. This represents the very worst fears of Protestants towards Home Rule and the story quickly spreads throughout Belfast. This leads to clashes between Protestant and Catholic shipyard labourers.

The riots intensif on June 8, the day that the Home Rule Bill is defeated in parliament. Celebrations are held throughout the city to celebrate the defeat. Some of the revellers attack Catholic homes and businesses. The police find themselves unable to cope with the situation. Reinforcements are sent in from other parts of Ireland. Most of the reinforcements are Catholic. A rumour that the reinforcements have been sent by Gladstone to punish Belfast Protestants for opposing Home Rule spreads throughout the city. It is encouraged by popular preachers such as Hugh Hanna and his Church of Ireland counterpart, the city’s Orange Order Grand Master, Rev. Richard Rutledge Kane.  In the midst of the disorder, Kane declares that unless the police are disarmed, 200,000 armed Orangemen will relieve them of their weapons. The rioters thus begin to attack the police, and later the soldiers. Running battles between security forces and rioters lasts until June 14.

On June 22, the reinforcements are sent home by the city government, although some are kept as trouble is expected on July 12, the date of annual Protestant celebrations. Trouble does indeed erupt on the 12th and, contrary to the expectations of the government, the police find themselves overwhelmed by the Protestant attackers. Reinforcements have to be sent into Belfast again, and the threat of over 2,000 police officers and soldiers descending on the city causes the rioters to quit by July 14.

On the last Saturday of July, Hanna holds his annual outing for the Protestant children of Belfast. This outing usually involves a trip to the countryside, with marching and drumming along the way. Hanna agrees to comply with the city’s request that he forgo the drumming and marching due to the tense situation. As the outing makes its way through Belfast, disappointed local Protestants join in to march with their own drums and anti-Catholic banners. Marchers deliberately provoke the Catholics by marching into Catholic areas. Taunting quickly gives way to heavy street fighting between Catholics, Protestants and police. Bloody clashes on par with the riots in June last for a few days, but low-intensity rioting continues until September.

Officially thirty-one people are killed in the riots, although George Foy, who makes surgical reports on the riots, reckons that the real death toll might be as high as fifty. Hundreds are injured. Over four hundred arrests are made. An estimated £90,000 worth of property damage is incurred, and local economic activity is significantly compromised.


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Birth of William Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie

William James Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie, KP, PC, PC (Ire), a leading British shipbuilder and businessman, is born on May 31, 1847, in Quebec City, Canada East, Province of Canada. He is chairman of Harland & Wolff, shipbuilders, between 1895 and 1924, and also serves as Lord Mayor of Belfast between 1896 and 1898.

Pirrie is taken back to Ireland when he is two years old and spends his childhood at Conlig House, also known as Little Clandeboye Conlig, County Down. Belonging to a prominent family, his nephews included J. M. Andrews, who later becomes Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Thomas Andrews, builder of RMS Titanic, and Sir James Andrews, 1st Baronet, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.

Pirrie is educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution before entering Harland & Wolff shipyard as a gentleman apprentice in 1862. Twelve years later he is made a partner in the firm, and on the death of Sir Edward Harland in 1895, he becomes its chairman, a position he holds until his death. As well as overseeing the world’s largest shipyard, he is elected Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1896, and is re-elected to the office as well as made an Irish Privy Counsellor the following year. He becomes Belfast’s first honorary freeman in 1898, and serves in the same year as High Sheriff of Antrim and subsequently of County Down. In February 1900, he is elected President of the UK Chamber of Shipping, where he had been vice-president the previous year. He helps finance the Liberals in Ulster in the 1906 United Kingdom general election, and that same year, at the height of Harland & Wolff’s success, he is raised to the peerage as Baron Pirrie, of the City of Belfast.

In 1907, Pirrie is appointed Comptroller of the Household to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and in 1908 is appointed Knight of St Patrick (KP). Pro-Chancellor of Queen’s University of Belfast (QUB) from 1908 to 1914, he is also in the years before World War I a member of the Committee on Irish Finance as well as Lord Lieutenant of Belfast.

In February 1912, after chairing a famous meeting of the Ulster Liberal Association at which Winston Churchill defends the government’s policy of Home Rule for Ireland, Pirrie is jeered on the streets of Belfast, and assaulted as he boards a steamer in Larne: pelted with rotten eggs, herrings, and bags of flour. In 1910, the Ulster Liberal Association, an overwhelmingly Protestant body, with a weekly newspaper, and branch network throughout Ulster, adopts (in opposition to the Ulster Liberal Unionist Association) an explicitly pro-home rule position.

In the months leading up to the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, Pirrie is questioned about the number of life boats aboard the Olympic-class ocean liners. He responds that the great ships are unsinkable and the rafts are to save others. This haunts him for the rest of his life. In April 1912, Pirrie is to travel aboard RMS Titanic, but illness prevents him.

During the war Pirrie is a member of the War Office Supply Board, and in 1918 becomes Comptroller-General of Merchant Shipbuilding, organising British production of merchant ships.

In 1921, Pirrie is elected to the Senate of Northern Ireland, and that same year is created Viscount Pirrie of the City of Belfast, in the honours for the opening of the Parliament of Northern Ireland in July 1921, for his war work and charity work. In Belfast he is, on other grounds, already a controversial figure: a Protestant employer associated as a leading Liberal with a policy of Home Rule for Ireland.

In March 1924, Pirrie, his wife, and her sister sail on a Royal Mail Steam Packet Company liner from Southampton on a business trip to South America. They travel overland from Buenos Aires to Chile, where they embark aboard the Pacific Steam Navigation Company‘s Ebro. Pirrie comes down with pneumonia in Antofagasta, and his condition worsens when the ship reaches Iquique. At Panama City two nurses embark to care for him. By then he is very weak, but insists on being brought on deck to see the canal. He admires how Ebro is handled through the locks.

Pirrie dies at sea off Cuba on June 7, 1924. His body is embalmed. On June 13, Ebro reaches Pier 42 on the North River in New York City, where Pirrie’s friend Andrew Weir, 1st Baron Inverforth and his wife meet Viscountess Pirrie and her sister. UK ships in the port of New York lower their flags to half-mast, and Pirrie’s body is transferred to Pier 59, where it is embarked on White Star Line‘s RMS Olympic, one of the largest ships Pirrie ever built, to be repatriated to the UK. He is buried in Belfast City Cemetery. The barony and viscountcy die with him. Lady Pirrie dies on June 19, 1935. A memorial to Pirrie in the grounds of Belfast City Hall is unveiled in 2006.


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Death of John Roberts, Anglo-Irish Architect

John Roberts, Anglo-Irish architect working in the Georgian style, dies in Waterford, County Waterford, on May 23, 1796. He is best known for the buildings he designed in that city.

Roberts is born in Waterford in 1712 or 1714, the son of Thomas Roberts, an architect and builder. Little is known of his early life, although he possibly trains in London for a time. At 17, he elopes with Mary Susannah Sautelle, a Huguenot heiress who also lives in Waterford.

In 1746, Roberts is asked by the Church of Ireland (Protestant) Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Richard Chenevix, to complete the new Bishop’s Palace.

Around 1760 Roberts designs Mount Congreve, near Kilmeadan.

In 1785, Roberts builds a house in Waterford for William Morris, now the Harbour Commissioners’ headquarters and the Chamber of Commerce. In 1786, he designs Newtown House, later Newtown School, a Quaker school. In 1787, he designs The Leper Hospital and Church of St. Stephen. He also builds the Assembly Rooms on Waterford’s Mall in 1788, which is now the Theatre Royal and City Hall.

Roberts had the unusual distinction of designing both the Protestant and Catholic cathedrals of Waterford: Christ Church Cathedral (1770s) and the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity (1790s) respectively.

Outside of Waterford, Roberts designs Curraghmore and Mount Congreve (both in County Waterford), St Iberius’ Church (Wexford) and is reputed to have designed Tyrone House (County Galway), Cappoquin House(County Waterford) and Moore Hall, County Mayo.

Roberts has between 21 and 24 children with his wife Susannah, of whom eight live to adulthood, including the painters Thomas Roberts and Thomas Sautelle Roberts. They live for many years in the old bishop’s palace, opposite the cathedral, with a country residence at Roberts Mount. He is nicknamed “Honest John” because he pays his workers so reliably, sometimes giving half their pay directly to their wives so that it would not be wasted on alcohol.

Roberts dies on May 23, 1796, after falling asleep on the floor of the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, Waterford, and contracting pneumonia. The main square in Waterford is named John Roberts Square in his honour.

His son, the Reverend John Roberts became a magistrate and rector. The Rev. John’s son is Abraham Roberts, a general in the East India Company, and Abraham’s son is Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, a World War I field marshal. Roberts’ sons Thomas and Sautelle become artists, as does his daughter, who paints scenery for the Waterford Theatre and landscapes.

Another great-grandson is the architect Samuel Ussher Roberts (1821–1900).


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Birth of James FitzJames Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde

James FitzJames Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, KG, Irish statesman and soldier, is born into a Protestant family on April 29, 1665, at Dublin Castle. He is the third of the Kilcash branch of the family to inherit the earldom of Ormond. He serves in the campaign to put down the Monmouth Rebellion, in the Williamite War in Ireland, in the Nine Years’ War and in the War of the Spanish Succession but is accused of treason and goes into exile after the Jacobite rising of 1715.

Butler is the second but eldest surviving son, and one of eleven children, of Thomas Butler by his wife Emilia van Nassau-Beverweerd. His father is known as Lord Ossory. His father is heir apparent of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond but predeceases him and so never becomes duke. His father’s family, the Butler dynasty, is Old English and descends from Theobald Walter, who had been appointed Chief Butler of Ireland by King Henry II in 1177. His mother is Dutch. She descends from a cadet branch of the House of Nassau.

Butler is educated in France and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford. On the death of his father on July 30, 1680, he becomes Baron Butler in the peerage of England and the 7th Earl of Ossory in the peerage of Ireland.

Butler obtains command of a cavalry regiment in Ireland in 1683 and having received an appointment at court on the accession of James II, he serves against the Duke of Monmouth at the Battle of Sedgemoor in July 1685. Having succeeded his grandfather as 2nd Duke of Ormonde on July 21, 1688, he is appointed a Knight of the Order of the Garter on September 28, 1688. In 1688, he also becomes Chancellor of the University of Dublin and Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

In January and February 1689, Butler votes against the motion to put William of Orange and Mary on the throne and against the motion to declare that James II has abdicated it. Nevertheless, he subsequently joins the forces of William of Orange, by whom he is made colonel of the 2nd Troop of Horse Guards on April 20, 1689. He accompanies William in his Irish campaign, debarking with him in Carrickfergus on June 14, 1690, and commands this troop at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. In February 1691 he becomes Lord Lieutenant of Somerset.

Butler serves on the continent under William of Orange during the Nine Years’ War and, having been promoted to major general, he fights at the Battle of Steenkerque in August 1692 and the Battle of Landen in July 1693, where he is taken prisoner by the French and then exchanged for the Duke of Berwick, James II’s illegitimate son. He is promoted to lieutenant general in 1694.

After the accession of Queen Anne in March 1702, Butler becomes commander of the land forces co-operating with Sir George Rooke in Spain, where he fights in the Battle of Cádiz in August 1702 and the Battle of Vigo Bay in October 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). Having been made a Privy Councillor, he succeeds Lord Rochester as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1703. In 1704, he leases and rebuilds a property that becomes known as Ormonde Lodge in Richmond outside London.

Following the dismissal of the Duke of Marlborough, Butler is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Forces and colonel of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards on January 4, 1712, and Captain General on February 26, 1712. In the Irish Parliament he and the majority of peers support the Tory interest.

Butler plays a dramatic role at the notorious meeting of the Privy Council on March 8, 1711, when Antoine de Guiscard, a French double agent who is being questioned about his treasonable activities, attempts to assassinate Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, against whom he has a personal grudge for drastically cutting his allowance, by stabbing him with a penknife. Harley is wounded, but not seriously, due largely to the fact that he is wearing a heavy gold brocade waistcoat in which the knife gets stuck. Several Councillors, including Butler, stab Guiscard in return. Guiscard implores Butler to finish the deed, but he replies that it is not for him to play the hangman. In any case, he has the sense to see that Guiscard must be kept alive at least long enough to be questioned, although as it turns out Guiscard’s wounds are fatal, and he dies a week later.

On April 23, 1712, Butler leaves Harwich for Rotterdam to lead the British troops taking part in the war. Once there he allows himself to be made the tool of the Tory ministry, whose policy is to carry on the war in the Netherlands while giving secret orders to him to take no active part in supporting their allies under Prince Eugene. In July 1712, he advises Prince Eugene that he can no longer support the siege of Le Quesnoy and that he is withdrawing the British troops from the action and instead intends to take possession of Dunkirk. The Dutch are so exasperated at the withdrawal of the British troops that they close the towns of Bouchain on Douai to British access, despite the fact that they have plenty of stores and medical facilities available. Butler takes possession of Ghent and Bruges as well as Dunkirk, in order to ensure his troops are adequately provided for. On April 15, 1713, he becomes Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk.

Ormonde’s position as Captain-General makes him a personage of much importance in the crisis brought about by the death of Queen Anne and, during the last years of Queen Anne, he almost certainly has Jacobite leanings and corresponds with the Jacobite Court including his cousin, Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount Galmoye, who keeps barrels of gunpowder at Kilkenny Castle. King George I, on his accession to the throne in August 1714, institutes extensive changes and excludes the Tories from royal favour. Butler is stripped of his posts as Captain-General, as colonel of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards and as Commander in Chief of the Forces with the first two posts going to the Duke of Marlborough and the role of Commander-in-Chief going to John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair. On November 19, 1714, Butler is instead made a member of the reconstituted Privy Council of Ireland.

Accused of supporting the Jacobite rising of 1715, Butler is impeached for high treason by Lord Stanhope on June 21, 1715. He might avoid the impending storm of Parliamentary prosecution, if he remains in England and stands trial but instead, he chooses to flee to France in August 1715 and initially stays in Paris with Lord Bolingbroke. On August 20, 1715, he is attainted, his estate forfeited, and honours extinguished. The Earl Marshal is instructed to remove the names and armorial bearings of Butler and Bolingbroke from the list of peers and his banner as Knight of the Garter is taken down in St. George’s Chapel.

On June 20, 1716, the Parliament of Ireland passes an act extinguishing the regalities and liberties of the county palatine of Tipperary; for vesting Butler’s estate in the crown and for giving a reward of £10,000 for his apprehension, should he attempt to land in Ireland. But the same parliament passes an act on June 24, 1721, to enable his brother, Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, to purchase his estate, which he does accordingly.

Butler subsequently moves to Spain where he holds discussions with Cardinal Giulio Alberoni. He later takes part in a Spanish and Jacobite plan to invade England and puts James Francis Edward Stuart on the British throne in 1719, but his fleet is disbanded by a storm in the Bay of Biscay. In 1732, he moves to Avignon, where he is seen in 1733 by the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He dies at Avignon in exile on November 16, 1745, but his body is returned to London and buried in Westminster Abbey on May 22, 1746.

On July 20, 1682, Butler, then called Lord Ossory, marries Lady Anne Hyde, daughter of Laurence Hyde, who is then Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth but becomes Earl of Rochester in November. The couple has a daughter, Mary, who dies young in 1688.

Following the death of his first wife in 1685, Butler plans to marry again in order to secure a male heir. He gains permission from the House of Lords for the arranging of a jointure for another marriage in May 1685, and in August of that year, he marries Lady Mary Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort and Mary Capel. The couple has a son, Thomas (1686–1689), and two daughters, Elizabeth (1689–1750) and Mary (1690–1713). His second wife is a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. Their younger daughter, Mary, marries John Ashburnham, 1st Earl of Ashburnham.

(Pictured: Portrait of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, by Michael Dahl, National Portrait Gallery)


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Death of Billy McMillen, Official Irish Republican Army Officer

William McMillen, Irish republican activist and an officer of the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) from Belfast, Northern Ireland, is killed during a feud with the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) on April 28, 1975.

McMillen is born in Belfast on May 19, 1927, and joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at age 16 in 1943. During the IRA’s border campaign (1956–62), he is interned and held in Crumlin Road Gaol. In 1964, he runs in the British general election as an Independent Republican candidate. When he places the Irish tricolour in the window of his election office in the lower Falls Road area, this sparks a riot between republicans, loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). There have been tensions on the issue since the government of Northern Ireland banned the flying of the tricolour under the Flags and Emblems (Display) Act (Northern Ireland) 1954.

In October 1964, during the general election campaign, a photo of McMillen is placed in the window of the election office in Divis Street flanked on one side by the Starry Plough flag and on the other by the tricolour. His campaign draws national attention after Ian Paisley demands that police remove the tricolour from McMillen’s election offices. The RUC raids the premises and confiscates the flag, sparking several days of rioting during which McMillen leads several thousand protesters in defiantly displaying the tricolour. He recalls the IRA gaining a “couple of dozen recruits” following the election, but he finishes at the bottom of the poll with 3,256 votes (6%). Around this time, he succeeds Billy McKee as the Officer commanding (OC) of the Belfast Brigade.

McMillen is keen to work for the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers. Roy Garland recalls that McMillan’s grandfather was master of an Orange lodge in Edinburgh and McMillan knew of that heritage and the meaning of the colours of the Irish flag. He prominently displays in his election offices a verse of a poem by John Frazier, a Presbyterian from County Offaly: “Till then the Orange lily be your badge my patriot brother. The everlasting green for me and we for one and other.”

In 1967, McMillen is involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and is a member of a three-man committee which draws up the Association’s constitution. The NICRA’s peaceful activities result in violent opposition from many unionists, leading to fears that Catholic areas will come under attack. In May 1969, when asked at an IRA army council meeting by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh how many weapons the Belfast Brigade has for defensive operations, McMillen states they have only one pistol, a machine gun and some ammunition.

By August 14, 1969, serious rioting has broken out in Belfast and Catholic districts come under attack from both civilian unionists and the RUC. McMillen’s IRA command by this point still has only a limited number of weapons because the leadership in Dublin are reluctant to release guns. While he is involved in some armed actions on this day, he is widely blamed by those who established the Provisional IRA for the IRA’s failure to adequately defend Catholic neighbourhoods from Ulster loyalist attack. He is arrested and temporarily detained by the RUC on the morning of August 15 but is released shortly afterward.

McMillen’s role in the 1969 riots is very important within IRA circles, as it is one of the major factors contributing to the split in the movement in late 1969. In a June 1972 lecture organised by Official Sinn Féin in Dublin, he defends his conduct, stating that by 1969 the total membership of the Belfast IRA is approximately 120 men, and their armaments have increased to a grand total of 24 weapons, most of which are short-range pistols.

In September, McMillen calls a meeting of IRA commanders in Belfast. Billy McKee and several other republicans arrive at the meeting armed and demand McMillen’s resignation. He refuses, but many of those unhappy with his leadership break away and refuse to take orders from him or the Dublin IRA leadership. Most of them join the Provisional Irish Republican Army, when this group splits off from the IRA in December 1969. McMillen himself remains loyal to the IRA’s Dublin leadership, which becomes known as the Official IRA. The split rapidly develops into a bitter rivalry between the two groups. In April 1970, he is shot and wounded by Provisional IRA members in the Lower Falls area of Belfast.

In June 1970, McMillen’s Official IRA have their first major confrontation with the British Army, which had been deployed to Belfast in the previous year, in an incident known as the Falls Curfew. The British Army mounts an arms search in the Official IRA stronghold of the Lower Falls, where they are attacked with a grenade by Provisional IRA members. In response, the British flood the area with troops and declare a curfew. This leads to a three-day gun battle between 80 to 90 Official IRA members led by McMillen and up to 3,000 British troops. Five civilians are killed in the fighting and about 60 are wounded. In addition, 35 rifles, 6 machine guns, 14 shotguns, grenades, explosives and 21,000 rounds of ammunition, all belonging to the OIRA, are seized. McMillen blames the Provisionals for instigating the incident and then refusing to help the Officials against the British.

This ill-feeling eventually leads to an all-out feud between the republican factions in Belfast in March 1971. The Provisionals attempt to kill McMillen again, as well as his second-in-command, Jim Sullivan. In retaliation, McMillen has Charlie Hughes, a young PIRA member, killed. Tom Cahill, brother of leading Provisional Joe Cahill, is also shot and wounded. After these deaths, the two IRA factions in Belfast negotiate a ceasefire and direct their attention instead at the British Army.

When the Northern Ireland authorities introduce internment in August 1971, McMillen flees Belfast for Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland, where he remains for several months. During this time, the Official IRA carries out many attacks on the British Army and other targets in Northern Ireland. However, in April 1972, the organisation in Belfast is badly weakened by the death of their commander in the Markets area, Joe McCann. In May of that year, the Dublin leadership of the OIRA calls a ceasefire, a move which McMillen supports. Nevertheless, in the year after the ceasefire, his command kills seven British soldiers in what they term “retaliatory attacks.” McMillen serves on the Ard Chomhairle (leadership council) of Official Sinn Féin.

By 1974, a group of OIRA members around Seamus Costello are unhappy with the ceasefire. In December 1974, they break away from the Official movement, forming the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Some OIRA members under McMillen’s command, including the entire Divis Flats unit, defect to the new grouping. This provokes another intra-republican feud in Belfast. The feud begins with arms raids on OIRA dumps and beatings of their members by the INLA. McMillen, in response is accused of drawing up a “death list” of IRSP/INLA members and even of handing information on them over to the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

The first killing comes on February 20, 1975, when the OIRA shoot dead an INLA member named Hugh Ferguson in west Belfast. A spate of shootings follows on both sides.

On April 28, 1975, McMillen is shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson, as he is shopping in a hardware shop on Spinner Street with his wife Mary. He is hit in the neck and dies at the scene. His killing is unauthorised and is condemned by INLA/IRSP leader Seamus Costello. Despite this, the OIRA tries to kill Costello on May 9, 1975, and eventually kills him two years later. McMillen’s death is a major blow to the OIRA in Belfast.


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Death of Charlotte Brooke, Poet, Dramatist & Author

Charlotte Brooke, author of Reliques of Irish Poetry, a pioneering volume of poems collected by her in the Irish language, with facing translations, dies in Longford, County Longford, on March 29, 1793, of a malignant fever.

Brooke is born around 1740 in Rantavan House, Mullagh, County Cavan. She is one of twenty-two children of the writer Henry Brooke, author of the play Gustavus Vasa, and Catherine Brooke (née Meares) of County Westmeath. Only she and her brother Arthur survive childhood.

Brooke is educated by her father and immerses herself in reading history and literature at an early age. While the rest of her family is sleeping, she often goes down to the study where she spends hours reading.

Brooke is part of the first generation of the Protestant Anglo-Irish settler class who take a strong interest in the Irish language and Gaelic history. Her primary interest in Irish language and literature is generated by her hearing it being spoken and recited by the labourers in County Cavan and on the County Kildare estates where her family moves around 1758. She is led to the study of the Irish language, and in less than two years she finds herself in love with it. From reading Irish poetry and admiring its beauties, she proceeds to translate it into English, one of her earliest efforts being a song and monody by Turlough O’Carolan, which appears in Joseph Cooper Walker‘s Historical Memoirs of Irish Bards (1786).

Brooke, who is frail herself, takes care of her father after her mother dies in 1773. Meanwhile, the family has moved back to County Cavan, where they begin living in a house they name Longfield which has been built near the Rantavan Estate. A few years after her father dies in 1783, she runs into financial troubles, after a model industrial village set up in County Kildare by her cousin Captain Robert Brooke goes bankrupt in 1787. Walker and other members of the recently created Royal Irish Academy (RIA) seek to make an income for her, but she realises she has to rely on her writings and translations.

In 1792, though in declining health and poor circumstances, Brooke publishes a selection of her father’s writings in three volumes, prefacing the work with a memoir of her father and a defence of his reputation as a writer. She also publishes a direct and simple presentation of Christian doctrine for children using her father’s didactic method, The school for Christians in dialogue for the use of children (1791). She dies of a malignant fever on March 29, 1793, at Longford, County Longford, in the home of the Brownes, friends with whom she has lived for some years.