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Birth of Bobby Molloy, Independent Politician

Robert Molloy, independent politician, is born in Galway, County Galway, on July 9, 1936.

Molloy’s father, Michael Edward Molloy, is originally from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, and runs a successful wholesale drapery business in the city. His mother, Rita Stanley, hails from Clifden, County Galway. He is educated at Coláiste Iognáid and University College Galway. Before entering politics, he works for several years in printing, the clothing industry and his family’s drapery firm.

Molloy is first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Galway West constituency at the 1965 Irish general election. In 1968, he is also elected Mayor of Galway. The following year he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education. 

Molloy’s early political career is marked by his loyalty to Fianna Fáil’s leadership under Taoiseach Jack Lynch. He quickly rises through the ranks and is appointed Minister for Local Government in 1970, a position he holds until 1973. His tenure as Minister for Local Government is characterised by his efforts to modernise and streamline local government structures in Ireland. His tenure in Fianna Fáil sees him as a stalwart of the party’s establishment, though tensions with its leadership grow over the years, particularly with Charles Haughey.

In opposition from 1973, Molloy serves as the frontbench spokesman, where he becomes involved in a high-profile dispute with James Tully, the Labour Minister for Local Government, over the controversial redrawing of constituencies, known as the “Tullymander.” Molloy, along with fellow Fianna Fáil member Brendan Crinion, used Dáil privilege to accuse Tully of having an improper commercial relationship with a builder in County Meath. The accusation is strongly denied by Tully and Molloy and Crinion later withdraw the charge. Despite this, Molloy faces severe repercussions, being forced to resign from his frontbench position. He is subsequently condemned by a judicial tribunal and censured by the Dáil for abusing parliamentary privilege.

When Fianna Fáil returns to office in 1977, Molloy becomes Minister for Defence in the final government of Jack Lynch.

Molloy supports George Colley in the 1979 Fianna Fáil leadership election. Charles Haughey wins the contest and drops Molloy, alongside other opponents, from the cabinet. Thereafter Molloy becomes a member of the Gang of 22 who oppose Haughey’s leadership of the party.

In 1986, Molloy resigns from Fianna Fáil and joins the newly formed Progressive Democrats, spearheaded by Haughey’s arch-rival Desmond O’Malley. Molloy’s move is seen as a major break from the political establishment, as the Progressive Democrats advocate for low-tax, market-oriented economic policies and a more liberal economic agenda. His decision is driven by his dissatisfaction with the direction of Fianna Fáil under Haughey’s leadership and his belief that the party has become increasingly alienating. 

In 1989, Molloy contests the European Parliament elections but is unsuccessful in his attempt. Following the 1989 Irish general election, Molloy, along with newly elected MEP for Munster Pat Cox, represents the Progressive Democrats in the lengthy negotiations with Fianna Fáil to form a coalition government. Once the negotiations conclude, he is reinstated in the Cabinet as Minister for Energy under Taoiseach Charles Haughey, who had previously caused Molloy’s political humiliation a decade earlier. Over the following three years, Molloy and his Progressive Democrat colleague Desmond O’Malley have a working relationship with their former Fianna Fáil colleagues, though tensions grow due to resentment over their presence in the Cabinet. The issue comes to a head when Molloy and O’Malley make it clear they will not serve in a Cabinet that includes Brian Lenihan Snr, following his controversial remarks during the 1990 Irish presidential election about alleged phone calls to President Patrick Hillery from 1982.

In January 1992, Haughey faces further complications when Seán Doherty reveals information about the phone tapping of journalists dating back to 1982. Despite this, the coalition government ends when Albert Reynolds, Haughey’s successor, calls for a general election after accusing O’Malley of giving “dishonest” evidence to the Beef Tribunal. Molloy strongly denounces Reynolds’ accusation, describing it as “outrageous,” and criticises him for what he perceives as a “lack of generosity” in recent North-South negotiations, in which Molloy had represented the Progressive Democrats in talks with British Unionists.

Molloy stands at the European Parliament elections again in 1994 but is again unsuccessful.

Following the 1997 Irish general election, Molloy is part of the negotiations that lead to the formation of a coalition government between the Progressive Democrats and Fianna Fáil. On that occasion, he is appointed as Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government and sits at cabinet as Minister of State to the Government.

Molloy resigns as a minister and quits politics just before the 2002 Irish general election amid controversy surrounding his involvement in the rape case of Barbara Naughton. The controversy stems from a letter Molloy sent to then Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue, on behalf of a constituent whose relative had been convicted of rape. The letter, which requests the temporary release of the individual pending an appeal, leads to public criticism. The case is high-profile, involving a Connemara man sentenced to eleven years for the systematic abuse of his young daughter. During the trial, the judge, Philip O’Sullivan, notes that someone acting on Molloy’s behalf had tried to contact him in his chambers to clarify whether he had received certain correspondence from the victim’s sister, which the judge describes as “quite improper.” In response to the backlash, Molloy resigns, describing the letter as a “human error of judgment,” but insisting it was not intended to be dishonest. He retires from politics after the election.

Molloy is a member of Fianna Fáil for over 20 years, but his views are not always in line with the mainstream of the party, particularly under the leadership of Charles Haughey. His decision to leave Fianna Fáil in 1986 and join the Progressive Democrats is motivated by ideological differences, notably the party’s move toward a more conservative, state-controlled economy. Molloy, on the other hand, embraces a platform of fiscal conservatism, with an emphasis on reducing taxes, deregulation, and the liberalisation of the economy.

In terms of social issues, Molloy is ahead of his time in advocating for progressive policies, particularly on women’s rights. In a survey conducted in 1976 by the Women’s Political Association (WPA), Molloy scores among the highest of any member of the Dáil for his progressive stance on issues affecting women. He supports measures such as divorce, contraception, and family law reform, which are seen as highly controversial at the time. His responses to the WPA’s questions reveal that he holds views that are in stark contrast to many of his colleagues within Fianna Fáil. His progressive views on women’s rights are notable, as he is the only member of Jack Lynch’s cabinet who consistently supports reformist policies on issues like family law and the role of women in public life.

In 1972, Molloy marries Phyllis Barry, a Montessori teacher from Foxrock, County Dublin, whose father is a cousin of the executed revolutionary Kevin Barry. The couple meet while campaigning in a by-election in mid-Cork. Together, they have four children: Sinead, Sorcha, Donnacha, and Dara.

Molloy dies at the age of 80 on October 2, 2016, in Salthill, Galway, County Galway. He is buried at Bohermore Cemetery, Bohermore, Galway.


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Death of John McKeague, Northern Irish Loyalist

John Dunlop McKeague, a Northern Irish loyalist and one of the founding members of the paramilitary group the Red Hand Commando (RHC) in 1970, is killed by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 29, 1982.

McKeague is born in 1930 at Messines Cottage, Bushmills, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, one of six children of Thomas McKeague and his wife, Isabella. The family operates a guesthouse in Portrush before moving to Belfast, where they open a stationer’s shop on Albertbridge Road. It is inherited by McKeague and in the late 1970s it becomes a confectioner’s shop and café.

In the late 1960s, McKeague is active in Ian Paisley‘s Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and the Willowfield branch of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV). He is linked to William McGrath and the revived Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) of the mid-1960s, and he publicises the claims of Gusty Spence that the police had framed him for the murder of a Catholic barman. On November 30, 1968, he participates in a banned demonstration by supporters of Ian Paisley against a civil rights march in Armagh city. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s he publishes a magazine, Loyalist News, full of anti-Catholic rhetoric and gossip, sectarian rhymes, Protestant religious material, and illustrated lessons in the use of firearms. He takes part in the bombing campaign of 1969 which leads to the downfall of Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O’Neill and stands unsuccessfully for Belfast Corporation in 1969 as a Protestant Unionist Party (PUP) candidate. McKeague, who never marries, is a promiscuous homosexual. His paramilitary recruitment of young men has homoerotic overtones, and his violence contains elements of sexual perversion.

In 1969, McKeague and his associates take over the nascent Shankill Defence Association (SDA), which had been formed to oppose a destructive redevelopment scheme. He becomes its chairman and, despite his outsider status and eccentricities, is given to strutting around wearing a helmet and brandishing a stick, often seen as offering communal defence against a perceived Catholic threat. The organisation acquires 1,000 members. In August 1969, he orchestrates mob attacks on Catholic enclaves in Belfast, including Bombay Street. He boasts of these activities, becoming a figure of hate for Catholics. In October 1969, he is arrested and charged with conspiracy to cause an explosion but is cleared in February 1970. The sentence is reduced to three months on appeal. He testifies before Justice Leslie Scarman‘s tribunal, appointed to inquire into the unrest. In the course of his evidence, he exults over the August 1969 riots and the tribunal’s report condemns him by name. He later further enrages Catholics by calling the events of Bloody Sunday in January 1972 “Good Sunday” in a television interview.

McKeague seeks publicity and power, but his eccentricity and unwillingness to participate where he cannot command dooms his political ambitions. In the 1970 United Kingdom general election he wins only 441 votes in Belfast North. He is expelled from the UPV after being prosecuted in February–March 1970 over the loyalist bombing campaign of 1969, even though he is acquitted. He and Ian Paisley exchange bitter invective and he subsequently supports William Craig‘s Vanguard movement. In 1971, he and two associates are prosecuted under the new Incitement to Hatred Act for publishing a Loyalist song book, which includes verses, probably composed by McKeague, reveling in the murder of Catholics. The defendants plead that the book is purely a historical record, and their acquittal vitiates the act. After he quarrels with the newly formed Ulster Defence Association (UDA), which is created by a federation of the SDA with other local vigilante groups, his elderly mother is burned alive when the UDA petrol-bombs the family shop on May 9, 1971.

Early in 1972 McKeague is expelled from the SDA. He founds the Red Hand Commandos (RHC), centered on east Belfast and north Down, which perpetrates numerous sectarian murders. As RHC leader, he allegedly participates in murders involving torture and mutilation. He aligns the RHC with the UVF in 1972 and in February 1973 he is one of the first loyalist internees. He is subsequently imprisoned for three years for armed robbery, although he always asserts his innocence of this charge. During his imprisonment he assumes a leadership role among loyalist prisoners, undertaking two short hunger strikes in protest against the Special Powers Act and prison conditions. Later, in December 1981, he acts as an intermediary during a loyalist prison protest. On his release in 1975, the RHC splits and thereafter he denies any connection with the organisation, threatening to sue newspapers that link him with it. Until his death he is co-chair of the Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee (ULCCC), a paramilitary umbrella group established in 1974. On October 6, 1975, a Catholic customer is killed and McKeague’s sister severely injured when his shop is bombed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

From the mid-1970s McKeague advocates negotiated independence for Northern Ireland, arguing that this can accommodate republican anti-British feeling and unionist fears of a united Ireland. “The days of the Orange card are gone forever,” he says (Sunday World, January 31, 1982). He is a founder and deputy leader of the minuscule Ulster Independence Association and suggests that the “Londonderry Air” become Ulster‘s national anthem. In talks with nationalists and republicans, he tells the Catholic priest Des Wilson that a united Ireland would be acceptable to Protestants, provided “we enter as a free people, even if we’re only independent for five minutes.” However, his record is an insuperable barrier to these initiatives.

In his last years, McKeague is chairman of the Frank Street–Cluan Place–Stormont Street Housing Association. He lobbies for a security wall to shield this Protestant district of Belfast from the Catholic Short Strand on which it borders. Construction of the wall begins just before his death. He is shot dead by the INLA at his shop on Albertbridge Road on January 29, 1982. Shortly before his death, he is linked to the rape and prostitution of teenage boys at Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast. He had apparently been an informer to the security forces, and it is sometimes suggested that his murder is part of an official cover-up. He is buried in Bushmills, with Church of Ireland rites.

McKeague exemplifies the social deviant who can gain prominence during political instability, projecting and legitimising his hatreds and obsessions through extremist politics. In his last years, he accepts that he will die violently. He says that if loyalists kill him, “I want . . . to be left in the Republican area so that they’re blamed” (Sunday World, January 31, 1972).

(From: “McKeague, John Dunlop” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Death of Sir Thomas de Rokeby, Justiciar of Ireland

Sir Thomas de Rokeby, a soldier and senior Crown official in fourteenth-century England and Ireland, who serves as Justiciar of Ireland, dies on April 23, 1357. He is appointed to that office to restore law and order to Ireland, and has considerable early success in this task, but he is recalled to England after the military situation deteriorates. He is later re-appointed Justiciar, and returns to Ireland to take up office, but dies soon afterwards.

The Rokebys are a prominent landowning family from Mortham in North Yorkshire. He is probably the son of Thomas de Rokeby, who dies in 1318. His nephew, also named Thomas, the son of his brother Robert, is closely associated with him in his later years and the elder Thomas is often called “l’oncle” to distinguish him from his nephew.

Rokeby first comes to public attention in 1327 when, after his return from prison in Scotland, he receives the thanks of the new King Edward III for being the squire who had first pointed out the approach of the Scots army during the invasion of the previous July. As a reward he is knighted and given lands worth £100 a year. He sees action against the Scots regularly between 1336 and 1342 and has charge of Stirling Castle and Edinburgh Castle while they are held by the English. He is High Sheriff of Yorkshire from 1342 to 1349. He is one of the English commanders at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346, and it is said, “gave the Scots such a draught as they did not care to taste again.” He is then entrusted with bringing King David II of Scotland as a captive to London, and he receives further grants of land as a reward for his good services.

In 1349 Rokeby is appointed Justiciar of Ireland, and given a large armed retinue to accompany him, as it is recognised by the English Crown that “Ireland is not in good plight or good peace.” While there is some surprise at the appointment of an old soldier to such a sensitive political position, the more informed view is that Rokeby is well suited to the task of enforcing justice by military force. He arrives in December and makes a quick circuit of the south of Ireland, mainly to keep watch on the powerful but troublesome magnate Maurice FitzGerald, 1st Earl of Desmond.

Rokeby is praised by his contemporaries for his regard for justice and his zeal in checking extortion by Crown officials. He undertakes a general overhaul of the Irish administration, aimed particularly at the detection and prevention of corruption and the removal of incompetent officials. Arguably he shows excessive zeal in arresting and imprisoning the Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, Robert de Emeldon, a man who enjoys the King’s personal regard. Admittedly the charges against Emeldon are very serious, including rape, robbery and manslaughter, but the King, out of regard for their long friendship and Emeldon’s record of good service to the Crown in Ireland, had already pardoned Emeldon for killing one Ralph de Byrton, a knight, in 1336. Emeldon is once more pardoned and quickly released.

In November 1351 Rokeby holds a Great Council at Kilkenny. It deals partly with the problem of official corruption already mentioned, partly with the problem of defence of the Pale, and partly with the question of intermarriage and other close contacts between the Anglo-Irish and the Old Irish. Otway-Ruthven notes that little of the legislation is new, apart from the application to Ireland of the English Statute of Labourers of 1351, and that much of it is repeated in the better-known Statutes of Kilkenny of 1366.

In 1353 the Clan MacCarthy of Muskerry, the dominant clan in central County Cork, who had until then been loyal to the English Crown, rebels. Rokeby shows considerable skill in crushing the uprising and succeeds in replacing the rebellious head of the clan, Dermot MacCarthy, with his more compliant cousin Cormac. Cormac’s descendants gain great wealth, extensive lands and the title Earl of Clancarty.

This promising state of good order does not last long. A rebellion by the O’Byrne Clan of Wicklow in 1354 is followed by a general uprising headed by the MacMurrough-Kavanagh dynasty. Although Muirchearteach MacMurrough-Kavanagh, the self-styled King of Leinster, is captured and executed, Rokeby suffers several military defeats. He is unable to suppress the O’Byrnes’ rebellion, and other risings take place in Tipperary, Kildare and Ulster.

Rokeby, now an ageing and discouraged man, is recalled in 1355. His replacement, rather surprisingly, is that Earl of Desmond whom it had been one of his main tasks to keep in check. Desmond dies a year later on July 26, 1356. Rokeby is reappointed Justiciar, and returns to Ireland, only to die soon afterwards on April 23, 1357 at Kilkea Castle.

Rokeby is married and his wife is named Juliana, but little else is known of her. They have no children, and his estates pass to his nephew, the younger Thomas.

(Pictured: Portrait of Sir Thomas de Rokeby, painting by Godfried Schalcken)