In 1921, McCaughey’s family moves to the Ardoyne district in north Belfast. Hus father is a founding member of the Irish republican Dungannon Clubs and organizes the first branch of Sinn Féin in County Tyrone. As a teenager he joins the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin and also becomes a long time student and teacher of the Irish language in the Glens of Antrim. He joins the IRA in 1935 and in 1938 is promoted to Officer Commanding (O/C) of its Northern Command, headquartered near the town of Carrickmore, County Tyrone, which is the ancestral home of Joseph McGarrity and Patrick McCartan, both leaders of the Irish republican organization Clan na Gael. In December 1939, he is arrested and imprisoned at the Curragh Camp. After being released in 1940 he returns to the Northern Command of the IRA. He is held in high regard and is considered to be one of the best officers of the northern IRA. At the time of his arrest in Rathmines, Dublin, on September 2, 1941, he is acting Chief of Staff.
In September 1941, McCaughey is found guilty by a Dublin court of having detained and assaulted Stephen Hayes, IRA Chief of Staff, who was accused of being a spy for the Irish Free State government. Hayes escapes and later testifies against him at a Military Court. He is sentenced to death by firing squad. His sentence is commuted to a life sentence of penal servitude.
Imprisoned in Portlaoise Prison on July 24, 1941, McCaughey joins other IRA prisoners in the ongoing blanket protest. Refusing to wear a criminal’s prison clothes, he is kept in solitary confinement and spends nearly five years naked except for a blanket. This form of resistance by Irish republican prisoners is also used in the 1980s blanket protests in the Maze prison (also known as “Long Kesh”) and the HM Prison Armagh (women’s prison) in Northern Ireland. He and other Irish republican prisoners endure years of hardships. Sitting month after month, year after year in bleak solitary cells, they are taken out once a week for a bath, and for the rest of the week live the life of an animal trapped in a burrow. That they do not go mad is a remarkable comment on mans capacity for survival. During his almost five years in Portlaoise, he Is never permitted to have visitors.
McCaughey commences a hunger strike on April 19, 1946. After ten days, he stops taking water and dies on May 11, 1946, the twenty-third day of his protest. An inquest is held in the prison at which the prison doctor admits that during his over four and a half years of imprisonment that McCaughey had never been allowed out in the fresh air or sunlight and that “he would not treat his dog the way Seán McCaughey had been treated in Portlaoise.”
McCaughey is the last person to die on hunger strike in the Irish state. There is a long history of hunger striking in Ireland – within the 20th century a total of 22 Irish republicans die on hunger strike with survivors suffering long-term health and psychological effects. Four men die during the 1920 Cork hunger strike. The largest hunger strike in Irish history is the 1923 Irish hunger strikes, during which five men die. Ten men die during the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
(Pictured: Seán McCaughey (right) and Charlie McGlade, O’Connell Street, Dublin, 1941)
Maude is born on May 22, 1941, in Casla, County Galway, and reared in the Irish language. Her mother, Máire Nic an Iomaire, is a school teacher, and she receives her primary education from her on a small island off the coast of Rosmuc. Her father, John Maude, is from Cill Bhriocáin township near Rosmuc. She attends secondary school at Coláiste Chroí Mhuire, Spiddal, an all-Irish language school in County Galway. She later credits one of her Irish language teachers there, Sister Ailbhe, as an early influence in cultivating her writing confidence.
Maude begins writing modern literature in Irish in secondary school and develops a rhythm of poetry closely attuned to the rhythms of the Conamara Theas dialect of Connacht Irish, spoken in her native district. Though not conventionally religious, she admits in an interview that she has a deep interest in spirituality and that this has left its mark on her poetry. She is noted as a highly effective reciter of her own verse. Géibheann is the best-known of her poems, and is studied at Leaving Certificate Higher Level Irish in the Republic of Ireland. A posthumous collected edition, Caitlín Maude, Dánta, is published in 1984, Caitlín Maude: file in 1985 in Ireland and Italy, and Coiscéim in 1985.
Maude is widely known as an actress. She acts at the university, at An Taibhdhearc in Galway and the Damer Theatre in Dublin, and is particularly successful in a production of An Triail by Máiréad Ní Ghráda at the Damer Theatre in 1964. She plays the protagonist, Máire Ní Chathasaigh, an unmarried mother who experiences family rejection, a stay in a Magdalene laundry, and ultimately murders her infant child followed by suicide. In 2017, Former Irish Minister For JusticeMáire Geoghegan-Quinn cites this performance as “pathbreaking”: “Caitlín Maude played the role, when nobody talked about the issue and when, as we know, women were still devalued, still caricatured, still incarcerated and disenfranchised if they became mothers out of wedlock.” Maude herself is a playwright and co-authors An Lasair Choille with poet Michael Hartnett.
Maude is very active in the Celtic Revival. She founds An Bonnán Buí, an Irish-speaking social club in the 1970s in Dublin. As a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Gaelgeoir community, she is active in many direct action campaigns by the language revival organization Gluaiseacht Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta, including the campaign that forces the Irish State to establish a Gaelscoil (Irish-medium primary school) Scoil Santain in the suburb of Tallaght, County Dublin. A second Irish language school, Scoil Chaitlin Maude, opens in Tallaght in 1985 shortly after her death. It begins as a two-room school with 35 children and has grown to a 16 room new building serving 345 children as of 2023.
Maude is also a distinguished sean-nós singer. She makes one album in this genre, Caitlín, released in 1975 on Gael Linn Records and now available as a CD. It contains both traditional songs and a selection of readings of her poetry.
Maude marries Cathal Ó Luain in 1969. They have one child Caomhán, their son.
Maude dies of complications from cancer on June 6, 1982, at the age of 41. She is buried in Bohernabreena graveyard, which overlooks the city from the Wicklow Mountains.
In 2001, a new writers’ centre in Galway is named after her: Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude, Gaillimh.
Since Maude’s death, critics in several languages have continued to study her literary works. Irish writer and The Irish Times columnist Michael Harding cites her as one of a few examples of groundbreaking women to “spin the hurt and wound of their oppression, and weave new loves songs and laments.” Irish Studies professor Sarah McKibben notes that Maude’s innovation in the poem represents an instance of recent Irish writers transgressing “literary, nationalistic, sociolinguistic and gender norms to craft new ways of writing in Irish.”
According to Louis de Paor, “Although no collection of her work was published during her lifetime, Caitlín Maude had a considerable influence on Irish language poetry and poets, including Máirtín Ó Direáin, Micheál Ó hAirtnéide, Tomás Mac Síomóin, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. That influence is a measure of the dramatic force of her personality, her exemplary ingenuity and commitment to the language, and her ability as a singer to embody the emotional disturbance at the heart of a song. Her collected poems are relatively slight, including incomplete drafts and fragments, but reveal a poetic voice confident of its own authority, drawing on the spoken language of the Connemara Gaeltacht but rarely on its conventions of oral composition or, indeed, on precedents in Irish poetry in either language. The best of her work is closer to the American poetry of the 1960s in its use of looser forms that follow the rhythms of the spoken word and the sense of the poem as direct utterance without artifice, a technique requiring a high degree of linguistic precision and formal control.”
Maude’s work has also been translated into English and Spanish. Spanish language critic Pura Coloma notes that Maude’s work played a role in preserving Connemaran culture, as she “utilizes her own style to replicate the deep rhythms and tonalities of the regional voice.”
FitzGerald joins Fine Gael, attaching himself to the liberal wing of the party. and in 1969 is elected to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. He later gives up his university lectureship to become Minister for Foreign Affairs in the coalition government of Liam Cosgrave (1973–77). When the coalition government is resoundingly defeated in the 1977 Irish general election, Cosgrave yields leadership of Fine Gael to FitzGerald. In his new role as Leader of the Opposition and party leader, he proceeds to modernize and strengthen the party at the grass roots. He briefly loses power in 1982 when political instability triggers two snap elections.
By the time of the 1981 Irish general election, Fine Gael has a party machine that can easily match Fianna Fáil. The party wins 65 seats and forms a minority coalition government with the Labour Party and the support of a number of Independent TDs. FitzGerald is elected Taoiseach on June 30, 1981. To the surprise of many, FitzGerald excludes Richie Ryan, Richard Burke and Tom O’Donnell, former Fine Gael stalwarts, from the cabinet.
On May 5, 2011, it is reported that FitzGerald is seriously ill in a Dublin hospital. Newly elected Fine Gael Taoiseach Enda Kenny sends his regards and calls him an “institution.” On May 6 he is put on a ventilator. On May 19, after suffering from pneumonia, he dies at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin at the age of 85.
In a statement, Irish PresidentMary McAleese hails FitzGerald as “a man steeped in the history of the State who constantly strove to make Ireland a better place for all its people.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny pays homage to “a truly remarkable man who made a truly remarkable contribution to Ireland.” Henry Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State, who serves as an opposite number to FitzGerald in the 1970s, recalls “an intelligent and amusing man who was dedicated to his country.”
FitzGerald’s death occurs on the third day of Queen Elizabeth II‘s state visit to the Republic of Ireland, an event designed to mark the completion of the Northern Ireland peace process that had been “built on the foundations” of FitzGerald’s Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher in 1985. In a personal message, the Queen offers her sympathies and says she is “saddened” to learn of FitzGerald’s death.
On his visit to Dublin, United States PresidentBarack Obama offers condolences on FitzGerald’s death. He speaks of him as “someone who believed in the power of education; someone who believed in the potential of youth; most of all, someone who believed in the potential of peace and who lived to see that peace realised.”
FitzGerald is the author of a number of books, including Planning in Ireland (1968), Towards a New Ireland (1972), Unequal Partners (1979), All in a Life: An Autobiography (1991), and Reflections on the Irish State (2003).
Ginnell is born in Delvin, County Westmeath, in 1852, (baptised April 9, 1852) the son of Laurence Ginnell and Mary Monaghan and twin to Michael Ginnell. He is self-educated and is called to the Irish bar as well as the Bar of England and Wales. In his youth, he is involved with the Land War and acts as private secretary to John Dillon.
The last great social and agrarian campaign of the Irish home rule movement, the Ranch War (1906 and 1909), is largely led and organised by Ginnell from the central office of the United Irish League. He is elected an MP in 1906, takes his seat at Westminster and swears allegiance to Edward VII. On October 14, 1906, he launches the “war” at Downs, County Westmeath.
The purpose of the war is to bring relief to the large numbers of landless and smallholders, particularly in the West, who are relatively untouched by the Wyndham Land Act (1903) and by the larger policy of purchase. The strategy that Ginnell pursues is the Down’s Policy, or cattle driving, a proceeding designed to harass the prosperous grazier interests, whose “ranches” occupy large, under populated and under worked tracts. The Down’s Policy is also meant to draw public attention to the scandalous inequalities that survive in the Irish countryside. The conservatives within the home rule leadership are understandably suspicious about the revival of agrarian disturbances, but the mood of the party organisation is hardening in the aftermath of a disappointing devolution bill in May 1907, from the new Liberal government, so that it seems logical to turn to the traditional mechanism for reactivating the national question: agrarian agitation.
Ginnell’s cattle drives begin to tail off after the summer of 1908, and the agitation is finally dissolved with the passage of a 1909 Act by the Liberal Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell that allows the transfer to the Irish Land Commission of farmland by compulsory purchase, which is hailed by the national movement as an historic victory. In reality, the Ranch War involves an implosion within sectors of the Irish Parliamentary Party, as its leadership has not facilitated the working of the Wyndham Land Act in the first place because John Dillon and his like want conflict above victory.
In 1909, Ginnell is expelled from the Irish Parliamentary Party for the offence of asking to see the party accounts after which he sits as an Independent Nationalist. During this time, he is addressed frequently as “The MP for Ireland.” At Westminster, he is highly critical of the British government‘s war policy and its holding of executions of certain participants in the Easter Rising of 1916. On May 9, he accuses British Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith, of “Murder” and is forcibly ejected from the Chamber. He visits many of the prisoners who are interned in various prisons in Wales and England.
At the Sinn Féin ardfheis in 1917, at which the party is reconstituted as a republican party with de Valera as president, Ginnell and W. T. Cosgrave are elected Honorary Treasurers. He is imprisoned in March 1918 for encouraging land agitation and later deported to Reading Gaol. In the 1918 United Kingdom general election, he is elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Westmeath constituency by comfortably defeating his IPP challenger. After his release from prison, he attends the proceedings of the First Dáil. Along with fellow TDJames O’Mara, he is one of the only TDs to serve as a member in both the House of Commons and Dáil Éireann.
He is one of the few people to have served in the House of Commons and in the Oireachtas. He is appointed Director of Propaganda in the Second Ministry of the Irish Republic. After spending a year as a republican campaigner in Chicago, he is appointed the Representative of the Irish Republic in Argentina and South America by de Valera. He carries out his propaganda work here to distribute copies of the Irish Bulletin and to provide the Sinn Féin version of the conflict during the Irish War of Independence. On August 16, 1921, he returns home to attend the first meeting of the Second Dáil. He travels back to Argentina some months later to serve as the Representative of the Republic there.
On September 9, 1922, Ginnell is the only anti-Treaty TD to attend the inaugural meeting of the Provisional Parliament or Third Dáil. Before signing the roll, he says, “I want some explanation before I sign. I have been elected in pursuance of a decree by Dáil Éireann, which decree embodies the decree of May 20, 1922. I have heard nothing read in reference to that decree, nothing but an Act of a foreign Parliament. I have been elected as a member of Dáil Éireann. I have not been elected to attend any such Parliament. Will anyone tell me with authority whether it is…”.
Ginnell is at this point interrupted but resumes by saying that he will sign the roll and take his seat in the Assembly if the Assembly is Dáil Éireann. He is informed he is not allowed raise any such question until a Ceann Comhairle has been elected. He continues to ask questions regardless to which he gets no answer including his question: “Will any member of the Six Counties be allowed to sit in this Dáil?” W. T. Cosgrave moves at this point that he be excluded from the House. Ginnell protests, and he is dragged out by force.
De Valera later appoints Ginnell a member of his “Council of State,” a twelve-member body set up to advise him on the deteriorating situation in the civil war. He returns to the United States soon afterward to serve as the Republic‘s envoy in the country. He orders Robert Briscoe and some of his friends to take possession of the Consular Offices in Nassau Street, New York City, then in the hands of the Irish Free State Government, to obtain the list of the subscribers to the bond drive organized to aid the struggle in the War of Independence. At the time, a court case is ongoing to decide on who has the right to the funds: the newly installed Provisional Government or de Valera, as one of the three trustees among the anti-Treatyites.
Ginnell dies in Washington, D.C. on April 17, 1923, at the age of 71, still campaigning against the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
O’Malley is born on January 18, 1921, in Limerick, one of eight surviving children of Joseph O’Malley, civil engineer, and his wife, Mary “Cis” (née Tooher). Born into a wealthy middle-class family, he is educated by the Jesuits at Crescent College and later at Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare. He later studies at University College Galway (UCG), where he is conferred with a degree in civil engineering in 1943. He later returns to Limerick, where he works as an engineer before becoming involved in politics.
O’Malley plays rugby at provincial level for Munster, Leinster and Connacht and at club level for Bohemians and Shannon RFC. His chances at an international career are ruined by the suspension of international fixtures during World War II. It is at a rugby match in Tralee that he first meets Dr. Hilda Moriarty, who he goes on to marry in August 1947.
Although O’Malley runs as a Fianna Fáil candidate, he is born into a politically active family who supports Cumann na nGaedheal until a falling-out with the party in the early 1930s. He first becomes involved in local politics as a member of Limerick Corporation. He becomes Mayor of Limerick in 1961, the third O’Malley brother to hold the office (Desmond from 1941-43 and Michael from 1948-49). He is a strong electoral performer, topping the poll in every general election he runs in.
O’Malley is first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for Limerick East at the 1954 Irish general election. Fianna Fáil is not returned to government on that occasion. He spends the rest of the decade on the backbenches. However, his party is returned to power in 1957. Two years later, the modernising process begins when Seán Lemass takes over from Éamon de Valera as Taoiseach. Lemass introduces younger cabinet ministers, as the old guard who has served the party since its foundation in 1926 begin to retire.
In 1961, O’Malley joins the government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. He is part of a new, brasher style of politician that emerges in the 1960s, sometimes nicknamed “the men in the mohair suits.” It is expected that this generation of politician, born after the Irish Civil War, will be a modernising force in post-de Valera Ireland.
Although his sporting background is in rugby and swimming, it is association football which O’Malley gets involved in at a leadership level, becoming President of the Football Association of Ireland despite never having played the sport.
Following Fianna Fáil’s retention of power in the 1965 Irish general election, O’Malley joins the cabinet as Minister for Health. He spends just over a year in this position before he is appointed Minister for Education, a position in which he displays renowned dynamism. Having succeeded Patrick Hillery, another dynamic young minister, he resolves to act swiftly to introduce the recommendations of an official report on education.
As Minister for Education, O’Malley extends the school transport scheme and commissions the building of new non-denominational comprehensive and community schools in areas where they are needed. He introduces Regional Technical Colleges (RTCs), now called Institutes of Technology, in areas where there is no third level college. The best example of this policy is the University of Limerick, originally an Institute of Higher Education, where O’Malley is credited with taking the steps to ensure that it becomes a university. His plan to merge Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin arouses huge controversy, and is not successful, despite being supported by his cabinet colleague Brian Lenihan. Access to third-level education is also extended, the old scholarship system being replaced by a system of means-tested grants that give easier access to students without well-off parents.
Mid-twentieth century Ireland experiences significant emigration, especially to the neighbouring United Kingdom where, in addition to employment opportunities, there is a better state provision of education and healthcare. Social change in Ireland and policies intending to correct this deficit are often met with strong resistance, such as Noël Browne‘s proposed Mother and Child Scheme. As a former Health Minister, O’Malley has first-hand experience of running the department which had attempted to introduce this scheme and understood the processes that caused it to fail, such as resistance from Department of Finance and John Charles McQuaid. This influences his strategy in presenting the free-education proposal.
Shortly after O’Malley is appointed, he announces that from 1969 all education up to Intermediate Certificate level will be without cost, and free buses will bring students in rural areas to their nearest school, seemingly making this decision without consulting other ministers. However, he does discuss it with Lemass. Jack Lynch, who, as Minister for Finance, has to find the money to pay for the programme, is not consulted and is dismayed at the announcement.
By announcing the decision first to journalists and on a Saturday (during a month when the Dáil is in recess), the positive public reaction tempers resistance to the idea before the next cabinet meeting. O’Malley’s proposals are hugely popular with the public, and it is impossible for the government to go back on his word.
Some Irish commentators consider that O’Malley’s extension of education, changing Ireland from a land where the majority are schooled only to the age of 14 to a country with universal secondary-school education, indirectly leads to the Celtic Tiger boom of the 1990s-2000s when it is followed for some years by an extension of free education to primary degree level in university, a scheme that is launched in 1996 by the Labour Party and axed in 2009 by Fianna Fáil’s Batt O’Keeffe.
In 1967, O’Malley appoints Justice Eileen Kennedy to chair a committee to carry out a survey and report on the reformatory and industrial school systems. The report, which is published in 1970, is considered ground-breaking in many areas and comes to be known as the Kennedy Report. The Report makes recommendations about a number of matters, including the Magdalene laundries, in relation to which they are not acted upon. The report recommends the closure of a number of reformatories, including the latterly infamous reformatory at Daingean, County Offaly.
O’Malley’s reforms make him one of the most popular members of the government. He is affectionately known as “the School Man” for his work in education. His sudden death in Limerick on March 10, 1968, before his vision for the education system is completed, comes as a shock to the public. He is buried with a full Irish state funeral.
Following O’Malley’s death, his widow, Hilda O’Malley, does not run in the subsequent by-election for the seat he has left vacant. It is won narrowly by their nephew Desmond O’Malley. Hilda seeks the Fianna Fáil nomination for the 1969 Irish general election, but Fianna Fáil gives the party nomination to Desmond, as the sitting TD. Hilda runs as an Independent candidate in that election. After what proves a bitter campaign against her nephew, she fails to get the fourth seat in Limerick East by just 200 votes.
By early 1978, the British Army forces involved in Operation Banner have recently replaced their aging Bell H-13 Sioux helicopters for the more versatile Aérospatiale Gazelles. The introduction of the new machines increases the area covered on a reconnaissancesortie as well as the improved time spent in airborne missions. In the same period, the Provisional IRA receives its first consignment of M60 machine guns from the Middle East, which are displayed by masked volunteers during a Bloody Sunday commemoration in Derry. Airborne operations are crucial for the British presence along the border, especially in south County Armagh, where the level of IRA activity means that every supply and soldier has to be ferried in and out of their bases by helicopter since 1975.
The Royal Green Jackets have been in South Armagh since December 1977, and have already seen some action. Just a few days after arrival, two mortar rounds hit the C Company base at Forkhill, injuring a number of soldiers. In the aftermath of the attack, two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers are wounded by a booby trap while recovering the lorry where the mortar tubes are mounted. Two days later, a patrol near the border suffers a bomb and gun attack, leaving the commanding sergeant with severe head wounds. The sergeant is picked up from the scene by helicopter. He is later invalided from the British Army as a result of his injuries.
On January 17, 1978, a Royal Green Jackets observation post deployed around the village of Jonesborough begins to take heavy fire from the “March Wall,” which draws parallel with the Irish border to the east, along the Dromad woods. The soldiers return fire, but the short distance to the border and the open ground prevents them from advancing.
The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ian Corden-Lloyd, along with Captain Philip Schofield and Sergeant Ives fly from the battalion base at Bessbrook Mill to assess the situation and provide information to the troops. They are escorted by a Scout helicopter with an Airborne Reaction Force (ARF), comprising a medic and three soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Light Infantry. While hovering over the scene of the engagement, the Aérospatiale Gazelle receives a barrage of 7.62 mm tracer rounds. The pilot loses control of the aircraft during a turn at high speed to avoid the stream of fire. The Aérospatiale Gazelle hits a wall and crashes in a field, some 2 km from Jonesborough. According to the crew and passengers of the Scout, the Aérospatiale Gazelle hits the ground twice after losing power, with its rotor blades trashing into the soil following the second impact, and then cartwheels across the field. The Scout lands the ARF while still under IRA fire. The soldiers rush to the wrecked helicopter, some 100 metres away from the site of the initial crash.
Corden-Lloyd is killed and the other two passengers are wounded. The machine comes to rest on its right side. The pilot remains trapped inside the wreckage, but he survives thanks to his helmet. The IRA later claim they had shot at the helicopter with an M60 machine gun. The IRA unit vanishes into the Dromad woods to the Republic of Ireland. Some Gardaí witness the attack from the other side of the border.
The gun battle and Aérospatiale Gazelle shootdown is displaced from the headlines by the deaths of twelve civilians in the La Mon restaurant bombing on the same day, some of whom are burned to death. Initially the British Army downplays the IRA’s claim as published by An Phoblacht, that the helicopter was shot down, on the basis that no hits were found on the wreckage, but finally they acknowledged that the IRA action had caused the crash.
The death of Corden-Lloyd, a former Special Air Service officer, is deeply regretted by the British Army, who regarded him as promising. He is awarded a posthumous mentioned in despatches “in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in Northern Ireland.” In 1973, Irish republicans had accused Corden-Lloyd and his subordinates of brutality against Belfast Catholics during an earlier tour of the Royal Green Jackets in 1971, at the time of Operation Demetrius.
The Irish Catholic Hierarchy formally endorses Home Rule on February 16, 1886, a significant moment in the Irish political landscape.
The Home Rule movement, led by Charles Stewart Parnell (pictured) and the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), seeks to establish a separate Irish parliament to handle domestic affairs while remaining within the British Empire. The campaign gains significant momentum throughout the late 19th century, but opposition from the British government and Irish unionists make progress difficult. Up to this point, the Catholic Church in Ireland had largely remained cautious about taking an overtly political stance on Home Rule. However, their endorsement on this day in 1886 changes the dynamic of the movement, giving it an unprecedented boost in legitimacy and support among the Irish people.
The Catholic Church plays a central role in Irish society, wielding immense influence over the daily lives of the majority Catholic population. Many of the clergy are already sympathetic to nationalist aspirations, but an official endorsement from the hierarchy signals a unified front that cannot be ignored. By formally backing Home Rule, the bishops strengthen nationalist demands and provide moral authority to the movement, reinforcing the argument that Home Rule is not just a political necessity but also a just and rightful cause.
This endorsement comes at a critical time. British Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone is preparing to introduce the Government of Ireland Bill 1886, commonly known as the First Home Rule Bill, in April 1886, a legislative measure that, if passed, would grant Ireland limited self-government. The backing of the Catholic hierarchy is instrumental in rallying public support and reinforcing Parnell’s leadership. While the bill ultimately fails in the House of Commons on June 8, 1886, due to strong opposition from Conservative and Unionist factions, the Catholic Church’s stance ensures that Home Rule remains a dominant political issue for decades to come.
Despite the failure of the 1886 bill, the endorsement by the Catholic bishops has long-term implications. It solidifies a powerful alliance between Irish nationalism and the Church, an influence that persists well into the 20th century. The endorsement also helps to counteract Protestant unionist claims that Home Rule is merely a radical or sectarian endeavor, presenting it instead as a moderate and just political cause with widespread backing.
Over the following years, Home Rule remains a contentious issue, with subsequent attempts to pass similar legislation met with resistance. The Government of Ireland Bill 1893, commonly known as the Second Home Rule Bill, is again defeated in the House of Lords, and it is not until the Government of Ireland Act 1914, commonly referred to as the Third Home Rule Bill, that significant progress is made. Even then, implementation is delayed by World War I and ultimately overshadowed by the 1916 Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence.
Looking back, the Catholic Church’s endorsement of Home Rule on February 16, 1886, is a defining moment in Ireland’s political history. It reinforces the nationalist cause, legitimizes the demand for self-governance, and plays a crucial role in shaping Ireland’s path toward eventual independence. While Home Rule itself is never fully realized in the form originally envisioned, its legacy influences the Irish Free State’s establishment in 1922 and Ireland’s eventual emergence as a fully independent republic.
(From: “February 16, 1886 – The Catholic Church Embraces Home Rule,” by Bagtown Clans, This Day in Irish History Substack, http://www.thisdayinirishhistory.substack.com, February 2025)
The funerals of eleven of those killed on Bloody Sunday take place on February 2, 1972. Prayer services are held across Ireland. In Dublin, over 30,000 march to the British Embassy, carrying thirteen replica coffins and black flags. They attack the Embassy with stones and bottles followed by petrol bombs. The building is eventually burned to the ground.
On the morning of Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972, the 1st Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment enters Derry to assume their positions. The planned march is due to start at Bishop’s Field in the Cregganhousing estate and continue to the Guildhall in the city center, where the day is to end in a peaceful rally. Ten to fifteen thousand people set off at 2:45 p.m.
The march makes its way down William Street, but when it approaches the city center, the protestors find their way blocked by the British Army. At approximately 3:45 p.m., the organizers tell the protestors to change the direction of the march to go down Rossville Street, intending to hold the rally at Free Derry Corner instead. Most of the marchers follow the organizers’ instructions. At this point, some protestors break away from the march and start throwing stones at the soldiers handling the barriers. The soldiers fire rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons at the breakaway contingent. At this stage, witnesses report that the discord is no more violent than usual. Some of the rioters continue throwing rocks at the soldiers, but they are not close enough to the military men to inflict any damage. At about 3:55 p.m., the paratroopers start firing at the protestors. More than one hundred rounds are fired by the soldiers, who do not issue a warning before they open fire. In total, of the 26 civilians who are shot, 13 died that day, and one dies more than four months later.
On February 2, 1972, the funerals of eleven of the dead are held. Thousands of mourners gather at St. Mary’s Church for a mass funeral, with Northern IrelandMPBernadette Devlin in attendance. The event is a significant demonstration of the civil rights movement’s commitment to the cause of the victims and their families. The funeral procession is a symbol of the ongoing struggle for civil rights and justice in Northern Ireland.
The Republic of Ireland holds a national day of mourning, while a general strike is held the same day. The strike is the largest that Europe has seen since World War II in relation to the size of Ireland’s population. Catholic and Protestant churches as well as synagogues hold memorial services across Ireland. In Dublin, between 30,000 and 100,000 march to the British Embassy carrying thirteen coffins and black flags. A crowd later attacks the embassy, burning the Chancery down to the ground.
With a report due on Monday, January 31, and widely expected to state that the IRA is not ready to disarm, the Northern Ireland peace process appears headed for a fresh crisis. The report by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the province’s independent commission overseeing the handing in of weapons, is expected to confirm that no arms have been turned in.
The Ireland on Sunday newspaper says de Chastelain will tell the British and Irish governments that the IRA has put most of its weapons into secret, sealed dumps in the Republic of Ireland. Such disclosures put enormous pressure on Adams, the leader of the Irish republican political party, Sinn Féin.
The UUP, the province’s main Protestant political group, has already threatened to pull out of Northern Ireland‘s fledgling power-sharing government if the IRA does not start disarming.
The UUP calls a top-level party meeting for February 12. A negative report from the decommissioning body will heighten fears that UUP leader David Trimble will make good on his threat to resign as leader of the new government, effectively allowing his party to shut down the province’s first government in 25 years.
Of Adams’s role in the disarmament process, Trimble says, “He asked us to create the circumstances to help him … we did that … we took the risk and created the situation he asked us to create. “Now we hope he now is able to demonstrate his good faith by responding.”
Adams says, “I am concerned at what appears to be an attempt by unionists to hijack the entire process, put up unilateral demands, perhaps in the course of that, tear down the institutions that are only two months in being. I understand why unionists want decommissioning. It is just not within my grasp to deliver it on their terms, and neither is it my responsibility.”
Adams says he can give no assurances that the IRA will hand over its weapons by May 22, the date set by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement for the completion of disarmament, although he stresses he is committed to decommissioning. “No, I can’t and it isn’t up to me,” Adams tells BBC Television when asked if he can guarantee disarmament by May.
Political insiders hint that the report will not be published until Monday (January 31) afternoon, suggesting the highly sensitive document is still being worked on by de Chastelain.
Any unionist pullout from the home-rule government on February 12 will create a political vacuum. Britain may intervene before that to suspend the fledgling executive, in the hope that it can be resurrected quickly if progress eventually is made on disarmament. Sinn Féin warns that either course of action could lead to the IRA breaking off contact with de Chastelain and the ending of disarmament prospects.
Meanwhile, on the eve of the report, thousands of Roman Catholics mark an event and day that symbolizes the province’s past troubles — Bloody Sunday.
Waving Irish flags, some 5,000 protesters retrace the steps of a civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972 that ended in bloodshed when British troops fired on unarmed protesters and killed thirteen people, mostly teenagers. A fourteenth man died later from his wounds. Victims’ relatives and local children carry fourteen white crosses, photos of the dead and a banner that reads, “Bloody Sunday, the day innocence died.” The march passes the scene of the killings and ends in front of Londonderry’s city hall — a spot where the 1972 march was supposed to have finished.
Organizers issue a message to British Prime MinisterTony Blair that they want a forthcoming inquiry not to end in the same way as a probe held within months of the killings, which exonerated the British soldiers by suggesting that some of the victims had handled weapons that day. “Twenty-eight years on from Bloody Sunday, there is still no recognition of the role the British government played in the premeditated attack on unarmed demonstrators,” Barbara de Brun, a top IRA official, tells the crowd.
Relatives of those killed are upset that soldiers who took part in the shootings would be allowed to remain anonymous during the new probe. They are also concerned about a newspaper report that the army recently destroyed thirteen of the rifles used by the soldiers, complicating any ballistics tests at the inquiry.
“Once again, the political and military establishment are up to their old tricks. We won’t accept a public relations exercise,” Alana Burke, who was injured by an armored car during the Bloody Sunday march, tells the crowd.
(From: “Hopes dim for IRA disarmament, peace accord” by Nic Robertson and Reuters, CNN, cnn.com, January 30, 2000)
The official statement at the end of the four-hour meeting states that progress has been made in “areas of consultation and co-operation.” The Taoiseach says they discussed industry, tourism, electricity supply, and trade, as well as tariff concessions, and “measures taken by both governments to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease from Britain.”
Afterward, O’Neill returns to Northern Ireland by a different route in order to avoid any possible demonstration. Paisley has been developing a high profile for himself with his attacks on O’Neill in recent months. But he misses the opportunity to protest on this occasion. The next day he issues a statement regretting O’Neill’s return home. “I would advise Mr. Lynch to keep him,” Paisley announces.
Five years earlier, in 1963, O’Neill becomes Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. From very early on, he tries to break down sectarian barriers between the two Northern communities. He also seeks to improve relations with the Republic of Ireland by eradicating the impasse in relations that has existed since the 1920s. He invites then-Taoiseach Seán Lemass to meet him at Stormont on January 14, 1965. Lemass courageously accepts the invitation. At their initial meeting, when they are briefly alone, Lemass says to O’Neill, ”I shall get into terrible trouble for this!” The Northern premier replies, ”No, Mr. Lemass, it is I who will get into terrible trouble.”
O’Neill makes his return visit to Dublin on February 9, 1965, and the two leaders agree to co-operate on tourism and electricity. It is Lemass who makes the most significant concessions, because the Constitution of Ireland does not recognise the existence of the North. Article 2 of the Constitution actually claims sovereignty over the whole island. Thus, by formally meeting the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, O’Neill claims that Lemass accorded him “a de facto recognition.”
The Taoiseach then bolsters this at their follow-up meeting in Iveagh House, Dublin, three weeks later. ”The place card in front of me at Iveagh House bore the inscription, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland,” O’Neill proudly explains. Surely this is tantamount to formal recognition. But many Unionists still have grave reservations about dealing with the Republic of Ireland.
In 1966, Ian Paisley establishes the Protestant Unionist Party (PUP) to oppose O’Neill. He rouses sectarian tension by holding mass demonstrations at which he brands O’Neill as the “Ally of Popery.” Nevertheless, public opinion polls indicate support for O’Neill’s leadership from both communities in the North.
After Jack Lynch replaced Lemass as Taoiseach in late 1966, O’Neill continues with his efforts to improve relations with the Dublin government by inviting Lynch to Stormont Castle. The Taoiseach travels to Belfast by car on December 11, 1967. There is no formal announcement of his visit, but word is leaked to Paisley after the Taoiseach’s car crosses the border.
Paisley arrives at Stormont with his wife and a handful of supporters, just minutes before the Taoiseach. With snow on the ground, two of Paisley’s church ministers, Rev. Ivan Foster and Rev. William McCrea, begin throwing snowballs at Lynch’s car. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) promptly grabs the two ministers. While they are being bundled into a police car, Paisley is bellowing, “No Pope here!” Lynch asks his traveling companion, T. K. Whitaker, “Which one of us does he think is the Pope?”
Paisley demands to be arrested by the RUC, and actually tries to get into the police car with his two colleagues, but he is pulled away. The two clergymen are taken to an RUC station and quickly released. Lynch ridicules the protest. “It was a seasonal touch,” he says. “It reminds me of what happens when I go through a village at home and the boys come and throw snowballs.”
Paisley says he had come to protest against “the smuggling” of Lynch into Stormont. If he had known about the visit earlier, he says that he would have brought along 10,000 people to protest. Denouncing O’Neill, as a “snake in the grass,” he goes on to accuse Lynch of being “a murderer of our kith and kin.” In an editorial, the Unionist Newsletter proclaims that ”there is no doubt that Capt. O’Neill has the full support of his colleagues and of the country.”
O’Neill’s four formal meetings with Lynch and his predecessor contribute to a thaw in relations at the summit between Belfast and Dublin, but the whole process is exploited by others to fan the flames of Northern sectarianism.
People do not realise it in early 1968, but Northern Ireland is about to explode. On October 5, 1968, people gather in Derry for a civil rights march that has been banned by Stormont. When the march begins, it is viciously attacked by the RUC. This ignites a series of further protests, which ultimately leads to Bloody Sunday, and the eruption of the Troubles for the next quarter of a century.
(From: “Meetings helped thaw relations before the North exploded,” Irish Examiner, http://www.irishexaminer.com, January 8, 2018)
seamus dubhghaill 