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Birth of Donogh O’Malley, Fianna Fáil Politician & Rugby Union Player

Donogh Brendan O’Malley, Irish Fianna Fáil politician and rugby union player, is born on January 18, 1921, in Limerick, County Limerick. He serves as Minister for Education (1966-68), Minister for Health (1965-66) and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (1961-65). He also serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Limerick East constituency (1954-68). He is best remembered as the Minister who introduces free secondary school education in the Republic of Ireland.

O’Malley is 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.


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Death of John Costello, Fine Gael Politician & 3rd Taoiseach

John Aloysius Costello, Fine Gael politician who serves as Taoiseach from 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957, Leader of the Opposition from 1951 to 1954 and from 1957 to 1959, and Attorney General of Ireland from 1926 to 1932, dies in Ranelagh, Dublin, on January 5, 1976. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1933 to 1943 and from 1944 to 1969.

Costello is born on June 20, 1891, in Fairview, Dublin, the younger son of John Costello senior, a civil servant, and Rose Callaghan. He is educated at St. Joseph’s, Fairview, and then moves to O’Connell School, for senior classes, and later attends University College Dublin (UCD), where he graduates with a degree in modern languages and law. He studies at King’s Inns to become a barrister, winning the Victoria Prize there in 1913 and 1914. He is called to the Irish Bar in 1914, and practises as a barrister until 1922.

In 1922, Costello joins the staff at the office of the Attorney General in the newly established Irish Free State. Three years later he is called to the inner bar, and the following year, 1926, he becomes Attorney General of Ireland, upon the formation of the Cumann na nGaedheal government, led by W. T. Cosgrave. While serving in this position he represents the Free State at Imperial Conferences and League of Nations meetings.

Costello is also elected a Bencher of the Honourable Society of King’s Inns. He loses his position as Attorney General of Ireland when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932. The following year, however, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD. Cumann na nGaedheal soon merges with other parties to form Fine Gael.

During the Dáil debate on the Emergency Powers Act 1939, Costello is highly critical of the Act’s arrogation of powers, stating that “We are asked not merely to give a blank cheque, but to give an uncrossed cheque to the Government.” He loses his seat at the 1943 Irish general election but regains it when Éamon de Valera calls a snap election in 1944. From 1944 to 1948, he is the Fine Gael front-bench Spokesman on External Affairs.

In 1948, Fianna Fáil has been in power for sixteen consecutive years and has been blamed for a downturn in the economy following World War II. The 1948 Irish general election results show Fianna Fáil short of a majority, but still by far the largest party, with twice as many seats as the nearest rival, Fine Gael. It appears that Fianna Fáil is headed for a seventh term in government. However, the other parties in the Dáil realise that between them, they have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil, and if they band together, they would be able to form a government with the support of seven Independent deputies. Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan join to form the first inter-party government in the history of the Irish state.

While it looks as if cooperation between these parties will not be feasible, a shared opposition to Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera overcomes all other difficulties, and the coalition government is formed.

Since Fine Gael is the largest party in the government, it has the task of providing a suitable candidate for Taoiseach. Naturally, it is assumed that its leader, Richard Mulcahy, will be offered the post. However, he is an unacceptable choice to Clann na Poblachta and its deeply republican leader, Seán MacBride. This is due to Mulcahy’s record during the Irish Civil War. Instead, Fine Gael and Clann na Poblachta agree on Costello as a compromise candidate. Costello had never held a ministerial position nor was he involved in the Civil War. When told by Mulcahy of his nomination, Costello is appalled, content with his life as a barrister and as a part-time politician. He is persuaded to accept the nomination as Taoiseach by close non-political friends.

During the campaign, Clann na Poblachta had promised to repeal the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936 but does not make an issue of this when the government is being formed. However, Costello and his Tánaiste, William Norton of the Labour Party, also dislike the act. During the summer of 1948, the cabinet discusses repealing the act, however, no firm decision is made.

In September 1948, Costello is on an official visit to Canada when a reporter asks him about the possibility of Ireland leaving the British Commonwealth. For the first time, he declares publicly that the Irish government is indeed going to repeal the External Relations Act and declare Ireland a republic. It has been suggested that this is a reaction to offence caused by the Governor General of Canada at the time, Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, who is of Northern Irish descent and who allegedly arranges to have placed symbols of Northern Ireland in front of Costello at an official dinner. Costello makes no mention of these aspects on the second reading of the Republic of Ireland Bill on November 24 and, in his memoirs, claims that Alexander’s behaviour had in fact been perfectly civil and could have had no bearing on a decision which had already been made.

The news takes the Government of the United Kingdom and even some of Costello’s ministers by surprise. The former had not been consulted and following the declaration of the Republic in 1949, the UK passes the Ireland Act that year. This recognises the Republic of Ireland and guarantees the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom for so long as a majority there want to remain in the United Kingdom. It also grants full rights to any citizens of the Republic living in the United Kingdom. Ireland leaves the Commonwealth on April 18, 1949, when The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 comes into force. Frederick Henry Boland, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, says caustically that the affair demonstrates that “the Taoiseach has as much notion of diplomacy as I have of astrology.” The British envoy, John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby, is equally critical of what he calls a “slipshod and amateur” move.

Many nationalists now see partition as the last obstacle on the road to total national independence. Costello tables a motion of protest against partition on May 10, 1949, without result.

In 1950, the independent-minded Minister for Health, Noël Browne, introduces the Mother and Child Scheme. The scheme would provide mothers with free maternity treatment and their children with free medical care up to the age of sixteen, which is the normal provision in other parts of Europe at that time. The bill is opposed by doctors, who fear a loss of income, and Roman Catholic bishops, who oppose the lack of means testing envisaged and fear the scheme could lead to birth control and abortion. The cabinet is divided over the issue, many feeling that the state cannot afford such a scheme priced at IR£2,000,000 annually. Costello and others in the cabinet make it clear that in the face of such opposition they will not support the Minister. Browne resigns from the government on April 11, 1951, and the scheme is dropped. He immediately publishes his correspondence with Costello and the bishops, something which had hitherto not been done. Derivatives of the Mother and Child Scheme are introduced in Public Health Acts of 1954, 1957 and 1970.

The Costello government has a number of noteworthy achievements. A new record is set in housebuilding, the Industrial Development Authority and Córas Tráchtála are established, and the Minister for Health, Noel Browne, with the then new Streptomycin, bring about an advance in the treatment of tuberculosis. Ireland also joins a number of organisations such as the Organization for European Economic Co-operation and the Council of Europe. However, the government refuses to join NATO, allegedly because the British remain in Northern Ireland. The scheme to supply electricity to even the remotest parts of Ireland is also accelerated.

While the “Mother and Child” incident does destabilise the government to some extent, it does not lead to its collapse as is generally thought. The government continues; however, prices are rising, a balance of payments crisis is looming, and two TDs withdraw their support for the government. These incidents add to the pressure on Costello and so he decides to call a general election for June 1951. The result is inconclusive but Fianna Fáil returns to power. Costello resigns as Taoiseach. It is at this election that his son Declan is elected to the Dáil.

Over the next three years while Fianna Fáil is in power a dual-leadership role of Fine Gael is taking place. While Richard Mulcahy is the leader of the party, Costello, who has proved his skill as Taoiseach, remains as parliamentary leader of the party. He resumes his practice at the Bar. In what is arguably his most celebrated case, the successful defence of The Leader against a libel action brought by the poet Patrick Kavanagh, dates from this period. Kavanagh generously praises Costello’s forensic skill, and the two men become friends.

At the 1954 Irish general election Fianna Fáil loses power. A campaign dominated by economic issues results in a Fine Gael-Labour Party-Clann na Talmhan government coming to power. Costello is elected Taoiseach for the second time.

The government can do little to change the ailing nature of Ireland’s economy, with emigration and unemployment remaining high, and external problems such as the Suez Crisis compounding the difficulty. Measures to expand the Irish economy such as export profits tax relief introduced in 1956 would take years have sizable impact. Costello’s government does have some success with Ireland becoming a member of the United Nations in 1955, and a highly successful visit to the United States in 1956, which begins the custom by which the Taoiseach visits the White House each Saint Patrick’s Day to present the U.S. President with a bowl of shamrock. Although the government has a comfortable majority and seems set for a full term in office, a resumption of Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity in Northern Ireland and Great Britain causes internal strains. The government takes strong action against the republicans.

In spite of supporting the government from the backbenches, Seán MacBride, the leader of Clann na Poblachta, tables a motion of no confidence, based on the weakening state of the economy and in opposition to the government’s stance on the IRA. Fianna Fáil also tables its own motion of no confidence, and rather than face almost certain defeat, Costello again asks President Seán T. O’Kelly to dissolve the Oireachtas. The general election which follows in 1957 gives Fianna Fáil an overall majority and starts another sixteen years of unbroken rule for the party. Some of his colleagues questioned the wisdom of his decision to call an election. The view is expressed that he was tired of politics and depressed by his wife’s sudden death the previous year.

Following the defeat of his government, Costello returns to the bar. In 1959, when Richard Mulcahy resigns the leadership of Fine Gael to James Dillon, he retires to the backbenches. He could have become party leader had he been willing to act in a full-time capacity. He remains as a TD until 1969, when he retires from politics, being succeeded as Fine Gael TD for Dublin South-East by Garret FitzGerald, who himself goes onto to become Taoiseach in a Fine Gael-led government.

During his career, Costello is presented with a number of awards from many universities in the United States. He is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy from 1948. In March 1975, he is made a freeman of the city of Dublin, along with his old political opponent Éamon de Valera. He practises at the bar until a short time before his death at the age of 84, in Ranelagh, Dublin, on January 5, 1976. He is buried at Dean’s Grange Cemetery in Dublin.


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Shooting of Protestant Senator John Barnhill

Gunmen shoot the hardline Protestant Senator John Barnhill at his home near Strabane, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, on December 12, 1971, then wreck his country mansion with a bomb. His body is buried under tons of rubble.

Barnhill, a right‐wing member of the Protestant‐based Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which rules the British province, is the first member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland to die in two years of violence that have resulted in 196 deaths up to this point.

Barnhill’s wife says that the senator had gone to answer the door at their home, close to the border with the Republic of Ireland. She says she heard two shots and found her husband lying near the door with a gunman kneeling at his side. Then, she says, a second man helps drag him into the main room, where the attackers plant a gelignite bomb beside his body.

Barnhill, 63 years old, has been a Senator for ten years. He often is outspoken in public denunciations of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA) for its terrorist campaign to overthrow the provincial government. He is an officer in the Orange Order, the powerful Freemasonry of Northern Ireland Protestants, and a director of a Londonderry seed company.

The police say that Mrs. Barnhill ran for help from the ruins of her home and is admitted to a hospital under treatment for shock.

At least 28 people die in the violence of the previous nine days, fifteen of them in an explosion on December 4 that wrecks a bar in a Roman Catholic area.

The leadership of the Irish Republican Army disclaims responsibility for the bombs and charges that they were set off as acts of provocation by the British Army. The British dismiss the charge as ludicrous.

The IRA, fighting for the separation of predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland from Britain and its merger with the Republic of Ireland to the south, has threatened to destroy Belfast‘s center by Christmas. Mass arrests fail to halt the latest wave of violence.

On December 13, Cardinal William Conway, Primate of All Ireland, denounces bombers and gunmen who have participated in the violence as “monsters.”

Preaching in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, Ireland’s ecclesiastical capital, the Belfast‐born Cardinal delivers his toughest attack yet on the latest incidents, which include the fatal shooting of a parttime soldier in his home in front of his five children, and the bombing the previous day of a Protestant‐owned Belfast furniture showroom, in which four people are killed and nineteen are injured.

A plaque commemorating Barnhill’s murder is unveiled at Stormont on the 30th anniversary of his death on December 12, 2001.

(From: “Rightist Ulster Senator Slain by Gunmen in Home,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com, December 13, 1971)


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Death of Seán T. O’Kelly, Second President of Ireland

Seán Thomas O’Kelly (Irish: Seán Tomás Ó Ceallaigh), the second President of Ireland, dies on November 23, 1966, at the Mater Private Nursing Home in Dublin, after an illness of sixteen months. He serves two terms as President from 1945 to 1959. He is a member of Dáil Éireann from 1918 until his election as President. During this time, he serves as Minister for Local Government and Public Health (1932–1939) and Minister for Finance (1939–1945). He serves as Vice-President of the Executive Council from 1932 until 1937 and is the first Tánaiste from 1937 until 1945.

O’Kelly is born on August 25, 1882, on Capel Street in the north inner-city of Dublin. He joins the National Library of Ireland in 1898 as a junior assistant. That same year, he joins the Gaelic League, becoming a member of the governing body in 1910 and General Secretary in 1915.

In 1905 O’Kelly joins Sinn Féin who, at the time, supports a dual monarchy. He is an honorary secretary of the party from 1908 until 1925. In 1906 he is elected to Dublin Corporation, which is Dublin’s city council. He retains the seat for the Inns Quay Ward until 1924.

O’Kelly assists Patrick Pearse in preparing for the Easter Rising in 1916. After the rising, he is jailed, released, and jailed again. He escapes from detention at HM Prison Eastwood Park in Falfield, South Gloucestershire, England and returns to Ireland.

O’Kelly is elected Sinn Féin MP for Dublin College Green in the 1918 Irish general election. Along with other Sinn Féin MPs he refuses to take his seat in the British House of Commons. Instead, they set up an Irish parliament, called Dáil Éireann, in Dublin. O’Kelly is Ceann Comhairle (Chairman) of the First Dáil. He is the Irish Republic’s envoy to the post-World War I peace treaty negotiations at the Palace of Versailles, but the other countries refuse to allow him to speak as they do not recognise the Irish Republic.

O’Kelly is a close friend of Éamon de Valera, and both he and de Valera oppose the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. When de Valera resigns as President of the Irish Republic on January 6, 1922, O’Kelly returns from Paris to try to persuade de Valera to return to the presidency but de Valera orders him to return to Paris.

During the Irish Civil War, O’Kelly is jailed until December 1923. Afterwards he spends the next two years as a Sinn Féin envoy to the United States.

In 1926 when de Valera leaves Sinn Féin to found his own republican party, Fianna Fáil, O’Kelly follows him, becoming one of the party’s founding members. In 1932, when de Valera is appointed President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, he makes O’Kelly the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. He often tries to publicly humiliate the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, James McNeill, which damages O’Kelly’s reputation and image, particularly when the campaign backfires.

In 1938, many believe that de Valera wants to make O’Kelly the Fianna Fáil choice to become President of Ireland, under the new Irish constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann. When Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alfie Byrne, says he wants to be president there is an all-party agreement to nominate Douglas Hyde, a Protestant Irish Senator, Irish language enthusiast and founder of the Gaelic League. They believe Hyde to be the only person who might win an election against Alfie Byrne. O’Kelly is instead appointed Minister of Finance and helps create Central Bank in 1942.

O’Kelly leaves the cabinet when he is elected President of Ireland on June 18, 1945, in a popular vote of the people, defeating two other candidates. He is re-elected unopposed in 1952. During his second term he visits many nations in Europe and speaks before the United States Congress in 1959. He retires at the end of his second term in 1959, to be replaced by his old friend, Éamon de Valera. Following his retirement, he is described as a model president by the normally hostile newspaper, The Irish Times. Though controversial, he is widely seen as genuine and honest, but tactless.

O’Kelly’s strong Roman Catholic beliefs sometimes cause problems. Éamon de Valera often thinks that O’Kelly either deliberately or accidentally leaks information to the Knights of Saint Columbanus and the Church leaders. He ensures that his first state visit, following the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949, is to the Vatican City to meet Pope Pius XII. He accidentally reveals the Pope’s private views on communism. This angers the Pope and Joseph Stalin and is why he is not given the papal Supreme Order of Christ which is given to many Catholic heads of state.

On his retirement O’Kelly gives a series of radio talks about his early life and the independence movement. These form the basis of an account serialised in The Irish Press (July 3 to August 9, 1961) and subsequently translated into Irish and published as Seán T. (1963), echoing the nickname by which he is commonly known. The book relies heavily on memory and its accuracy on points of detail has been questioned by scholars such as F. X. Martin. In retirement he lived at his home, Roundwood Park in County Wicklow.

O’Kelly dies at the Mater Private Nursing Home in Dublin on November 23, 1966, at the age of 84, fifty years after the Easter Rising that first brought him to prominence. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Glasnevin, Dublin. His perceived unctuousness and his opportunistic tendencies in his later career should not efface his significance as a separatist organiser and an effective populist politician, who played a major role in the establishment of Fianna Fáil political hegemony.


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The Drummuckavall Ambush

The Drummuckavall ambush, an attack by the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on a British Army observation post in Drummuckavall, southeast of Crossmaglen, County Armagh, takes place on November 22, 1975. The attack, which occurs along the border with the Republic of Ireland, results in the deaths of three British soldiers and underlines the inefficiency of conventional military skills to deal with the situation in South Armagh, prompting the deployment of the Special Air Service (SAS) in this area.

During the mid-1970s, the most violent decade of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the monitoring of the border between south County Armagh and the Republic of Ireland by the British Army is carried out from several static observation posts. The main goal of these observation posts is to prevent attacks launched from beyond the border. These part-time manned positions are highly vulnerable to attack, as proved by a 1974 bomb attack which claims the lives of two Royal Marines at the outpost of Drummuckavall, a townland 3 kilometers southeast of Crossmaglen close to the border.

It is not until 1986, when the first surveillance watchtowers are erected in operations Condor and Magistrate that the British Army tries to regain the initiative in the region from the IRA.

The intelligence and control over the area relies until then, and for a lapse of ten years, mostly on mobile posts comprising small, uncovered infantry sections.

A section of four soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, coming from Crossmaglen, mount an observation post at 2:00 a.m. on November 21, 1975. The observation post is on a slope at Drummuckavall behind bushes overlooking a small stream that runs along the border. Unknown to them, locals had spotted their position and informed the IRA. At 4:20 p.m. the next day, an IRA unit of up to twelve members attacks the observation post. Heavy gunfire kills three of the Fusiliers and disables their communications equipment. A later inquest finds that the IRA unit had fired from two positions inside the Republic. Those killed are James Duncan (19), Peter McDonald (19), and Michael Sampson (20). The only fusilier on guard duty is McDonald, who is manning a light machine gun. The other soldiers are resting or taking a meal. The lance corporal in charge of the party, Paul Johnson, survives the first burst unscathed. He remains flat on the ground but is seriously injured on the wrist, side and back by a second burst of automatic fire after the IRA unit calls on him to surrender. A second call to surrender is made, followed by more gunfire. The IRA unit then withdraws across the border. According to Johnson, they were shouting “Up the ‘RA!” and laughing. Johnson manages to slip away by crawling 25 yards toward a nearby road, where British troops eventually airlift him to safety in a helicopter.

One of the AR-15 rifles used in the attack is found to have been used by the South Armagh Republican Action Force in an attack on the Tullyvallen Orange Hall on September 1, 1975, that killed five civilians.

Shortly after the attack, Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, issues a famous statement dubbing South Armagh Bandit Country. The next year, the British Government declares it is deploying the Special Air Service (SAS) in Northern Ireland, although they had already been deployed unofficially for a number of years. The secretive and undercover nature of this elite force means they are considered the best choice to infiltrate the South Armagh area, after the official report on the action exposes several flaws in the layout of the observation post.

As a complement to the SAS operations, the British Army also changes tactics. Major General Richard Trant establishes small teams of troops, called COPs (Close Observation Platoons), to gather information, often in plain clothes or camouflaged in the landscape. They are also able to set up ambushes, like the ill-fated Operation Conservation on May 6, 1990.

(Pictured: The Drummuckavall border crossing as viewed from the Irish Republic side of the border. At the border the unnamed road crosses a culverted stream to join the Dundalk Road. Photo by Eric Jones and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons License)


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Birth of John D’Alton, Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

John Francis D’Alton, Irish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who serves as Archbishop of Armagh and thus Primate of All Ireland from 1946 until his death, is born in Claremorris, County Mayo, on October 11, 1882. He is elevated to the cardinalate in 1953.

D’Alton is born to Joseph D’Alton and his wife Mary Brennan, at the height of the Land Wars in Ireland. He is baptised four days later, on October 15, 1882, with Michael and Mary Brennan acting as his godparents. His mother has a daughter, Mollie Brennan, from a previous marriage, she remarries again after the Cardinal’s father dies in 1883.

D’Alton obtains an extensive education at Blackrock College, Holy Cross College in Drumcondra, University College Dublin (UCD) and the Irish College in Rome. He is a contemporary of Éamon de Valera, whom he befriends at Blackrock College. In his first year in Blackrock, de Valera beats D’Alton in two subjects – Maths, which he later goes on to teach, and Religion.

D’Alton is ordained to the priesthood on April 18, 1908, for service in the Archdiocese of Dublin. He undertakes further postgraduate studies in Rome from 1908 to 1910, gaining a Doctor of Divinity and is appointed to teach Ancient Classics, Latin, and Greek at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

D’Alton occupies important roles at the National Seminary and is successively Professor of Ancient Classics (1912), Greek (1922), Vice-President (1934), and President (1936). He is raised to the rank of Monsignor on June 27, 1938.

On April 25, 1942, D’Alton is appointed coadjutor bishop of Meath and titular bishop of Binda. He receives his episcopal consecration on the following June 29 from Cardinal Joseph MacRory, with Bishops Edward Mulhern and William MacNeely serving as co-consecrators, in the chapel of St. Patrick’s College. He succeeds Thomas Mulvany as Bishop of Meath on June 16, 1943.

D’Alton is named Archbishop of Armagh and thus Primate of All Ireland on June 13, 1946, and is created Cardinal Priest of Sant’ Agata de’ Goti in Rome by Pope Pius XII in the consistory of January 12, 1953. As a cardinal elector in the 1958 papal conclave, he gives a hint of the difficulties involved in that papal conclave and achieving unanimity in the voting.

D’Alton is a member of the Central Preparatory Commission of the Second Vatican Council but lives long enough to attend only the Council’s first session in 1962.

One highlight of D’Alton’s time in Armagh is the Patrician Year Celebrations in 1961, marked by the Irish Catholic hierarchy as the 1,500th anniversary of the death of Saint Patrick and as such an opportunity to promote the “spiritual empire” created by the Irish Catholic church in the wider anglophone world. He writes a pastoral letter to mark the occasion.

Cardinal D’Alton is seen to be more ecumenical in outlook than other members of the Irish hierarchy. He tries to broker talks between the Irish Free State and the United Kingdom to ease the tensions between both countries, even going so far as to address the situation regarding the Irish ports, but to little avail.

In 1952, D’Alton becomes the first individual from the Republic of Ireland to receive an honorary degree from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), when he is conferred with a Doctorate in Literature. He already possesses a Doctor of Divinity, so this degree is a recognition of his earlier works such as Horace and His Age: A Study in Historical Background (1917), Roman Literary Theory and Criticism: A Study in Tendencies (1931), and Selections from St. John Chrysostom (1940).

D’Alton dies from a heart attack in Dublin at age 80 on February 1, 1963, and is buried on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh. He is succeeded by his auxiliary bishop, William Conway.

In D’Alton’s hometown of Claremorris, the Dalton Inn Hotel and Dalton Street (formerly Church Street) are named after him. A plaque commemorating him is unveiled at the Dalton Inn Hotel on September 28, 2023. Plans to canonise him have been discussed.


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Death of Martin McCaughey, Sinn Féin Councillor & IRA Volunteer

Gerard Patrick Martin McCaughey, Sinn Féin councillor and volunteer in the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), is killed by undercover British Army soldiers in County Armagh on October 9, 1990, along with fellow IRA volunteer Dessie Grew.

McCaughey, from Aughnagar, Galbally, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, is born on February 24, 1967, the oldest son of Owen and Bridget McCaughey. He is a boyhood friend of several of the “Loughgall Martyrs” including Declan Arthurs, Seamus Donnelly, Tony Gormley and Eugene Kelly, with whom he travels to local discos and football matches when they are growing up.

McCaughey is a talented Gaelic football player who plays for local side Galbally Pearses and is also selected for the Tyrone minor Gaelic team.

McCaughey is elected as a Sinn Féin councillor for Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council and at the time is the youngest elected representative on the island of Ireland.

Two months prior to his shooting, McCaughey is disqualified from holding his office on the council as he had failed to appear for a monthly council meeting. After his death, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) reveals the explanation behind his disappearance. He had been shot and wounded in a shoot-out with undercover British Army security forces near Cappagh, County Tyrone. He is then taken south across the Irish border into the Republic of Ireland where he is given hospital treatment and therefore unable to attend the meetings.

Ulster Unionist MP and fellow Dungannon councillor Ken Maginnis alleges that McCaughey had conspired to kill him while both sat as councillors.

McCaughey is shot dead on October 9, 1990, along with Dessie Grew, in an operation by undercover British soldiers. A secret undercover intelligence unit named 14 Intelligence Company, also known as the DET, are monitoring three AK-47s at a farm building in a rural part of County Armagh and are aware that the pair are due to remove the guns.

As McCaughey and Grew are approaching an agricultural shed which is being used to grow mushrooms and also thought to be an IRA arms dump, as many as 200 shots are fired at the two men. British Army reports of the shooting state that the two men left the shed holding two rifles. Republican sources state the men were unarmed.

McCaughey is buried at Galbally Cemetery in October 1990.

The family of McCaughey claims that he and Grew were ambushed after a stakeout by the Special Air Service (SAS). In January 2002, Justice Weatherup, a Northern Ireland High Court judge, orders that official military documents relating to the shooting should be disclosed. However, Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Hugh Orde has the ruling overturned on appeal in January 2005.

Fellow Sinn Féin representative, Francie Molloy, replaces McCaughey on Dungannon Council after a by-election is held following McCaughey’s death.

In January 2007, the lawyers representing McCaughey and another volunteer, Pearse Jordan, apply to the House of Lords to challenge the details of how the inquests into their deaths are to proceed.

McCaughey’s father, Owen, seeks to compel Chief Constable Hugh Orde to produce key documents including intelligence reports relevant to the shooting and the report of the RUC’s investigating officer.

In 2010, a commemorative portrait of McCaughey is unveiled in the mayor’s parlour at Dungannon council.


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Death of Basil Stanlake Brooke, Third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

Basil Stanlake Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, KG, CBE, MC, TD, PC (Ire), Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who serves as the third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from May 1943 until March 1963, dies on August 18, 1973, at Colebrooke Park, Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. He has been described as “perhaps the last Unionist leader to command respect, loyalty and affection across the social and political spectrum.” Equally well, he has also been described as one of the most hardline anti-Catholic leaders of the UUP, and his legacy involves founding his own paramilitary group, which feeds into the reactivation of the Ulster Volunteers.

Brooke is born on June 9, 1888, at Colebrooke Park, his family’s neo-Classical ancestral seat on what is then the several-thousand-acre Colebrooke Estate, just outside Brookeborough, a village near Lisnaskea in County Fermanagh. He is the eldest son of Sir Arthur Douglas Brooke, 4th Baronet, whom he succeeds as 5th Baronet when his father dies in 1907. His mother is Gertrude Isabella Batson. He is a nephew of Field Marshal Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) during World War II, who is only five years his senior. His sister Sheelah marries Sir Henry Mulholland, Speaker of the Stormont House of Commons and son of Lord Dunleath. He is educated for five years at St. George’s School in Pau, France, and then at Winchester College (1901–05).

After graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Brooke is commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers on September 26, 1908, as a second lieutenant. He transfers to the 10th Royal Hussars in 1911. He is awarded the Military Cross and Croix de guerre with palm for his service during World War I.

Brooke is a very active Ulster Unionist Party member and ally of Edward Carson. He founds his own paramilitary group, Brooke’s Fermanagh Vigilance, from men returning from the war front in 1918. Although the umbrella Ulster Volunteers had been quiescent during the war, it is not defunct. It re-emerges strongly in 1920, subsuming groups like Brooke’s.

In 1920, having reached the rank of captain, Brooke leaves the British Army to farm the Colebrooke Estate, the family estate in west Ulster, at which point he turns toward a career in politics.

Brooke has a very long political career. When he resigns the Premiership of Northern Ireland in March 1963, he is Northern Ireland’s longest-serving prime minister, having held office for two months short of 20 years. He also establishes a United Kingdom record by holding government office continuously for 33 years.

In 1921, Brooke is elected to the Senate of Northern Ireland, but he resigns the following year to become Commandant of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) in their fight against the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1921.

In 1929 Brooke is elected to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland as Ulster Unionist Party MP for the Lisnaskea division of County Fermanagh. In the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, “his thin, wiry frame, with the inevitable cigarette in hand, and clipped, anglicised accent were to be a feature of Stormont for the next forty years.”

Brooke becomes Minister of Agriculture in 1933. By virtue of this appointment, he also acquires the rank of Privy Councilor of Northern Ireland. From 1941 to 1943 he is Minister of Commerce.

On May 2, 1943, Brooke succeeds John M. Andrews as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. In 1952, while Prime Minister, was raised to the peerage as Viscount Brookeborough, the title taken from the village named after the Brookes. Although a peer, he retained his seat in the House of Commons at Stormont and remained Prime Minister for another decade.

As the Northern Ireland economy begins to de-industrialise in the mid-1950s, leading to high unemployment amongst the Protestant working classes, Brooke faces increasing disenchantment amongst UUP backbenchers for what is regarded as his indifferent and ineffectual approach to mounting economic problems. As this disenchantment grows, British civil servants and some members of the UUP combine to exert discreet and ultimately effective pressure on Brooke to resign to make way for Captain Terence O’Neill, who is Minister of Finance.

In 1963, his health having worsened, Brooke resigns as Prime Minister. However, he remains a member of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland until the 1969 Northern Ireland general election, becoming the Father of the House in 1965. During his last years in the Parliament of Northern Ireland he publicly opposes the liberal policies of his successor Terence O’Neill, who actively seeks to improve relationships with the Republic of Ireland, and who attempts to address some of the grievances of Catholics and grant many of the demands of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA).

Brooke is noted for his casual style toward his ministerial duties. Terence O’Neill later writes of him, “he was good company and a good raconteur, and those who met him imagined that he was relaxing away from his desk. However, they did not realise that there was no desk.”

In his retirement Brooke develops commercial interests as chairman of Carreras (Northern Ireland), a director of Devenish Trade, and president of the Northern Ireland Institute of Directors. He is also made an honorary LL.D. of Queen’s University Belfast.

From 1970 to 1973, years in which the Stormont institution comes under its greatest strain and eventually crumbles, Brooke makes only occasional forays into political life. In 1972, he appears next to William Craig MP on the balcony of Parliament Buildings at Stormont, a diminutive figure beside the leader of the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP) who is rallying right-wing Unionists against the Government of Northern Ireland. He opposes the Westminster white paper on the future of Northern Ireland and causes some embarrassment to his son, Captain John Brooke, the UUP Chief Whip and an ally of Brian Faulkner, by speaking against the Faulkner ministry‘s proposals.

Brooke dies at his home, Colebrooke Park, on the Colebrooke Estate, on August 18, 1973. His remains are cremated at Roselawn Cemetery, East Belfast, three days later, and, in accordance with his wishes, his ashes are scattered on the demesne surrounding his beloved Colebrooke Park.


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The Provisional IRA Resumes the August 1994 Ceasefire

On July 19, 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.

The Provisional IRA, officially known as the Irish Republican Army (Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) and informally as the Provos, is an Irish republican paramilitary force that seeks to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It is the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argues that the all-island Irish Republic continues to exist, and it sees itself as that state’s army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). It is designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejects.

The Provisional IRA emerges in December 1969, due to a split within the previous incarnation of the IRA and the broader Irish republican movement. It is initially the minority faction in the split compared to the Official IRA but becomes the dominant faction by 1972. The Troubles begin shortly before when a largely Catholic, nonviolent civil rights campaign is met with violence from both Ulster loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), culminating in the August 1969 riots and deployment of British soldiers. The IRA initially focuses on defence of Catholic areas, but it begins an offensive campaign in 1970 that is aided by external sources, including Irish diaspora communities within the Anglosphere, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. It uses guerrilla tactics against the British Army and RUC in both rural and urban areas and carries out a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and England against military, political and economic targets, and British military targets in mainland Europe. They also target civilian contractors to the British security forces. The IRA’s armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, kills over 1,700 people, including roughly 1,000 members of the British security forces and 500–644 civilians.

The Provisional IRA declares a final ceasefire on July 19, 1997, after which its political wing, Sinn Féin, is admitted into multi-party peace talks on the future of Northern Ireland. These talks result in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In 2005, the IRA formally ends its armed campaign and decommissions its weapons under the supervision of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. Several splinter groups have been formed as a result of splits within the IRA, including the Continuity IRA, which is still active in the dissident Irish republican campaign, and the Real IRA.

The Provisional IRA issues the following statement to news media on the morning of July 19, 1997:

“On August 31, 1994, the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (Gaelic for Irish Republican Army) announced a complete cessation of military operations as our contribution to the search for a lasting peace.

After 17 months of cessation, in which the British government and the (pro-British Protestant) unionists blocked any possibility of real or inclusive negotiations, we reluctantly abandoned the cessation.

The Irish Republican Army is committed to ending British rule in Ireland.

It is the root cause of division and conflict in our country. We want a permanent peace and therefore we are prepared to enhance the search for a democratic peace settlement through real and inclusive negotiations.

So, having assessed the current political situation, the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann are announcing a complete cessation of military operations from 12 o’clock midday on Sunday the 20th, July 1997.

We have ordered the unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire of August 1994. All IRA units have been instructed accordingly.”


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First Official Meeting of An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland

The first official meeting of An Taisce, The National Trust for Ireland, takes place on July 15, 1948, at the Royal Irish Academy‘s headquarters, Academy House on Dawson Street, Dublin.

An Taisce is established on a provisional basis in September 1946 and incorporated as a company based on an “association not for profit” in June 1948. It is a charitable non-governmental organisation (NGO) active in the areas of the environment and built heritage in the Republic of Ireland. It considers itself the oldest environmental and non-governmental organisation in the country and is somewhat similar to the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland but based more directly on the National Trust for Scotland. Its first president is the prominent naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger.

An Taisce is a membership-based charity, rather than a state or semi-state organisation, or quango, but it does receive government and European Union funding for specific programmes, such as Blue Flag beaches, and Green Schools private-sector funding for, for example, the Irish Business Against Litter surveys, and a mix of State and private funding for the annual National Spring Clean. An Taisce has for decades also had a statutory role in certain planning and environmental processes in the country.

The work of the organisation includes policy recommendation and campaigning in the built and natural heritage areas, the holding in trust of relevant properties, and environmentally relevant education. It has a number of local associations, which may assist in caring for properties, and monitor planning in their areas.

A public meeting to consider the need for a national trust is held in the Mansion House in September 1946, convened by the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, An Óige, the Geographical Society of Ireland, the Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club and the Irish Society for the Preservation of Birds. The meeting resolves to create such a body, and elect both a provisional committee, and a council of 16 plus 4 co-opted members, who secure bankers, auditors and solicitors. After extensive debate, the two-part name is chosen and application is made to form a not-for-profit company. Special approval is sought from the Minister for Trade and Commerce for charity-appropriate memorandum and articles, adhering to the “association not for profit” section of the then Companies Act, with a prohibition on distribution of surpluses, and for permission to omit the word “Limited” from the company name.

An Taisce is an indirect successor to the all-Island National Trust Committee which had ceased to exist in 1946 after the passing of the Northern Ireland National Trust Act.

The organisation is duly incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on June 28, 1948. The initial constitution is modelled on that of the National Trust for Scotland. The first official meeting of the company was held on July 15, 1948, at the Royal Irish Academy’s headquarters, Academy House on Dawson Street, and the first annual general meeting is convened on September 23 of the same year, with formal greetings from the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland.

Notable founder directors and council members include Robert Lloyd Praeger, James Sleator, Michael Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse, Patrick G. Kennedy, Arthur Cox, George Francis Mitchell and, co-opted, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, Seán MacBride and Colm Ó Lochlainn. Praeger was elected as the first president of the organisation and Professor Felix Hackett as chairperson. Praeger makes an opening address which is subsequently broadcast nationally by Raidió Éireann.

An Taisce’s headquarters are in Dublin’s oldest surviving guildhall, the Tailors’ Hall, which it helped to restore.