seamus dubhghaill

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Tag Archives: Republican Movement (Ireland)


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Death of Thomas Antisell, Physician, Scientist, Professor & Young Irelander

Thomas Antisell, physician, scientist, professor, and Young Irelander, dies in Washington, D.C., on June 14, 1893. He fights in the American Civil War, and serves as an advisor to the Japanese Meiji government.

Antisell is born in Dublin on January 16, 1817, the youngest son of Thomas Christopher Antisell KC (home circuit) and Margaret (née) Daly. He attends the Dublin School of Medicine, the Apothecaries’ Hall of Ireland, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England in London, graduating from the latter with an MD in November 1839. He studies chemistry in Paris and Berlin in 1844. Upon his return to Dublin in 1845, he secures a lectureship in botany at the Peter St. School of Medicine, teaching there until 1848. After this, he opens a clinic at his residence of 25 Richmond Street, Portobello. He works as an assistant to Robert Kane, and between 1845 and 1847, produces textbooks on Irish geology and chemistry. He becomes a member of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in 1844.

Antisell is a member of the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s, and joins the Irish Confederation in 1847. With a group of five friends in the republican movement, including Richard D’Alton Williams and Kevin O’Doherty, he sets up a short-lived revolutionary newspaper, The Irish Tribune, in June 1848 to take the place of the suppressed United Irishman, founded by John Mitchel. The paper is closed down on the grounds of sedition in July 1848 after just five issues. Following the closure of the paper, he emigrates to the United States, arriving in New York City on November 22, 1848. Some sources claim this departure is to evade arrest or charges relating to sedition. Although he is no longer politically active following his departure from Ireland, he is a close friend of John Mitchel and his family. He marries his first wife, Eliza Ann Nowlan, in 1841. She dies shortly after their arrival in the United States.

Antisell sets up and operates a clinic and medical laboratory in New York City from 1848 to 1854, while also lecturing in chemistry in a number of medical colleges in Massachusetts and Vermont. He takes up a post as expedition geologist and botanist on state surveys in southern Arizona, New Mexico, and California, working primarily with Lt. John Parke investigating the proposed routes for the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1854 to 1856. His work on the geology of the region adds to greater understanding of the science in America. In 1856, he is employed as chief examiner in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C., with responsibility for chemical inventions. This work allows him to also lecture in chemistry at Georgetown University, eventually covering other subjects such as toxicology, military surgery, physiology, hygiene, and pathology, over the periods 1858 to 1869, and 1880 to 1882.

Breaking with Mitchel who, as defender of slavery, supports the southern secessionist cause, Antisell serves in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He is a brigade surgeon in the United States Volunteers from 1861, and later the medical director of the 12th army corps. He concludes his service as surgeon-in-charge of Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., in October 1865, being granted a brevet commission as colonel. From 1866 to 1871, he is chief chemist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He marries his second wife, Marion Stuart Forsyth from Detroit, in 1854. They go on to have twelve children, six daughters and six sons.

In 1848, Antisell is Professor of Chemistry at Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1854 he is Professor of Chemistry at the Medical College at Woodstock, Vermont. From 1869 to 1870 he is Professor of Chemistry at Maryland Agricultural College.

Antisell is one of several scientists that are hired in 1871 as foreign government advisors to work in Hokkaido in northern Japan under Horace Capron. He is selected for his strong background in chemistry coupled with geology. However, he disagrees with Capron on whether or not Hokkaido’s severe winter climate will hinder development, and he also comes into conflict with the Japanese government over his salary. As a result, Hokkaido Colonisation Office hires another geologist, and Antisell’s report is excluded in the 1875 compilation of official reports. He serves his remaining time in Japan as a chemist for the Ministry of Finance, where he develops inks used for the printing of paper currency. For his services, he is awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by Emperor Meiji before his departure in 1876.

Upon returning to the United States, Antisell is conferred with a PhD in 1876 by Georgetown University, and once again takes up duties at the Patent Office, remaining there until his retirement. He publishes widely in numerous journals on topics such as agricultural chemistry, botany, oceanography, city sanitation, and animal disease, but he does not publish a significant treatise.

Antisell dies in Washington, D.C., on June 14, 1893, and is buried in the Congressional Cemetery.


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Birth of Irish Artist Estella Solomons

Estella Frances Solomons, one of the leading Irish artists of her generation, is born into a prominent Jewish family in Dublin on April 2, 1882. She is noted for her portraits of contemporaries in the republican movement and her studio is a safe house during the Irish War of Independence.

Solomons is born to Maurice Solomons and poet Rosa Jane Jacobs. Her father is an optician whose practice in 19 Nassau Street, Dublin, is mentioned in Ulysses. Her father is also the Vice-Consul of Austria-Hungary. The Solomons family, who came to Dublin from England in 1824, are one of the oldest continuous lines of Jews in Ireland.

Solomons grandmother, Rosa Jacobs Solomons, who is born in Kingston upon Hull in England, is the author of a book called Facts and Fancies (Dublin 1883). Her brother, Bethel Solomons, a renowned physician, a master of the Rotunda Hospital and Irish international rugby player, is mentioned in Finnegans Wake. Her brother Edwin is a stockbroker and prominent member of the Dublin Jewish community. Her younger sister Sophie is a trained opera singer. A portrait of Sophie, by her cousin the printmaker Louise Jacobs, survives in the Estella Solomons archives in the Library of Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

In 1898, at the age of 16, Solomons enters the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where she wins a significant prize. Her classmates include future Irish artists including Mary Swanzy, Eva Hamilton and William J. Leech. She also attends the Chelsea School of Art from 1903 to 1906. A visit to the tercentenary exhibition of the work of Rembrandt in Amsterdam in 1903 impacts her creative practice and possibly influences her adoption of printmaking as her principal vehicle of expression. She studies under two of Ireland’s leading artists, Walter Osborne, who is another major influence, and William Orpen. With her friends Cissie Beckett (aunt of Samuel Beckett) and Beatrice Elvery, she goes to study in Paris at Académie Colarossi. On her return she exhibits in Leinster Hall, Molesworth Street, with contemporaries such as Beatrice Elvery, Eva Hamilton and Grace Gifford. Her work is also included in joint exhibitions with other artists at Mills Hall and the Arlington Gallery, London. She also exhibits at her Great Brunswick Street studio in December 1926.

Solomons illustrates Padraic Colum‘s The Road Round Ireland (1926) and DL Kelleher’s The Glamour of Dublin in 1928. Originally published after the devastation of the 1916 Easter Rising, the later edition features eight views of familiar locations in the city centre including Merchant’s Arch and King’s Inns. Her etching “A Georgian Doorway” is included in Katherine MacCormack’s Leabhar Ultuin in 1920. This publication features illustrations by several prominent Irish artists and is sold in aid of the new Saint Ultan’s Children’s Hospital in Charlemont Street, Dublin, that had been founded by two prominent members of Cumann na mBan, Dr. Kathleen Lynn and Madeleine ffrench-Mullen.

Solomons paints landscapes and portraits, including of artist Jack Yeats, politician Arthur Griffith, poet Austin Clarke, and writers James Stephens and George Russell (Æ).

Solomons is elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in July 1925, but it is not until 1966 that she is elected an honorary member. Her work is included in the Academy’s annual members’ exhibition every year for sixty years.

Solomons is married to poet and publisher Seumas O’Sullivan, whose birth name is James Sullivan Starkey. Her parents oppose the relationship as O’Sullivan is not of the Jewish faith. They marry in 1925, when she is 43 and he 46, after her parents have died. She collaborates with her husband on The Dublin Magazine (1923–58), the renowned literary and art journal, of which O’Sullivan is editor for 35 years. She provides vital financial support to the magazine, particularly in sourcing advertising, which is difficult in the tough economic climate of the new Free State. She is helped in this endeavour by poet and writer, Kathleen Goodfellow, a lifelong friend. When Solomons and O’Sullivan are looking to move from their house in Rathfarnham because of a damp problem, Goodfellow offers them the house beside her own on Morehampton Road for a nominal rent. Two of Solomons’ portraits of Goodfellow are in the Model Arts and Niland Gallery in Sligo.

Solomons joins the Ranelagh branch of Cumann na mBan at the same time as Goodfellow. They are taught first aid, drilling and signaling by Phyllis Ryan. She is active before and during the Irish War of Independence. She conceals ammunition in the family vegetable garden before delivering it to a Sinn Féin agent. Her studio at Great Brunswick Street is used as a safe house by republican volunteers. During this time, she paints the portraits of a number of revolutionaries, some of which she has to later destroy to avoid incriminating them. Her work includes a portrait of Frank Aiken when we was chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Solomons takes up a teaching position at Bolton Street College, Dublin. In 1939, she organises an exhibition in Dublin to help refugee artists from Europe.

Solomons dies on November 2, 1968, and is buried in Woodtown Cemetery, Rathfarnham. Her friend Kathleen Goodfellow gifts the Morehampton Road Wildlife Sanctuary, where Solomons liked to paint, to An Taisce. Two plaques have subsequently been erected there, one in memory of Solomons and one for Goodfellow.

Some of Solomons works are held in the Niland Collection, at The Model gallery in Sligo and in the National Gallery of Ireland. Her archives, which include artwork and photographs (and prints by Louise Jacobs), and the archives of The Dublin Magazine are in the Library of Trinity College Dublin.


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Birth of Simon Donnelly, Irish Republican Army Volunteer

Simon John Donnelly, a member of the Irish Republican Army is born at 7 Aungier Street, Dublin, on January 7, 1891. He is a founder member of both Córas na Poblachta and Clann na Poblachta, Irish republican political parties formed in 1940 and 1946 respectively.

Donnelly is the son of Timothy Donnelly, a master plumber, and Mary Brennan. He is the sixth of eight surviving children. The 1911 Census lists him living with his family at 34 Wexford Street. Apprenticed as a plumber, he becomes involved in the Irish Volunteers. During the Easter Rising of 1916 he is the commander of C Company of Éamon de Valera‘s command in Boland’s Mill.

Donnelly is Vice-Commandant of the 3rd Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA during the Irish War of Independence. On February 10, 1921, he is arrested. Four days later he escapes from Kilmainham Gaol along with Ernie O’Malley and Frank Teeling. Returning to his command in the IRA, he is appointed chief of the Irish Republican Police (IRP) in mid-1921 as part of an attempt to enforce law and order in those areas of the country where the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) have been forced out.

Donnelly takes the anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War and takes part in the Battle of Dublin (June 28 – July 5, 1922).

Donnelly founds the National Association of the Old IRA in an attempt to mend some of the rifts in the Republican Movement. He is a member of the provisional National Executive of the Republican Prisoners’ Release Association.

On March 2, 1940, Donnelly is one of the founders of Córas na Poblachta and serves as its president. He becomes a founding member of Clann na Poblachta in 1946.

As one of the most senior surviving veterans of the Easter Rising, Donnelly plays a prominent role in the 50th anniversary commemorations in 1966. He dies in Dublin on December 7 of that year.


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The Brookeborough Royal Ulster Constabulary Barracks Attack

An Irish Republican Army (IRA) unit attacks Brookeborough Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks on January 1, 1957, in one of the most famous incidents of the IRA’s Operation Harvest (Border campaign). Two IRA men are killed as they attack Brookeborough police station in County Fermanagh. The attack is a military disaster for the IRA, but it proves a major propaganda coup.

The two dead men, Seán South and Fergal O’Hanlon, are hailed as republican martyrs. Their funerals are attended by thousands of people and their lives immortalised in republican ballads.

The Brookeborough raid is the central action in the IRA’s border campaign of 1956-62, yet it is over and done within a matter of minutes. The aim is to unite Ireland by setting up “liberated zones” in Northern Ireland and overthrowing the Stormont government. The campaign is preceded by a series of raids carried out by republican splinter group Saor Uladh. An attack on Rosslea police station in County Fermanagh in November 1955 results in the death of Saor Uladh member Connie Green.

Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer Gordon Knowles finds himself on the sharp end of the assault as the republicans blow the front wall from the barracks. “I was blown right across the guard room,” he says. “The only thing I felt was like somebody hitting me in the back and that was the bullet going in through the left-hand side of the spine, round the back of the spine and lodging one inch from the back. They shone a torch in my face and said: ‘Oh, let’s go, he’s had it.'”

Knowles is lucky to be alive as medical staff discover thirteen bullet holes in his body. He recovers to resume his police career and still carries bullet splinters in his body to this day.

The Brookeborough raid, involving fourteen IRA men, is planned along identical lines to the Rosslea attack, with very different results. The IRA aims to explode a bomb in front of the police station and to seize RUC weapons.

Just two days previously, the police suffer their first death of the border campaign when Constable John Scally is killed in an attack on Derrylin barracks, another County Fermanagh border station.

Ahead of the Brookeborough attack, the men gather at the County Monaghan family home of Fergal O’Hanlon, who takes part in the raid. O’Hanlon’s sister Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha describes the scene. “I remember Fergal, on the night, saying to my mother ‘These men, give them a good meal because there are faces here tonight you won’t see again.’ Now it turned out that he happened to be one of the men that she would not see again.”

The BBC has recently spoken to three of the IRA men involved the raid.

Micheal Kelly, now in his 80s, has never given an interview before about his role in the attack. “The objective was to attack the barracks, take their guns from them and if necessary, if we had the time and space, to actually destroy the barracks,” he says.

Phil O’Donoghue is also part of the IRA unit. Today, he is honorary president of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, which is believed to be closely aligned to the Real IRA. He insists the Brookeborough operation was about taking arms rather than killing police officers. “We had strict orders – under no circumstances were we to take on the B Specials (Ulster Special Constabulary) or RUC. We were, if at all possible, to try and take their weapons but we were not in any way to attack them.”

The IRA men arrive in Brookeborough in a stolen tipper lorry, but the driver is unfamiliar with the village and stops in the wrong place. Paddy O’Regan, from Dublin, is in the back of the lorry. His job is to assist Seán South in operating a Bren light machine gun. “When the truck actually stopped, and I got up off the floor and looked over the side of the truck I was looking into a shop – no sign of a barracks.” It is the first in a series of errors – the bomb placed by the station door fails to explode.

Barry Flynn, who has written a history of the border campaign, says he saw Brookeborough as a kind of tragic fiasco. “It became like the Keystone Cops,” he says. “There were a number of grenades thrown at the police station when they found it. One bounced back underneath the lorry and actually damaged the lorry very badly.”

RUC Sgt. Kenneth Cordner is quick to react to the attack. The truck is eventually parked up close to the barracks, allowing Sgt. Cordner a clear field of fire from an upstairs window. Using a Sten sub-machine gun, he opens up with deadly effect on the IRA men below.

Paddy O’Regan is wounded in the ensuing firefight. “We started to return fire on the barracks,” he says. “And after a while I looked down and I saw Seán South lying flat on his face and I felt two thumps in my hip. I knew I was wounded but it didn’t hurt particularly bad. It’s just like somebody hit you a couple of digs and it was just my hips started going numb.”

The order is given to withdraw, according to ex-IRA man Micheal Kelly. “Fergal, the last thing I heard him say, ‘Oh, my legs, oh, my legs!’ He was shot in the legs and bled to death. Seán South, I would say, was dead at this stage.”

The attackers flee across the border leaving the two dead men at a remote farm building where they are found by police.

Bobbie Hanvey is a well-known broadcaster and photographer. In 1957 he is just twelve years old and living across the road from the Brookeborough barracks. He remembers hiding under a bed with two of his friends as the attack unfolded. “The bedroom lit up – it was like daylight with the flames coming out of the guns. That image and the sounds of those guns and that experience has stayed with me to the present day – I’ll never forget it.”

Historian Barry Flynn explains that the Brookeborough raid is also a symbolic moment for the republican movement. The lives of the dead IRA men are subsequently remembered in two famous ballads, “Seán South from Garryowen” and the “Patriot Game.”

“People were writing the songs and, regardless of what was going to happen in the rest of the campaign, the names of Seán South and Fergal O’Hanlon were there forever as the martyrs of Brookeborough”, says Flynn.

The border campaign never again reaches the intensity of the Brookeborough incident, but police officers and IRA men continue to die. The IRA calls a ceasefire in 1962. By then it is clear that its strategy for overthrowing the Stormont government has failed.

(From: “Brookeborough: Failed IRA attack and republican legend” by Robin Sheeran and Bernadette Allen, BBC News NI, http://www.bbc.com, February 22, 2019 | Pictured: Ex-IRA men Micheal Kelly, Phil O’Donoghue and Paddy O’Regan who have a role in the Brookeborough raid)


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Death of Seán Hales, Political Activist & Member of Dáil Éireann

Seán Hales, Irish political activist and member of Dáil Éireann from May 1921 to December 1922, is shot and killed in Dublin on December 7, 1922, by republican gunmen on orders from Liam Lynch directing the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to kill, amongst others, all deputies and senators who had voted for the Public Safety Act (September 28, 1922) which established military courts with the power to impose the death penalty.

Hales is born John Hales in Ballinadee, Bandon, County Cork, on March 30, 1880, the eldest child of five sons and four daughters of Robert Hales, a farmer, and Margaret (née Fitzgerald) Hales. He is educated at Ballinadee national school and Warner’s Lane school, Bandon. After leaving school he goes to work on his father’s farm. He plays hurling with Valley Rovers GAA club and is the Munster champion in the 56-lb. weight-throwing competition. From an early age he follows in his father’s footsteps and becomes involved in the republican movement.

Hales joins the Irish Volunteers in 1915 and becomes captain of the Ballinadee company in 1916. Arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act after the 1916 Easter Rising, he is imprisoned in Frongoch internment camp in Wales. After his release, in April 1917 he becomes executive of the short-lived Liberty League promoted by Count George Plunkett. When the League merges with Sinn Féin, he helps reorganise the Volunteers. With his brothers, Tom, William, and Donal, he continues his father’s fight on behalf of evicted tenants and becomes involved with the anti-British Bandon People’s Food Committee and the anti-landlord Unpurchased Tenants’ Association. He helps in the Sinn Féin takeover of The Southern Star newspaper and is a member of the new board of directors. In 1919 he becomes battalion commander of the first (Bandon) battalion 3rd Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army, the name by which the Irish Volunteers increasingly became known. He leads the attack on Timoleague Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in February 1920, and the ambush of an Essex Regiment patrol at Brinny in August 1920. The military patrol at Brinny manages to surprise the ambushers and Lieutenant Tim Fitzgerald of Bandon is the first Volunteer to be killed in action in west Cork. Hales then commands the assault on two truckloads of British troops at Newcestown Cross in which a British officer is killed and several soldiers are wounded.

Hales is appointed section commander of the west Cork flying column in 1920 and takes part in the major action at Crossbarry on March 19, 1921. In retaliation for the burning of the Hales home in March 1921, he leads a contingent of Volunteers and burns Castle Bernard, the residence of the Earl of Bandon. The occupant, Lord Bandon, is held hostage until General Strickland, the British OC in Cork, guarantees he will not execute Volunteers in Cork prison. The British authorities yield and there is an end to the policy of executing prisoners of war in the Cork area.

At the 1921 Irish elections, Hales is elected to the Second Dáil as a Sinn Féin member for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency.

At the 1922 Irish general election, Hales is elected to the Third Dáil as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the same constituency. He receives 4,374 first preference votes (7.9%). Shortly afterward, the Irish Civil War breaks out between the pro-Treaty faction, who are in favour of setting up the Irish Free State and the anti-Treaty faction, who would not accept the abolition of the Irish Republic.

On December 7, 1922, Hales is killed by anti-Treaty IRA men as he leaves the Dáil. Another TD, Pádraic Ó Máille, is also shot and badly wounded in the incident. His killing is in reprisal for the Free State’s execution of anti-treaty prisoners. In revenge for Hales’ killing, four republican leaders, Joe McKelvey, Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Richard Barrett, are executed the following day, December 8, 1922.

Hales is given a military funeral to the family burial place at St. Patrick’s Cemetery, Bandon.

According to information passed on to playwright Ulick O’Connor, an anti-Treaty IRA volunteer named Owen Donnelly of Glasnevin is responsible for the killing of Hales. Seán Caffrey, an anti-treaty intelligence officer told O’Connor that Donnelly had not been ordered to kill Hales specifically but was following the general order issued by Liam Lynch to shoot all deputies and senators they could who had voted for the Public Safety Act (September 28, 1922) which established military courts with the power to impose the death penalty.

A commemorative statue of Hayes is unveiled at Bank Place in Bandon in 1930.


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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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Political Prisoner Francis Hughes Dies on Hunger Strike

Francis Joseph Sean Hughes, a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and an Irish political prisoner, dies on hunger strike in Long Kesh Detention Centre on May 12, 1981. He is the most wanted man in Northern Ireland until his arrest following a shoot-out with the British Army in which a British soldier is killed. At his trial, he is sentenced to a total of 83 years’ imprisonment.

Hughes is born in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on February 28, 1956, into a republican family, the youngest of four brothers in a family of ten siblings. His father, Joseph, had been a member of the Irish Republican Army in the 1920s and one of his uncles had smuggled arms for the republican movement. This results in the Hughes family being targeted when internment is introduced in 1971, and his brother Oliver is interned for eight months without trial in Operation Demetrius. He leaves school at the age of 16 and starts work as an apprentice painter and decorator.

Hughes is returning from an evening out in Ardboe, County Tyrone, when he is stopped at an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) checkpoint. When the soldiers realise he comes from a republican family, he is badly beaten. His father encourages him to see a doctor and report the incident to the police, but he refuses, saying he “would get his own back on the people who did it, and their friends.”

Hughes initially joins the Official Irish Republican Army but leaves after the organisation declares a ceasefire in May 1972. He then joins up with Dominic McGlinchey, his cousin Thomas McElwee and Ian Milne, before the three decide to join the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1973. He, Milne and McGlinchey take part in scores of IRA operations, including daylight attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) stations, bombings, and attacks on off-duty members of the RUC and UDR. Another IRA member describes the activities of Hughes:

“He led a life perpetually on the move, often moving on foot up to 20 miles for one night then sleeping during the day, either in fields and ditches or safe houses; a soldierly sight in his black beret and combat uniform and openly carrying a rifle, a handgun and several grenades as well as food rations.”

On April 18, 1977, Hughes, McGlinchey and Milne are travelling in a car near the town of Moneymore when an RUC patrol car carrying four officers signals them to stop. The IRA members attempt to escape by performing a U-turn but lose control of the car which ends up in a ditch. They abandon the car and open fire on the RUC patrol car, killing two officers and wounding another, before running off through the fields. A second RUC patrol comes under fire while attempting to prevent the men from fleeing, and despite a search operation by the RUC and British Army the IRA members escape. Following the Moneymore shootings, the RUC name Hughes as the most wanted man in Northern Ireland, and issue wanted posters with pictures of Hughes, Milne and McGlinchey. Milne is arrested in Lurgan, County Armagh, in August 1977, and McGlinchey later in the year in the Republic of Ireland.

Hughes is arrested on March 17, 1978, at Lisnamuck, near Maghera in County Londonderry, after an exchange of gunfire with the British Army the night before. British soldiers manning a covert observation post spot Hughes and another IRA volunteer approaching them wearing combat clothing with “Ireland” sewn on their jackets. Thinking they might be from the Ulster Defence Regiment, one of the soldiers stands up and calls to them. The IRA volunteers open fire on the British troops, who return fire. A soldier of the Special Air Service (SAS), Lance Corporal David Jones, is killed and another soldier wounded. Hughes is also wounded and is arrested nearby the next morning.

In February 1980, Hughes is sentenced to a total of 83 years in prison. He is tried for, and found guilty of, the murder of one British Army soldier (for which he receives a life sentence) and wounding of another (for which he receives 14 years) in the incident which leads to his arrest, as well as a series of gun and bomb attacks over a six-year period. Security sources describe him as “an absolute fanatic” and “a ruthless killer.” Fellow republicans describe him as “fearless and active.”

Hughes is involved in the mass hunger strike in 1980 and is the second prisoner to join the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike in the H-Blocks at the Long Kesh Detention Centre. His hunger strike begins on March 15, 1981, two weeks after Bobby Sands began his hunger strike. He is also the second striker to die, at 5:43 p.m. BST on May 12, after 59 days without food, refusing requests from the IRA leadership outside the prison to end the strike after the death of Sands. The journey of his body from the prison to the well-attended funeral near Bellaghy is marked by rioting as the hearse passes through loyalist areas. His death leads to an upsurge in rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.

Hughes’s cousin Thomas McElwee is the ninth hunger striker to die. Oliver Hughes, one of his brothers, is elected twice to Magherafelt District Council.

Hughes is commemorated on the Irish Martyrs Memorial at Waverley Cemetery in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and is portrayed by Fergal McElherron in the film H3.


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Death of Charlie Hurley, OC of the IRA’s 3rd Cork Brigade

Charles Hurley (Irish: Cathal Ó Muirthile), Officer Commanding of the 3rd Cork Brigade (West Cork) of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21), is killed by British Army troops on March 19, 1921. 

Hurley is born in Baurleigh, County Cork, near the village of Kilbrittain, on March 20, 1893, and is educated in the national school and subsequently passes the civil service examinations at age fifteen. According to his brother James, he is one of seven siblings, “born and reared in a farm of 35 acres.”

In his adolescence, Hurley becomes a clerk working for the government. In 1915, he is offered a promotion and a transfer to Haulbowline Island but declines on the grounds that this entails enlisting in the Royal Navy, albeit in a purely administrative role. Returning to Cork, he becomes friends with Liam Deasy who introduces him to the Irish republican movement. In 1917, he takes a job at Castletownbere and it is there that he joins the Irish Volunteers in 1917. He is also a member of Sinn Féin, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge).

In 1918, Hurley is sentenced to five years penal servitude for possession of arms and plans of the British military fortifications at Bere Island. However, he is released in 1919 following a hunger strike. In the same year, his brother Willie, also an IRA Volunteer, dies of typhoid fever. He first becomes vice-commandant of the Volunteers or IRA Bandon Battalion and then in August 1920, after the arrest and imprisonment of Tom Hales, he becomes commander of the Third Cork Brigade of the IRA. One of his most important decisions is to establish a full-time guerrilla unit or flying column, under Tom Barry.

The 3rd Cork Brigade (also known as the West Cork Brigade) goes on to be one of the most active IRA units during the guerrilla war against the British in 1919–21. According to Barry, Hurley leads an ambush of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at Ahawadda in April 1920, killing three policemen, wounding one and taking their arms and ammunition. In July of that same year, he leads a successful attack on the Coastguard station at Howes Strand, capturing a large number of weapons and ammunition. Barry remarks that Hurley is “a remarkable man and a lovable personality” and “continually urged a fighting army policy.” 

Hurley is present at the Tooreen ambush in October 1920 and subsequently is part of an assassination attempt on a judge who gives “harsh sentences” to IRA members. From December 1920 until January 1921, he takes command of the 3rd Cork Brigade’s flying column while Barry is ill. He also tours IRA units to assess the impact of the decree of excommunication on the guerrilla movement issued by Catholic Bishop of Cork, Daniel Cohalan.

In February 1921, Hurley leads the disastrous Upton train ambush on February 15, 1921, an attack on a train carrying British troops. In the action, the attacking IRA party is heavily outnumbered and the firefight results in three IRA men and six civilians being killed. He is also badly wounded in the face and ankle. Barry writes of the aftermath of the ambush that “he (Hurley) mourned deeply for his dead comrades and for the dead civilians, whom he did not know.”

Hurley is killed in action by British troops just before the Crossbarry ambush on March 19, 1921. He is staying in a house with a pro-republican family, where he is recuperating from the serious wounds he had received at Upton a month earlier. When he realises that he is surrounded by the British forces, he flees the house, as Barry comments in his book, to reduce the danger to those in the house, and is shot dead by pursuing troops. Barry remarks that he “died in the manner in which we expected.” 

The British Army places Hurley’s body at the workhouse in Bandon. However, members of Cumann na mBan surreptitiously take his body and he is given a secret republican funeral in Clogagh. A local ballad exists that commemorates him. In addition, the Gaelic Athletic Association grounds in Bandon is named after him in 1971.


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Birth of Anthony McIntyre, Former IRA Volunteer, Writer & Historian

Anthony McIntyre, a former Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer, writer and historian, is born on June 27, 1957.

McIntyre is imprisoned for murder for 18 years in Long Kesh Detention Centre, spending four of those years on the dirty protest. Following his release from prison in 1992, he completes a PhD in political science at Queen’s University Belfast and leaves the republican movement in 1998 to work as a journalist and researcher. A collection of his journalism is published as a book in 2008, Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism.

McIntyre is involved with the Boston College oral history project on the Troubles entitled the Belfast Project, conducting interviews with former Provisional IRA members who, like himself, had become disillusioned with the direction the republican movement had taken, such as Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, and former Ulster loyalist paramilitaries such as David Ervine. The interviews are the basis for the book Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland by Ed Moloney.

In 2011, McIntyre becomes embroiled in controversy when transcripts of the interviews, held by Boston College, are subpoenaed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in relation to an investigation of the 1972 abduction and killing of Jean McConville. In March 2014, the PSNI announces that it is seeking to question McIntyre over newly released Belfast Project recordings, specifically in reference to the alleged role of Gerry Adams in the kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville.

McIntyre is a prominent critic of modern-day Sinn Féin and its leadership. He has spoken at Republican Sinn Féin party events. He is a co-founder of The Blanket, a journal which casts a critical eye on the Northern Ireland peace process.


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Birth of Seán Hales, Political Activist & Member of Dáil Éireann

Seán Hales, Irish political activist and member of Dáil Éireann from May 1921 to December 1922, is born in Ballinadee, Bandon, County Cork, on March 30, 1880.

Hales is born John Hales, eldest child of five sons and four daughters of Robert Hales, a farmer, and Margaret (née Fitzgerald) Hales. He is educated at Ballinadee national school and Warner’s Lane school, Bandon. After leaving school he goes to work on his father’s farm. He plays hurling with Valley Rovers GAA club and is the Munster champion in the 56-lb. weight-throwing competition. From an early age he follows in his father’s footsteps and becomes involved in the republican movement.

Hales joins the Irish Volunteers in 1915 and becomes captain of the Ballinadee company in 1916. Arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act after the 1916 Easter Rising, he is imprisoned in Frongoch internment camp in Wales. After his release, in April 1917 he becomes executive of the short-lived Liberty League promoted by Count George Plunkett. When the League merges with Sinn Féin, he helps reorganise the Volunteers. With his brothers, Tom, William, and Donal, he continues his father’s fight on behalf of evicted tenants and becomes involved with the anti-British Bandon People’s Food Committee and the anti-landlord Unpurchased Tenants’ Association. He helps in the Sinn Féin takeover of The Southern Star newspaper and is a member of the new board of directors. In 1919 he becomes battalion commander of the first (Bandon) battalion 3rd Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army, the name by which the Irish Volunteers increasingly became known. He leads the attack on Timoleague Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in February 1920, and the ambush of an Essex Regiment patrol at Brinny in August 1920. The military patrol at Brinny manages to surprise the ambushers and Lieutenant Tim Fitzgerald of Bandon is the first Volunteer to be killed in action in west Cork. Hales then commands the assault on two truckloads of British troops at Newcestown Cross in which a British officer is killed and several soldiers are wounded.

Hales is appointed section commander of the west Cork flying column in 1920 and takes part in the major action at Crossbarry on March 19, 1921. In retaliation for the burning of the Hales home in March 1921, he leads a contingent of Volunteers and burns Castle Bernard, the residence of the Earl of Bandon. The occupant, Lord Bandon, is held hostage until General Strickland, the British OC in Cork, guarantees he will not execute Volunteers in Cork prison. The British authorities yield and there is an end to the policy of executing prisoners of war in the Cork area.

At the 1921 Irish elections, Hales is elected to the Second Dáil as a Sinn Féin member for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency.

At the 1922 Irish general election, Hales is elected to the Third Dáil as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the same constituency. He receives 4,374 first preference votes (7.9%). Shortly afterward, the Irish Civil War breaks out between the pro-Treaty faction, who are in favour of setting up the Irish Free State and the anti-Treaty faction, who would not accept the abolition of the Irish Republic.

On December 7, 1922, Hales is killed by anti-Treaty IRA men as he leaves the Dáil. Another TD, Pádraic Ó Máille, is also shot and badly wounded in the incident. His killing is in reprisal for the Free State’s execution of anti-treaty prisoners. In revenge for Hales’ killing, four republican leaders, Joe McKelvey, Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Richard Barrett, are executed the following day, December 8, 1922.

Hales is given a military funeral to the family burial place at St. Patrick’s Cemetery, Bandon.

According to information passed on to playwright Ulick O’Connor, an anti-Treaty IRA volunteer named Owen Donnelly of Glasnevin is responsible for the killing of Hales. Seán Caffrey, an anti-treaty intelligence officer told O’Connor that Donnelly had not been ordered to kill Hales specifically but was following the general order issued by Liam Lynch to shoot all deputies and senators they could who had voted for the Public Safety Act (September 28, 1922) which established military courts with the power to impose the death penalty.

A commemorative statue of Hayes is unveiled at Bank Place in Bandon in 1930.