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Roger Casement’s Efforts to Gain German Military Aid Ends

During World War I, Roger Casement makes efforts to gain German military aid for the 1916 Easter Rising. His journey on the German submarine SM U-19 comes to an end on April 21, 1916.

In April 1916, Germany offers the Irish 20,000 Mosin–Nagant 1891 rifles, ten machine guns and accompanying ammunition, but no German officers. It is a fraction of the quantity of the arms Casement had hoped for, with no military expertise on offer. The weapons leave Germany bound for Ireland on a German cargo vessel named the SS Libau, disguised as a Norwegian vessel, Aud-Norge.

Casement confides his personal papers to Dr. Charles Curry, with whom he has stayed at Riederau on the Ammersee, before leaving Germany. He departs with Robert Monteith and Sergeant Daniel Beverley (Bailey) of the Irish Brigade in a submarine, initially the SM U-20, which develops engine trouble, and then the SM U-19, shortly after the Aud sails. According to Monteith, Casement believes the Germans are toying with him from the start and providing inadequate aid that will doom a rising to failure. He wants to reach Ireland before the shipment of arms and to convince Eoin MacNeill, who he believes is still in control, to cancel the rising.

Casement sends John McGoey, a recently arrived Irish American, through Denmark to Dublin, ostensibly to advise what military aid is coming from Germany and when, but with Casement’s orders “to get the Heads in Ireland to call off the rising and merely try to land the arms and distribute them.” McGoey does not reach Dublin, nor does his message. His fate is unknown until recently. Evidently abandoning the Irish Nationalist cause, he joins the Royal Navy in 1916, survives the war, and later returns to the United States, where he dies in an accident on a building site in 1925.

About 2:00 a.m. on the morning of April 21, 1916, three days before the rising begins, Robert Monteith, Daniel Bailey (calling himself Beverly), and Casement climb into a small boat for the trip to shore at Banna Strand in Tralee Bay, County Kerry. Their boat, now in the Imperial War Museum in London, capsizes before they reach shore.

Monteith helps an exhausted Casement to safety on shore. Casement is convinced that the Rising cannot be successful without a large number of German troops, and the best he has been able to obtain is one boatload of arms. Suffering from a recurrence of the malaria that had plagued him since his days in the Congo, and too weak to travel, Monteith and Bailey leave Casement at the ruins of McKenna’s Fort, an ancient ring fort in Rahoneen, Ardfert, now renamed Casement’s Fort, and head for Tralee.

About 1:30 p.m., Casement is discovered by two Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers. He nearly talks his way out of being arrested, but a 12-year-old boy at the scene points out a piece of paper Casement had tossed away as the police approach. On that paper is a German code list. He is arrested on charges of high treason, sabotage and espionage against the Crown. He manages to send word to Dublin about the inadequate German assistance.

The Kerry Brigade of the Irish Volunteers might have tried to rescue Casement over the next three days, but its leadership in Dublin holds that not a shot is to be fired in Ireland before the Easter Rising is in train and therefore orders the Brigade to “do nothing.” A subsequent internal inquiry attaches “no blame whatsoever” to the local Volunteers for failing to attempt a rescue. Casement is taken to Brixton Prison and placed under special observation for fear of an attempt of suicide as there is no staff at the Tower of London to guard suicidal cases.

Casement’s trial at bar opens at the Royal Courts of Justice on June 26, 1916, before the Lord Chief Justice (Viscount Reading), Justice Horace Avory, and Justice Thomas Horridge. Refusing to agree to a “guilty but insane” plea, he is subsequently found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. He unsuccessfully appeals against his conviction and death sentence.

On the day of his execution by hanging at Pentonville Prison, August 3, 1916, Casement is received into the Catholic Church at his request. He is attended by two Catholic priests, Dean Timothy Ring and Father James Carey, from the East London parish of SS Mary and Michael. The latter, also known as James McCarroll, says of Casement that he was “a saint … we should be praying to him [Casement] instead of for him.” At the time of his death he is 51 years old.

Casement’s body is buried in quicklime in the prison cemetery at the rear of Pentonville Prison, though his last wish was to be buried at Murlough Bay on the north coast of County Antrim, in present-day Northern Ireland. Finally, in 1965, his remains are repatriated to Ireland. His remains lay in state at the Garrison Church, Arbour Hill (now Arbour Hill Prison) in Dublin for five days, close to the graves of other leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, although he would not be buried beside them. After a state funeral, the remains are buried with full military honours in the republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, alongside other Irish republicans and nationalists. The President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, who is then in his mid-eighties and the last surviving leader of the Easter Rising, attends the ceremony, along with an estimated 30,000 others.


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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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Death of Matilda Tone, Wife of Theobald Wolfe Tone

Matilda Tone, wife of Theobald Wolfe Tone, dies in Georgetown, District of Columbia, on March 18, 1849. She is instrumental in the preservation and publication of Wolfe Tone’s papers.

Tone is born Martha Witherington in Dublin on June 17, 1769. She is the eldest daughter of merchant William Witherington and his wife Catherine (née Fanning). Her father is listed as a woolen draper on Grafton Street, Dublin, from 1768 to 1784, as a wine merchant from 1784 to 1788, and finally as a merchant from 1788 to 1793. It is claimed that he is a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and sits on the merchants’ guild on Dublin’s common council from 1777 to 1783. Her mother is a housekeeper to her father after he is widowed.

Tone receives a good education and maintains an interest in drama and literature throughout her life. Katherine Wilmot visits her in Paris in 1802 and comments on the books she has by French, Italian and English authors. When she is fifteen years old, she gets to know Wolfe Tone through her older brother. He is still a student in Trinity College Dublin, and it is he that renames her Matilda. They marry when she is just sixteen, on July 21, 1785, in St. Ann’s Church, Dublin, honeymooning in Maynooth. Upon their return they live with the Witheringtons, though they are not on good terms, and then with Wolfe Tone’s parents in Bodenstown, County Kildare.

The Tone’s first child, Maria, is born before October 1786. She is followed by a son, Richard, who is named for their neighbour Richard Griffith, who dies in infancy. Tone stays with her husband’s family while he is studying for the bar in London from 1787 to 1788. When he returns, the couple has two more sons: William Theobald Wolfe Tone, born on April 29, 1791, and Francis Rawdon Tone, born on June 23, 1793. Francis is known as Frank and is named after Francis Rawdon-Hastings. William is born in Dublin and Frank is probably born in Bodenstown. By this time, the family has a cottage in Bodenstown which Wolfe Tone had inherited from his uncle Jonathan Tone, which the family jokingly refers to as Château Boue. They live there until May 1795, when they leave for Princeton, New Jersey, due to political reasons.

Tone and her children come back to Europe to join Wolfe Tone in France eighteen months later. The family settles in Paris, at first living with Colonel Henry Shee at Nanterre, later moving to the suburb, Chaillot. She educates her children at home. Very few of her letters survive, but many of her husband’s letters and diaries are addressed or intended for her. From these and her letter to her friend Eliza Fletcher, it is clear she shares her husband’s interest in politics. Following her husband’s death in November 1798, she moves to a small apartment at 51 Rue Saint-Jacques in the Latin Quarter of Paris. This is to be close to her son William, who is attending Lycée Louis-le-Grand. She is awarded a pension of 1,200 francs for herself and 400 for each of her children after the expiration of the Treaty of Amiens on May 1, 1803.

Tone’s daughter Maria dies in April 1803, and then her son Frank dies in 1807, both of tuberculosis. William is displaying symptoms of the disease as well, which prompts her to move to the United States in 1807. From there, they attempt to sort out her husband’s affairs, which had been entrusted to James Reynolds. They retrieve only a few of Wolfe Tone’s pre-1795 diaries, and all of the post-1795 letters and diaries, which they add to the autobiography she already has in her possession. When William enters the Cavalry School at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in November 1810 as a cadet, she moves to be close to him, living at the Hôtel de la Surintendance. By approaching Napoleon in 1811, who knew Wolfe Tone, she ensures that her son receives French citizenship and the privileged status of “élève du gouvernement.” In January 1813, when William begins his service, she returns to Paris to live on the Rue de Lille, and later moves to the Latin Quarter.

Following the defeat of Napoleon in June 1815, William is refused entry to Ireland or to visit Britain. This leads to both mother and son returning to the United States. Before she leaves Paris, she marries her old friend Thomas Wilson on August 19, 1816. Wilson is a Scottish businessman and advocate who has taken care of her financial affairs after the death of her husband. The couple visit Scotland, and then move to New York City in 1817, and finally to Georgetown, District of Columbia, around 1820. She lives there until her death and calls herself Matilda Tone-Wilson.

Starting in 1824, The New Monthly Magazine begins the unauthorised publication of extracts from Wolfe Tone’s autobiography. In response, Tone decides to publish all of Wolfe Tone’s papers and writing, including the autobiography, pamphlets and diaries, edited by their son William. What results is two large volumes entitled the Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, published in May 1826. She adds a memoir of her own life in Paris following his death in 1798. The book is a best-seller, and ensures the legacy of Wolfe Tone, as well as being an important contemporary document of both Irish and French revolutionary politics.

William Tone dies in 1828, after which Tone lives more privately. She dies in Georgetown on March 18, 1849. Thomas Wilson predeceases her in 1824. Just two weeks prior to her death she is interviewed by a Young Irelander, Charles Hart. She is initially buried near William Tone at Marbury burying-ground, Georgetown. After that cemetery is sold, she is reinterred in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York, on October 31, 1891, by her great-grandchildren. A new monument is dedicated to her, which is later restored in 1996.


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Death of William Brown, Commander in the Argentine Navy

William Brown, Irish sailor, merchant, and naval commander who serves in the Argentine Navy during the wars of the early 19th century, dies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 3, 1857. He is also known in Spanish as Guillermo Brown or Almirante Brown.

Brown is born on June 22, 1777, in Foxford, County Mayo. Comparatively little is known of his early life, and it has been suggested that he was illegitimate and took his mother’s surname and that his father’s surname was actually Gannon. He emigrates with his father to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1793, eventually settling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A short time after their arrival, the friend who had invited them and offered them food and hospitality dies of yellow fever. Several days later, his father also succumbs to the same disease.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Birth of Sir Edward Carson, Politician, Barrister & Judge

Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson, Irish unionist politician, barrister and judge, known as the “uncrowned king of Ulster,” is born on February 9, 1854, at 4 Harcourt Street, in Dublin. He serves as the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England, Wales and Ireland as well as the First Lord of the Admiralty for the British Royal Navy.

Although Carson is to become the champion of the northern province, he is born into a Protestant family in southern Ireland. He is educated at Portarlington School, Wesley College, Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin, where he reads law and is an active member of the College Historical Society. He graduates BA and MA.

From 1877, early in his Irish legal career, he comes to mistrust the Irish nationalists. As senior Crown prosecutor, he sternly enforces the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act 1887, securing numerous convictions for violence against Irish estates owned by English absentee landlords. He is appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland and elected to the British House of Commons in 1892, is called to the English bar at Middle Temple on April 21, 1893, and serves as Solicitor General for England and Wales from 1900 to 1905. During these years he achieves his greatest success as a barrister. In 1895, his cross-examination of Oscar Wilde largely secures the Irish writer’s conviction for homosexuality.

On February 21, 1910, Carson accepts the parliamentary leadership of the anti-Home Rule Irish Unionists and, forfeiting his chance to lead the British Conservative Party, devotes himself entirely to the Ulster cause. His dislike of southern Irish separatism is reinforced by his belief that the heavy industry of Belfast is necessary to the economic survival of Ireland. The Liberal government (1908–16) under H. H. Asquith, which in 1912 decides to prepare a Home Rule bill, cannot overcome the effect of his extra-parliamentary opposition. The Solemn League and Covenant of resistance to Home Rule, signed by Carson and other leaders in Belfast on September 28, 1912, and afterward by thousands of Ulstermen, is followed by his establishment of a provisional government in Belfast in September 1913. Early in that year he recruits a private Ulster army, the Ulster Volunteer Force, that openly drills for fighting in the event that the Home Rule Bill is enacted. In preparation for a full-scale civil war, he successfully organizes the landing of a large supply of weapons from Germany at Larne, County Antrim, on April 24, 1914. The British government, however, begins to make concessions to Ulster unionists, and on the outbreak of World War I he agrees to a compromise whereby the Home Rule Bill is enacted but its operation suspended until the end of the war on the understanding that Ulster’s exclusion will then be reconsidered.

Appointed Attorney General for England in Asquith’s wartime coalition ministry on May 25, 1915, Carson resigns on October 19 because of his dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war. In David Lloyd George’s coalition ministry (1916–22) he is First Lord of the Admiralty from December 10, 1916, to July 17, 1917, and then a member of the war cabinet as minister without portfolio until January 21, 1918.

Disillusioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 that partitions Ireland and establishes what is essentially a Home Rule parliament in Belfast, Carson declines an invitation to head the Northern Ireland government and resigns as Ulster Unionist Party leader in February 1921. Accepting a life peerage, he serves from 1921 to 1929 as Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and takes the title Baron Carson of Duncairn.

Carson retires in October 1929. In July 1932, during his last visit to Northern Ireland, he witnesses the unveiling of a large statue of himself in front of Parliament Buildings at Stormont. The statue is sculpted by Leonard Stanford Merrifield, cast in bronze and placed upon a plinth. The inscription on the base reads “By the loyalists of Ulster as an expression of their love and admiration for its subject.” It is unveiled by James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, in the presence of more than 40,000 people.

Carson lives at Cleve Court, a Queen Anne house near Minster-in-Thanet in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, bought in 1921. It is here that he dies peacefully on October 22, 1935. A warship brings his body to Belfast for the funeral. Thousands of shipworkers stop work and bow their heads as HMS Broke steams slowly up Belfast Lough, with his flag-draped coffin sitting on the quarterdeck. Britain gives him a state funeral on Saturday, October 26, 1935, which takes place in Belfast’s St. Anne’s Cathedral. He remains the only person to have been buried there. From a silver bowl, soil from each of the six counties of Northern Ireland is scattered onto his coffin, which had earlier been covered by the Union Jack. At his funeral service the choir sings his own favourite hymn, “I Vow to Thee, My Country.”


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Birth of Thomas Charles Wright, Founder of the Ecuadorian Navy

Thomas Charles Wright, founding father of the Ecuadorian Navy and a general in Simón Bolívar‘s army, is born in Queensborough, Drogheda, County Louth, on January 26, 1799. He is regarded as a leading militarist in Ecuador‘s and other South American countries’ struggle for independence.

Wright is born to Joseph Wright and Mary Montgomery. At the age of eleven, he is sent to the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, regarded at the time as the finest in the world, where he is educated to become an officer.

At the age of fourteen, following his junior officer training, Wright embarks on a sea voyage on board HMS Newcastle under the captaincy of Lord George Stuart. On this vessel he sails to the east coast of the United States where he is engaged in blockading activities in the squadron of Admiral John Borlase Warren. In 1817 he returns to England, having attained the junior officer’s rank of midshipman.

Although Wright passes the lieutenant‘s examination, promotional opportunities are diminishing in the Royal Navy, and he is not given a commission like many young junior officers in Britain. Collectively, he and others decide to enlist in Simón Bolívar’s revolutionary army and sail for South America in support of the uprisings against Spanish colonial rule. In November 1817, he enlists as an officer in the British Legions of Simón Bolívar, under the patronage of Luis Lopez Mendez, Bolivar’s agent in London. Originally setting off from the River Thames in November 1817, several snags delay the departure until January 2, 1818. They depart from Fowey harbor and sail on a brigantine named Dowson, under naval commander Captain Dormer, with 200 other volunteers armed with valuable weapons and ammunition. They land in the Saint Thomas Island after several weeks. Admiral Luis Brión arrives with his squadron on the Island of St Thomas and Pigott and the Rifle Corps are shipped on Patriot vessels to Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela, arriving on April 21, 1818.

They are sent to Guayana and then to Angostura, beginning the campaign in the Apure. At Angostura (present-day Ciudad Bolívar), Wright first meets Simón Bolívar, for whom he develops a deep admiration. Bolívar opens the liberating campaign in Apure. During 1818–1819, one of the earliest battles with Wright partaking as an officer is at Trapiche de Gamarra on March 27, 1819. These encounters inspire Bolívar to begin his New Granada campaign and the march 1,500 miles over the Andes Mountains. Wright accompanies Bolívar on the legendary crossing on which 25% of the British/Irish troops die.

Wright takes part in the entire land campaign to liberate the northern countries of South America, and fights in numerous land battles with Bolívar’s army. He plays leading roles in the Battle of Vargas Swamp, and later in the victory at the Battle of Boyacá in August 1819, after which he is promoted to captain. In 1820, he returns with his Rifles regiment to the coastal plains to campaign in the jungles east of the Magdalena against the Spanish based on Santa Marta. The Rifles Corp are then transported by sea to Maracaibo, and on June 21, 1821, take part in Simon Bolívar’s decisive victory in the Battle of Carabobo. Cartagena is also seized, and the Rifles are brought in boats up the Magdalena River en route to Popayán. They form part of the forces led by Bolívar in the second of his famed Andean campaigns. After the successful battle at Bomboná on 7 April 7, 1822, Wright is twice mentioned in Bolívar’s order of the day for his exceptional skill and courage. Again, he is promoted and from February 1822 he is an acting lieutenant-colonel.

In early 1824, Bolívar realizes that, despite the Patriot Army success on land, unless the South American revolutionary armies can control the seas off their coasts, they will forever be under sea blockade from imperial Spain. He appoints Wright to the newly fledged United Pacific Naval Squadron.

After Guayaquil seizes independence, John Illingworth Hunt is appointed as Commanding General of the Maritime Department. Immediately he takes care of organizing everything concerning the Navy. Thus, in 1823, the first Ecuadorian naval force is formed.

Wright, who in February 1824 is promoted to captain, becomes Commodore of the South Squadron, and embarks on the brig Chimborazo, and conducts patrols along the Peruvian coast with seven transports properly equipped and ready to assist in the transfer of troops, when Bolívar’s army would require it. Following Bolivar’s defeat of the royalist forces at the Battle of Junín on August 6, 1824, Wright is instructed to proceed to Callao with a squadron of five ships and is placed under the orders of Admiral Martin Guisse, head of the United Squadron. The Gran Colombian units, forming this squadron, participate in some naval actions against the royalists and also in the blockade of Callao, the last Spanish stronghold in South America.

Bolívar installs Wright as a Commodore of the Pacific Southern Squadron. He is appointed to command a small fleet of ships in support of Admiral Martin Guisse and joins the Patriotic naval force blockading off Callao. Along with Admiral Guisse and a handful of other former Royal Navy officers, they spearhead the blockade of Callao that successfully fights the Spanish naval squadron sent to lift the blockade of the besieged city. The blockade holds and Callao capitulates in early 1826, ending Spanish rule in South America.

The revolutionary independence struggles end with the unfolding liberation of South America countries, and Wright settles in Ecuador where he helps establish the Ecuadorian Navy and helps create the Ecuadorian naval school that is named in his honor.

The downfall and expulsion of the Spanish colonial power leads to land disputes and new wars among the South American home nations that once were united against Spain. In 1827, Peruvian President José de la Mar invades Bolivia and then invades Ecuador. Wright takes up the cause of defending his new adopted homeland. His navy fights two battles with the Peruvians in the Gulf of Guayaquil.

In 1829, Wright returns to the army as a Colonel and is appointed General Antonio José de Sucre‘s aide-de-camp at the Battle of Tarqui.

Ecuador declares itself a republic in 1830, though the region is completely unsettled with Peru and Colombia both claiming parts of Ecuador as part of their territory. At this time Wright goes back in the Navy with his own flag officer’s pendant. He is also appointed to the army with the rank of General of Brigade in 1830. Two unconstitutional presidents, Vincente Rocafuerte and Valdivieso, declare themselves in office. Wright and Flores lead Rocafuerte’s army into a decisive battle that takes place at Minarica in 1835. This action is decisive, and they defeat General Barriga, who is Valdivieso’s appointed General. The victory guarantees the stability and future of Ecuador, with Rocafuerte becoming Ecuador’s president.

In 1835, Wright is Comandante del Apostadero, later changed to Comandancia General de la Marina (Commander-in-Chief of the Navy) for many years. He does not found the Ecuadorian Naval School, as often incorrectly cited. The college is named in his honor. He is the commanding officer of the Ecuadorian Naval Squadron before Ecuador becomes a Republic, as such he is considered a founding father of the Ecuadorian Navy. In this year he is also promoted to Army General of Division.

In 1843, Wright becomes the Governor of Guayaquil. This is the premier military position in the city.

In 1845, a military coup plot overthrows the liberal government supported by Wright and he goes into exile for fifteen years in Chile and Peru. In Chorrillos, Peru, he befriends the Ecuadorian exile Eloy Alfaro and exerts a massive influence on him as a mentor. Alfaro later becomes President of Ecuador from 1897 to 1913. Wright returns from exile in 1860 and opposes Gabriel García Moreno until his death in 1868.


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The Battle of Tory Island

The Battle of Tory Island, sometimes called the Battle of Donegal, Battle of Lough Swilly or Warren’s Action, is a naval action of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought on October 12, 1798, between French and British squadrons off the northwest coast of County Donegal, then in the Kingdom of Ireland. The last action of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Battle of Tory Island ends the final attempt by the French Navy to land substantial numbers of soldiers in Ireland during the war.

Britain’s enemies in Continental Europe have long recognised Ireland as a weak point in Britain’s defences. Landing troops there is a popular strategic goal, not only because an invader can expect the support of a large proportion of the native population, but also because at least initially they will face fewer and less reliable troops than elsewhere in the British Isles. Additionally, embroiling the British Army in a protracted Irish campaign will reduce its availability for other theatres of war. Finally, French planners consider that a successful invasion of Ireland might act as the ideal platform for a subsequent invasion of Great Britain.

The Society of United Irishmen, led by Theobald Wolfe Tone, launches an uprising against British rule in Ireland in May 1798. At the request of the rebels, a small French force under General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert is landed at Killala, County Mayo, but by early September both this expedition and the rebellion has been defeated.

Unaware of Humbert’s surrender, the French despatch reinforcements under the command of Commodore Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart on September 16. Having missed one invasion force, the Royal Navy is more watchful. Roving frigate patrols cruise off the principal French ports and in the approaches to Ireland, while squadrons of battleships from the Channel Fleet sail nearby, ready to move against any new invasion force. In command of the squadron on the Irish station is Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren, a highly experienced officer (and politician) who has made a name for himself raiding the French coast early in the war.

The squadron carrying the reinforcements is soon spotted after leaving Brest. After a long chase, the French are brought to battle in a bay off the rugged County Donegal coast in the west of Ulster, very close to Tory Island. During the action the outnumbered French attempt to escape, but are run down and defeated piecemeal, with the British capturing four ships and scattering the survivors. Over the next fortnight, British frigate patrols scour the passage back to Brest, capturing three more ships. Of the ten ships in the original French squadron, only two frigates and a schooner reach safety. British losses in the campaign are minimal.

The battle marks the last attempt by the French Navy to launch an invasion of any part of the British Isles. It also ends the last hopes the United Irishmen have of obtaining outside support in their struggle against the British. After the action, Wolfe Tone is recognised aboard the captured French flagship and arrested. He is brought ashore by the British at Buncrana, on the Inishowen peninsula. He is later tried for treason, convicted, and commits suicide while in prison in Dublin, hours before he is to be hanged.

(Pictured: Attack of the French Squadron under Monsr. Bompart Chef d’Escadre, upon the Coast of Ireland, by a Detachment of His Majesty’s Ships under the Command of Sir J. B. Warren, October 12, 1798, by Nicholas Pocock, 1799)


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Killing of Frank Brooke, Director of Dublin and South Eastern Railways

Francis Theophilius “Frank” Brooke PC, JP, DL, Anglo-Irish Director of Dublin and South Eastern Railway and a member of the Earl of Ypres‘ Advisory Council, is killed allegedly by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in his Dublin office on July 30, 1920.

Brooke is a cousin of Sir Basil Brooke, the future Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (1943-63) who is later created, in 1952, the 1st Viscount Brookeborough.

Brooke is also Deputy Lieutenant of County Wicklow and County Fermanagh, a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a Justice of the Peace for County Fermanagh and an Irish Privy Counsellor (1918), thus he is styled The Right Honourable Francis Brooke.

In July 1912 Brooke attends a house party at Wentworth Woodhouse hosted for George V‘s stay there.

On July 30, 1920, Brooke is killed, at the age of 69, at his offices in Dublin, by Paddy Daly, Tom Keogh and Jim Slattery, members of Michael Collins‘s Squad of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is killed in view of a colleague, who is spared. He is marked out for his activities as a judge, anti-republican activities, and his friendship with Sir John French. As an Irish Privy Counsellor, he is a signatory of the order proclaiming Dáil Éireann illegal.

The inquest following the assassination finds that Brooke had a pistol in his jacket pocket. His killing has been termed the only outright political assassination of the Irish War of Independence.

(Photo credit: Kevin Lee)


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Birth of Kathleen Cox, Artist, Sculptor & Mystic

Kathleen Cox, Irish artist, sculptor, and mystic, is born Christina Mary Kathleen Cox in Wo-Sung, China, on July 2, 1904. Cox is considered a pioneer of contemporary Irish pottery.

Cox is the eldest daughter of Dr. R. H. Cox, originally from Dundalk, County Louth, and the port health officer in Shanghai. He is also an amateur geologist and models in clay. In his retirement, he invents a periscope later used during World War I by the Royal Navy. The years living in China leave an impression on the young Cox, visually and culturally. The family returns to Ireland in 1911, first moving to Listowel, County Kerry, and later to Howth, County Dublin. She attends Alexandra College, and later the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1921. While there she studies sculpture under Oliver Sheppard and is considered one of his most talented students, winning the Royal Dublin Society Taylor prize for modelling in 1925, 1926, and 1927. The money from these prizes allows Cox to travel to Paris in 1929.

Cox exhibits in 1924 at the Tailteann exhibitions, and in 1925 submits textile designs to the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland. She establishes a pottery studio at 7 Schoolhouse Lane, Dublin, with college friend Stella Rayner in 1929. The studio has the first electric kiln in Ireland. The first exhibited piece by Cox shown by the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is in 1930, with a pair of Madonna bookends, and portrait masks of the daughter of Dermod O’Brien, Brigid O’Brien, and writer Norris Davidson. Davidson is a friend and neighbour, who commissions her to design the poster for his 1929 film, Suicide. She exhibits with the RHA from 1931 to 1933, and the Tailteann 1932, while also holding exhibitions in her studio. During this period Hilda Roberts paints her portrait, Strange Spirit. Kathleen Cox in her studio. The theme of womanhood is prominent in her work, including in the sign of her studio.

In 1932, Cox begins producing a line of more commercial figurines, drawing influence from the Royal Doulton Burslem factory, where she works for a time. One such figurine is The Lavender Man (pictured), modelled on Michael Clifford, a Dublin street trader. In the mid 1930s, she develops a frustration with her work and with her lack of impact on the wider world. In attending the Chinese exhibition in London in 1935, it is confirmed to her that pottery should be practical rather than ornamental. It spurs her to destroy all her moulds and sell her kiln upon her return to Dublin.

Cox marries Alan Palmer in 1937, the couple has two daughters and relocate to England. Palmer is a conscientious objector during World War II, with the couple running a farm at Meopham, Kent, returning to London after the war.

Cox dies in early September 1972 in London. Some of her work is held in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland and with four works featured in the exhibition Not Just Pots: Contemporary Irish Ceramics of the 21st Century.

It is during the 1920s that Cox begins to question mainstream religion and becomes a vegetarian. Finding that her personal philosophy is similar to that of theosophy, she joins the movement and speaks at meetings. She is heavily influenced by the founder of the Order of the Great Companions, the Rev. William Hayes, who is living in Dublin in the 1930s. She writes and illustrates a children’s book on world religions, A story of stories, which she publishes under the pseudonym C.M. Kay in 1970.


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Death of Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, Anglo-Irish Engineer & Scientist

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, Anglo-Irish engineer and scientist best known for his invention of the compound steam turbine, dies on February 11, 1931, on board the steamship Duchess of Richmond while on a cruise with his wife.

Parsons is born in London on June 13, 1854, the youngest among eleven children of the famous astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, of Parsonstown (now Birr), King’s County (now County Offaly) and Mary Parsons (née Field), a Yorkshire heiress. Only four sons survive to adulthood. He is strongly influenced by his father, who encourages him to use the workshops at the Birr Castle observatory, and he is tutored at home by some of the assistant astronomers before entering Trinity College Dublin in 1871. He transfers to St. John’s College, Cambridge, and upon graduation in 1877 as eleventh wrangler in a class of thirty-six studying mathematics, he takes the unusual step for the son of an earl, of becoming a premium apprentice at the Elswick Engine and Ordnance Works of Sir William George Armstrong at Newcastle upon Tyne. In the period following this he develops a unique high-speed steam engine, and a torpedo which is powered by a gas turbine. He joins Clarke Chapman at Gateshead as a partner in 1884. In a matter of months he files patents for the world’s first effective steam turbine. These embody many novelties, but the key feature is an electricity generator rated at 6 kW and designed to run, directly coupled, at the astonishing speed of 18,000 rpm.

Parsons is not satisfied that his partners’ efforts to promote turbine development are sufficiently aggressive, and in 1889 he leaves to establish his own company, C. A. Parsons & Company, at Heaton near Newcastle upon Tyne. The price of this impetuous action is the loss of access to his original patents. He quickly establishes alternative designs and by 1892 he has built a turbo-alternator with an output of 100 kW for the Cambridge Electricity Company. Exhausting to a condenser, it has a steam consumption comparable with the best steam engines. Even his 1884 patents envisage applying turbines to marine propulsion, but it is 1893 before he can embark on the design of a suitable demonstration boat of 40 tons. By using careful tests on models, he perfects the hull shape and predicts the power requirements. At this time he recovers his 1884 patents and even wins the very rare prize of an extension for five years, which is a measure of the perceived national importance of his invention.

A syndicate is formed to raise the capital necessary to build Parsons’s turbine-powered vessel Turbinia. At the Spithead Fleet Review in 1897 she speeds among the ships of the world’s navies at 34.5 knots. In 1905 the Royal Navy decides to adopt turbines for its future warships. This example is followed by navies worldwide, from the United States to Japan. Builders of mercantile vessels follow quickly and the turbines of the Cunard liner RMS Mauretania (1906), each developing 26,000 kW, are the largest in existence at the time. The Mauretania holds the Blue Riband for the speediest Atlantic crossing until 1929, a fact that keeps Parsons’s name before the public.

The firm of C. A. Parsons (1889), which builds turbines for use on land, is privately owned, but the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company (1897) is a public company. Parsons also earns income from over 300 patents through the Parsons Foreign Patents Co. (1899). He readily licenses others to use his patents but he avoides costly litigation, the ruin of many inventors.

Parsons inherits an interest in optical instruments from his father. In 1890 he develops a cost-effective method for manufacturing searchlight mirrors, using sheets of plate glass and an iron mold heated in a gas furnace. During World War I he supplies most of the national requirements. In 1921 he acquires the optical instrument manufacturers Ross Ltd. and the Derby Crown Glass Company, makers of optical quality glass. In 1925 the firm of Howard Grubb, which makes large optical telescopes, is rescued from insolvency by Parsons. He believes that it is of national importance to maintain the industrial capacity to make optical equipment. Not all of his projects are commercially profitable, as for example his acoustic amplifier, dubbed the “Auxetophone,” or his attempts at synthesising diamonds, which absorbs much time and effort. In the development of his many inventions, he displays great tenacity in the face of reverses and always employs a meticulously scientific approach.

The supply of power on a large scale is revolutionised by the steam turbine. During the twenty years following the building of his first turbogenerator, Parsons remains at the forefront of promoting, building, and selling ever larger and more efficient turbines. He is not only a scientific engineer and inventor, but also a successful manufacturer and businessman. Modest and retiring in manner, his chief weakness lay in a lack of skill in managing interpersonal relationships, though this is compensated to a large extent by his integrity and loyalty. He seeks out the ablest men to run his businesses, among them several Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS). He is elected FRS himself in 1898 and is knighted in 1911. In 1927 he becomes the first engineer to be awarded the Order of Merit for his outstanding contributions to society. He is honoured by many universities and institutions in Europe and the United States.

Parsons marries Katharine Bethell, a Yorkshire woman, in 1883. They have one daughter and a son who dies on active service in 1918. He keeps a residence in London and in Northumbria.

Parsons dies on February 11, 1931, on board the steamship Duchess of Richmond while on a cruise with his wife. The cause of death is given as neuritis. A memorial service is held at Westminster Abbey on March 3, 1931. He is buried in the parish church of St. Bartholomew’s in Kirkwhelpington in Northumberland. His estate is valued at £1,214,355 gross.

A portrait of Parsons, painted by Maurice Codner, hangs in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London. There is also a portrait by Sir William Orpen in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, and a portrait by Walter Stoneman in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

(From: “Parsons, Sir Charles Algernon” by W. Garrett Scaife, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)