seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Sligo (County Sligo)


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Death of Author Eilís Dillon

Eilís Dillon, Irish author of 50 books, dies on July 19, 1994. Her work has been translated into fourteen languages.

Dillon is the third of five children of Professor Thomas Dillon and his wife Geraldine née Plunkett, who is the sister of Joseph Mary Plunkett. She is raised at Dangan House outside of Galway before moving to the small fishing village of Barna. She attends the local primary school where she becomes proficient in Irish and gains an intimate knowledge of tradition in the Connemara. Dillon’s family is involved in Irish revolutionary politics. Her uncle, Joseph Mary Plunkett, is a signatory of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic and is executed after the Easter Rising.

Educated by the Ursuline nuns in Sligo, she works briefly in the hotel and catering trade. In 1940 she marries Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, an academic from University College Cork and seventeen years her senior. They have at least three children, including the Irish poet and Trinity College, Dublin professor Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and her brother, Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, also a Trinity professor, who writes novels as Cormac Millar.

Dillon’s first books are written in Irish including An Choill Bheo, published in 1948, Oscar agus an Cóiste sé nEasóg in 1952 and Ceol na coille in 1955. After the success of The Lost Island, published in 1952, she writes almost exclusively in English. Most of her books are aimed at teen readers with themes of self-discovery and problem solving evident.

In 1964 she moves to Rome due to her husband’s poor health. While there she acts as adviser to International Commission on English in the Liturgy. She returns to Cork with her husband in 1969 where he dies the following year. She continues to visit Italy over the next several years, setting some of her stories there including Living in Imperial Rome (1974) and The Five Hundred (1972), though these are not as popular as her Irish books. In 1974 she marries the American-based critic and professor Vivian Mercier, dividing her time between California, Italy and Dublin.

Dillon’s adult fiction career begins in 1953 with the publication of the detective novel Death at Crane’s Court. This is followed by Sent to His Account in 1954 and Death in the Quadrangle in 1956. These novels are known for their depiction of contemporary Ireland. Over the following decade Dillon publishes many novels including The Bitter Glass (1959), Across the Bitter Sea (1973) and The Wild Geese (1981).

In her later years Dillon plays a prominent role in Irish culture. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and a member of Aosdána, serves on the Irish Arts Council from 1974 until 1979, chairs the Irish Writers’ Union and the Irish Writers’ Centre, and founds the Irish Children’s Book Trust.

In 1987 Dillon and her husband move permanently to Dublin where she supports up and coming Irish authors. Her last story is Children of Bach published in 1993. Eilís Dillon dies on July 19, 1994, and is buried beside her second husband in Clara, County Offaly. A prize in her memory is given annually as part of the Bisto Book of the Year Awards.


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Prince Charles & Camilla Visit County Sligo

Charles, Prince of Wales, and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, arrive at the Model Arts Centre in Sligo town on May 20, 2015, where the prince makes an address.

On arrival at the Model the couple delays for some time chatting to school children and local residents who line the street to greet them. The welcoming party also includes Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Charles Flanagan, and members of Sligo County Council including Sinn Féin’s Sean MacManus.

Charles speaks of his “deep anguish” following the killing of his “much loved grand uncle” Lord Louis Mountbatten by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Mullaghmore on August 27, 1979.

“At the time I could not imagine how we would come to terms with such anguish and such deep loss” he tells the gathering. “In August 1979, my much-loved great uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was killed alongside his young grandson and my godson, Nicholas, and his friend, Paul Maxwell, and Nicholas’s grandmother, the Dowager Lady Brabourne.”

“At the time I could not imagine how we would come to terms with the anguish of such a deep loss since, for me, Lord Mountbatten represented the grandfather I never had. So, it seemed as if the foundations of all that we held dear in life had been torn apart irreparably.”

But he stresses the tragedy helped him understand the widespread suffering.

“Through this dreadful experience, though, I now understand in a profound way the agonies borne by so many others in these islands, of whatever faith, denomination or political tradition. Despite the tragedy of August 1979, the memories that Lord Mountbatten’s family have of Classiebawn Castle and Mullaghmore, going right back to 1946, are of great happiness. I look forward to seeing, at last, the place that he and they so loved and to meeting its inhabitants. Many of them showed the most extraordinary outpouring of compassion and support to both Lord Mountbatten’s and Paul Maxwell’s families in the aftermath of the bombing. Their loving kindness has done much to aid the healing process.”

Charles says he is “only too deeply aware of the long history of suffering that Ireland has endured. A history that has caused much pain and much resentment in a world of imperfect human beings, where it’s always too easy to overgeneralise and attribute blame.” Referring to his mother’s speech at Dublin Castle he says, “with the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.”

Charles and Camilla then travel to Drumcliff church for a service of peace and reconciliation before proceeding to the village of Mullaghmore.


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Last British Troops Leave the Irish Free State

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The last British troops leave the Irish Free State on December 17, 1922. They are the remnants of a 5,000 strong garrison maintained up to that point in Dublin, commanded by Nevil Macready.

It appears to be a friendly farewell, even while Ireland is embroiled in its own Civil War. The Union Jack is lowered at the hospital and Macready goes to review the final contingent of troops as they leave the Royal barracks, later known as the Collins barracks. He then motors to Kingstown, now Dún Laoghaire, where he receives a 17-gun salute and joins Admiral Cecil Fox, the Sligo-born naval commander in the area, on board the cruiser HMS Dragon to sail home to England and retirement.

Meanwhile, the troops, 3,500 men mostly from the Leicester, Worchester, and Border regiments, march to the port. At Beresford Place they are greeted by 500 members of the Legion of Irish Ex-Servicemen, in civilian clothes but wearing their decorations. Thousands of other people line the quays and the armoured cars and the Dublin Metropolitan Police stand by, but there is no trouble. Embarkation onto six ships begins around 1:15 PM. At 3:10 PM, the last ship to leave, the steamer Arvonia chartered from the London and North Western Railway, weighs anchor while a band on deck plays “God Save the King” and a crowd breaks into the North Wall Extension to wave a final farewell as it enters Alexandra Basin.

The armoured cars them drive north to Ulster and the evacuation of the Irish Free State, apart from the Treaty ports, is over. General Richard Mulcahy, who takes over the Royal barracks that day, claims “the incubus of occupation that has lain as a heavy hand on the country for years has been removed.”

In his memoirs, Macready expresses annoyance that a photograph of Fox and himself published in The Irish Times on December 18 has the caption “two gallant Irishmen.” Although he has an Irish grandfather, he cordially loathes Ireland.

The British leave fully outfitted barracks to the Irish Army and artifacts including a large card in the Headquarters in Parkgate Street printed with the admonition “LOVE ONE ANOTHER.”


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Birth of Tenor John McCormack

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John McCormack, an Irish tenor celebrated for his performances of the operatic and popular song repertoires and renowned for his diction and breath control, is born in Athlone, County Westmeath, on June 14, 1884.

McCormack receives his early education from the Marist Brothers in Athlone, and later attends Summerhill College in Sligo. He sings in the choir of the old St. Peters church in Athlone under choirmaster Michael Kilkelly. When the family moves to Dublin, he sings in the choir of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral where he is discovered by composer Vincent O’Brien. In 1903 he wins the coveted gold medal of the Dublin Feis Ceoil.

Fundraising activities on his behalf enable McCormack to travel to Italy in 1905 to receive voice training by Vincenzo Sabatini in Milan. In 1906, he makes his operatic début at the Teatro Chiabrera, Savona. The next year he begins his first important operatic performance at Covent Garden in Mascagni‘s Cavalleria rusticana, becoming the theatre’s youngest principal tenor.

In less than three years he is singing opera in the United States, as well as beginning a career on the recital stage that makes him one of the most successful singers of all time. In 1917 he becomes a citizen of the United States, his adopted country, where his concert appeal has proven to be nearly universal and unrelenting.

McCormack originally ends his career in 1938 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. However, one year after that farewell concert he is back singing for the Red Cross and in support of the war effort. He concertizes, tours, broadcasts, and records in this capacity until 1943 when failing health forced him to permanently retire.

Ill with emphysema, he purchases a house near the sea at Booterstown, County Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, just south of Dublin. After a series of infectious illnesses, including influenza and pneumonia, McCormack dies on September 16, 1945. He is mourned by his countrymen, his English public who had taken him to their hearts as well, a vast number of his fellow citizens in the United States, and music lovers all over the world. He is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery.


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Birth of Irish Revolutionary Leader Seán Mac Diarmada

sean-mac-diarmada

Seán Mac Diarmada, Irish political activist and revolutionary leader also known as Seán MacDermott, is born in Corranmore, near Kiltyclogher in County Leitrim on February 28, 1883. He is one of the seven leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916 and a signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

Mac Diarmada is educated by the Irish Christian Brothers. He moves to Dublin in 1908, by which time he already has a long involvement in several Irish separatist and cultural organisations, including Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and the Gaelic League. He is soon promoted to the Supreme Council of the IRB and is eventually elected secretary.

In 1910, he becomes manager of the radical newspaper Irish Freedom, which he founds along with Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough. He also becomes a national organiser for the IRB and is taken under the wing of veteran Fenian Tom Clarke and the two become nearly inseparable. Shortly afterward, Mac Diarmada is stricken with polio and is forced to walk with a cane.

In November 1913, Mac Diarmada is one of the original members of the Irish Volunteers and continues to work to bring the organisation under IRB control. Mac Diarmada is arrested in Tuam, County Galway, in May 1915 under the Defense of the Realm Act 1914 for giving a speech against enlisting into the British Army.

Following his release in September 1915, Mac Diarmada joins the secret Military Committee of the IRB, which is responsible for planning the rising.

Due to his disability, Mac Diarmada has little participation in the fighting of Easter week but is stationed at the headquarters in the General Post Office (GPO), as one of the Provisional Republican Government. Following the surrender on April 29, 1916, he nearly escapes execution by blending in with the large body of prisoners but is eventually identified by Daniel Hoey of G Division. Following a May 9 court-martial, Mac Diarmada, at the age of 33, is executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol. Before his execution, Mac Diarmada writes, “I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!”

In September 1919, Hoey is shot dead by Michael Collins‘s Squad. Likewise, the British Officer who ordered Mac Diarmada to be shot rather than imprisoned, is also killed in Cork on Collins’s order during the Irish War of Independence.

Seán MacDermott Street in Dublin, Sligo Mac Diarmada railway station in Sligo, and Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada, the Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, are named in his honour. Sean MacDermott tower in Ballymun, demolished in 2005, is also named after him. In his hometown of Kiltyclogher a statue inscribed with his final written words is erected in the village centre and his childhood home has become a national monument.

Mac Diarmada will be portrayed by actor Colin Morgan in the 2016 Irish historical biopic drama film, The Rising, written by Kevin McCann and Colin Broderick.