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Death of Actress Betty Chancellor

Betty Chancellor, Irish actress, dies in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, at the age of 74 on April 27, 1984.

Chancellor is born at 8 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin, on January 9, 1910. Her parents are John William Chancellor, a Dublin clockmaker, jeweller, and photographer, and Cicely Chancellor (née Granger). They marry in Billericay, Essex, in 1904. She has an elder sister, Joyce Fanny, who also becomes an actress. She attends Nightingale Hall and Alexandra College, going on to train as a secretary.

Chancellor’s first appearance on stage is as a fairy in a benefit performance at the Gaiety Theatre in 1914. She appears again at the Gaiety in 1922 as Gwennie in F. Anstey‘s The Man from Blankley’s, and then studies drama under Frank Fay. In the 1920s, she acts in the Dublin Drama League’s productions in the Abbey Theatre. Once she joins the Gate Theatre her career progresses, establishing her as one of the principal actresses in the Gate by the early 1930s.

Chancellor plays Naomi alongside Orson Welles in a production of Jud Süss in October 1931. Welles becomes infatuated with her and later describes her as “the sexiest thing that ever lived.” In 1931, she debuts in J. B. Fagan‘s production of The New Gossoon by George Shiels as Biddy Henley at the Apollo Theatre. Her most noted roles are as Toots in Youth’s the Season in 1932 by Mary Manning, Laura in a production of Carmilla in 1932, based on the Gothic novella by Sheridan Le Fanu, Ophelia in 1932 and Cicely in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1933. Touring with the Gate company in 1935, she plays Stella in its production of Lord Longford‘s Yahoo performed in the Westminster Theatre, London. She stars with James Mason in the Gate’s production of Pride and Prejudice in 1937. Disappointed with the parts she is getting at the Gate after that and much to the annoyance of Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards, she joins Lord Longford’s first provincial tour in 1937.

In the late 1930s, Chancellor works more often in London. Following her appearance as Baby Furze in the 1938 production of Spring Meeting by Molly Keane and John Perry, she is nominated as “Star of the Future” by the Daily Mail. She acts alongside Alec Guinness and Peggy Ashcroft in 1940 in Clemence Dane‘s Cousin Muriel at the Globe Theatre, directed by John Gielgud.

Chancellor returns to the Gaiety Theatre in 1941 to act with Hilton Edwards in a production of Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw, a production that marks the 75th anniversary of the Gaiety. The press welcomes her return to the company, but her fellow actors are disturbed by the fact she is then living with Denis Johnston, the husband of fellow actress Shelah Richards. After Johnston’s divorce, they marry in March 1945 in Dungannon, County Tyrone. She partly retires from acting to raise their sons, but also due to her increasing deafness that had begun in her teens.

In 1947, Chancellor appears in Johnston’s The Moon in the Yellow River at the Arts Theatre in London with Jack Hawkins. The family moves to the United States in November 1948, where she has the lead role in Shaw’s Candida at Amherst College, Massachusetts in 1950.

In 1969, Chancellor returns to Ireland with her family and settles in Dalkey, County Dublin. She dies in Dún Laoghaire on April 27, 1984, and is buried in the close of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.


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Death of Brendan McGahon, Fine Gael Politician

Brendan McGahon, Irish Fine Gael politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Louth constituency from 1982 to 2002, dies on February 8, 2017, following a brief illness. Often described as “colourful,” with a reputation as a social conservative, he is first elected to Dáil Éireann at the November 1982 Irish general election and retains his seat until retiring at the 2002 Irish general election.

McGahon is born in Dundalk, County Louth, on November 22, 1936, and is educated at St. Mary’s College, Dundalk. His grandfather, T.F. McGahon, is one of the inaugural members of Dundalk Urban District Council when it is created along with other Irish local authorities by the British Government in 1898. T.F. McGahon is a leading member of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). He starts a local newspaper, the Dundalk Democrat, which is supportive of the IPP. He is a critic of the Irish War of Independence campaign, of Sinn Féin, and of the then Irish Republican Army (IRA), arguing that the campaign will result in the partition of Ireland. He is later succeeded on the council by his son, O.B. McGahon, who in turn is followed by his nephew, Hugh McGahon. The family subsequently supports the National League Party and the Independent TD James Coburn and joins Fine Gael when Coburn joins the party. They are also prominent members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

McGahon marries Celine Lundy, a widow from Newry, County Down, and takes over the running of the family newspaper business in the 1960s. He plays soccer for Dundalk F.C. in the League of Ireland Premier Division for a number of years.

McGahon succeeds his cousin Hugh on Dundalk Town Council and on Louth County Council at the 1979 Irish local elections. He is an unsuccessful candidate at the 1981 Irish general election and at the February 1982 Irish general election. He is first elected to Dáil Éireann for Louth at the November 1982 Irish general election, defeating incumbent Fine Gael TD, Bernard Markey. He is re-elected at the next five general elections.

A notable aspect of McGahon’s political career is his stand against the Provisional IRA when that organisation’s campaign of violence is at its height. At great personal risk, he refuses to close his newsagents shop in Dundalk during the funerals of the hunger strikers in 1981. He takes another huge risk a few years later when he gives evidence in the High Court in support of The Sunday Times, which is being sued for libel by Thomas Murphy for accusing him of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain. Local Gardaí are ordered not to get involved in the case, but McGahon is not deterred from giving evidence that helps the newspaper to defend the claims being made against it by Murphy.

A maverick and outspoken TD, McGahon is known to speak his mind on many issues including divorce, crime, and single mothers. He once advocates that pedophiles should be castrated as part of their prison sentence and is the only TD to oppose the referendum to abolish the death penalty from the Constitution. He also argues that those under 21 years of age should not be able to drive or drink. He is a member of the World Anti-Communist League and opposes the decriminalisation of homosexuality. In 1993, he is the only TD to oppose the decriminalisation of homosexuality and says in the Dáil that:

“I regard homosexuals as being in a sad category, but I believe homosexuality to be an abnormality, some type of psycho-sexual problem that has defied explanation over the years. I do not believe that the Irish people desire this normalisation of what is clearly an abnormality. Homosexuality is a departure from normality and while homosexuals deserve our compassion, they do not deserve our tolerance. That is how the man in the street thinks. I know of no homosexual who has been discriminated against. Such people have a persecution complex because they know they are different from the masses or normal society. They endure inner torment, and it is not a question of the way others view them. The lord provided us with sexual organs for a specific purpose. Homosexuals are like left-hand drivers driving on the right-hand side of the road.”

On the other hand, McGahon speaks out strongly against the influence of the drink industry and defies his own party whip to vote with his left-wing friend Tony Gregory in favour of banning of hare coursing. He is also on good personal terms with members of the Oireachtas such as Michael D. Higgins and David Norris despite holding fundamentally opposed views to them.

McGahon does not contest the 2002 Irish general election and retires from politics.

McGahon lives in Ravensdale, County Louth. His son Conor is a Louth County Councillor from 1991 to 1999 and his brother Johnny is a Louth County Councillor from 1995 to 2004. Johnny’s nephew, John McGahon, is elected to Louth County Council at the 2014 Irish local elections and to Seanad Éireann in 2020.

McGahon dies at the age of 80 on February 8, 2017, following a short illness. Following a Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on February 11, he is buried afterwards in St. Patrick’s Cemetery.


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Death of Esther Johnson, Close Friend of Jonathan Swift

Esther Johnson, an Englishwoman known as “Stella” and known to be a close friend of Jonathan Swift, dies on January 28, 1728. Whether or not she and Swift are secretly married, and if so, why the marriage is never made public, is a subject of debate.

Johnson is born in Richmond, Surrey, England, on March 13, 1681, and spends her early years at Moor Park, Farnham, home of Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet. Here, when she is about eight, she meets Swift, who is Temple’s secretary. He takes a friendly interest in her from the beginning and apparently supervises her education.

Johnson’s parentage has been the subject of much speculation. The weight of evidence is that her mother acts as companion to Temple’s widowed sister, Martha, Lady Giffard, and that Johnson, her mother and her sister Anne are regarded as part of the family. Her father is said to have been a merchant who died young. Gossip that she is Temple’s illegitimate daughter seems to rest on nothing more solid than the friendly interest he shows in her. There are similar rumours about his supposed relationship with Swift.

When Swift sees Johnson again in 1696, he considers that she has grown into the “most beautiful, graceful and agreeable young woman in London.” Temple, at his death in 1699, leaves her some property in Ireland, and it is at Swift’s suggestion that she move to Ireland in 1702 to protect her interests, but her long residence there is probably due to a desire to be close to Swift. She generally lives in Swift’s house, though always with female companions like Rebecca Dingley, a cousin of Temple whom she has known since childhood. She becomes extremely popular in Dublin and an intellectual circle grows up around her, although it was said that she finds the company of other women tedious and only enjoys the conversation of men.

In 1704, their mutual friend, the Reverend William Tisdall, tells Swift that he wishes to marry Johnson, much to Swift’s private disgust, although his letter to Tisdall, which outlines his objections to the marriage, is courteous enough, making the practical point that Tisdall is not in a position to support a wife financially. Little is known about this episode, other than Swift’s letter to Tisdall. It is unclear if Tisdall actually proposes to her. If he does, he seems to have been met with a firm rejection, and he marries Eleanor Morgan two years later. He and Swift, after a long estrangement, become friends once more after Johnson’s death.

Johnson’s friendship with Swift becomes fraught after 1707 when he meets Esther Vanhomrigh, daughter of the Dutch-born Lord Mayor of Dublin, Bartholomew Van Homrigh. Swift becomes deeply attached to her and invents for her the name “Vanessa.” She in turn becomes infatuated with him and after his return to Ireland follows him there. The uneasy relationship between the three of them continues until 1723 when Vanessa, who is by now seriously ill from tuberculosis, apparently asks Swift not to see Johnson again. This leads to a violent quarrel between them, and Vanessa, before her death in June 1723, destroys the will she had made in Swift’s favour, leaving her property to two men, George Berkeley and Robert Marshall, who though eminent in their respective callings are almost strangers to her.

Whether Swift and Johnson are married has always been a subject of intense debate. The marriage ceremony is allegedly performed in 1716 by St. George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, with no witnesses present, and it is said that the parties agree to keep it secret and live apart. Johnson always describes herself as a “spinster” and Swift always refers to himself as unmarried. Rebecca Dingley, who lives with Johnson throughout her years in Ireland, says that Johnson and Swift were never alone together. Those who know the couple best are divided on whether a marriage ever took place. Some, like Mrs. Dingley and Swift’s housekeeper Mrs. Brent laugh at the idea as “absurd.” On the other hand, Thomas Sheridan, one of Swift’s oldest friends, believes that the story of the marriage is true. He reportedly gives Johnson herself as his source. Historians have been unable to reach a definite conclusion on the truth of the matter. Bishop Ashe dies before the story first becomes public, and there are no other witnesses to the supposed marriage.

A collection of Johnson’s witticisms is published by Swift under the titles of “Bon Mots de Stella” as an appendix to some editions of Gulliver’s Travels. A Journal to Stella, a collection of 65 letters from Swift to Johnson, is published posthumously.

In 1722, Martha, Lady Giffard, dies and leaves money to Johnson and Swift’s sister, Mrs. Fenton, who had been her companion in 1711.

Johnson’s health begins to fail in her mid-forties. In 1726, she is thought to be dying and Swift rushes back from London to be with her but finds her better. The following year it becomes clear that she is gravely ill. After sinking slowly for months, she dies on January 28, 1728, and is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. Swift is inconsolable at her death and writes The Death of Mrs. Johnson in tribute to her. When Swift dies in October 1745, he is buried beside her at his own request. A ward in St. Patrick’s University Hospital is named “Stella” in her memory.

In the 1994 film Words Upon the Window Pane, based on the play by William Butler Yeats, Johnson is played by Bríd Brennan. The plot turns on a séance in Dublin in the 1920s, where the ghosts of Swift, Johnson and Vanessa appear to resume their ancient quarrel.

In the 1982 Soviet film The House That Swift Built, Johnson is played by Aleksandra Zakharova.


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Death of Musicologist Francis Llewellyn Harrison

Francis Llewellyn Harrison, better known as “Frank Harrison” or “Frank Ll. Harrison” and one of the leading musicologists of his time and a pioneering ethnomusicologist, dies in Canterbury, England, on December 29, 1987.

Initially trained as an organist and composer, he turns to musicology in the early 1950s, first specialising in English and Irish music of the Middle Ages and increasingly turning to ethnomusicological subjects in the course of his career. His Music in Medieval Britain (1958) is still a standard work on the subject, and Time, Place and Music (1973) is a key textbook on ethnomusicology.

Harrison is born in Dublin on September 29, 1905, the second son of Alfred Francis Harrison and Florence May (née Nash). He becomes a chorister at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin in 1912 and is educated at the cathedral grammar school and Mountjoy School. A competent organist, he is deputy organist at St. Patrick’s from 1925 to 1928. In 1920, he also begins musical studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he studies with John Francis Larchet (composition), George Hewson (organ) and Michele Esposito (piano). In 1926, he graduates Bachelor of Music at Trinity College Dublin and is awarded a doctorate (MusD) in 1929 for a musical setting of Psalm 19. He then works in Kilkenny for one year, serving as organist at St. Canice’s Cathedral and music teacher at Kilkenny College.

In 1930, Harrison emigrates to Canada to become organist at Westminster Presbyterian Church in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. In 1933, he studies briefly with Marcel Dupré in France, but returns to Canada in 1934 to become organist at Knox Presbyterian Church in Ottawa. In 1935, he takes a position as organist and choirmaster at St. George’s Cathedral in Kingston, Ontario, as well as taking up the newly created post of “resident musician” at Queen’s University at Kingston. His duties include giving lectures, running a choir and an orchestra, and conducting concerts himself. His course in the history and appreciation of music is the first music course to be given for full credit at Queen’s. He resigns from St. George’s in 1941 to become assistant professor of music at Queen’s in 1942. During his years in Canada he still pursues the idea of remaining a performing musician and composer, winning three national composition competitions: for Winter’s Poem (1931), Baroque Suite (1943) and Night Hymns on Lake Nipigon (1945).

On a year’s leave of absence from Queen’s, Harrison studies composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale University, also taking courses in musicology with Leo Schrade. In 1946, he takes up a position at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and then moves on to Washington University in St. Louis as head of the new Department of Music (1947–1950).

In 1951, Harrison takes the degrees of Master of Arts (M.A.) and Doctor of Music (DMus) at Jesus College, Oxford, and becomes lecturer (1952), senior lecturer (1956), and reader in the history of music (1962–1970) there. In 1965, he is elected Fellow the British Academy and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford. From 1970 to 1980, he is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, retiring to part-time teaching in 1976.

Harrison also holds Visiting Professorships in musicology at Yale University (1958–1959), Princeton University (spring 1961 and 1968–1969), and Dartmouth College (winter 1968 and spring 1972). He also briefly returns to Queen’s University at Kingston as Queen’s Quest Visiting Professor in the fall of 1980 and is Visiting Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh for the calendar year 1981.

Harrison’s honorary titles also include Doctor of Laws at Queen’s University, Kingston (1974), Corresponding Member of the American Musicological Society (1981), and Vice President and Chairman of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society (1985). At Queen’s also, the new Harrison-LeCaine Hall (1974) is partly named in his honour.

Harrison dies in Canterbury, England on December 29, 1987.

In 1989, Harry White appreciates Harrison as “an Irish musicologist of international standing and of seminal influence, whose scholarly achievement, astonishingly, encompassed virtually the complete scope of the discipline which he espoused.” David F. L. Chadd writes of him “He was above all things an explorer, tirelessly curious and boyishly delighted in the pursuit of knowledge, experience and ideas, and totally heedless of artificially imposed constraints and boundaries.”

Since 2004, the Society for Musicology in Ireland (SMI) awards a bi-annual Irish Research Council Harrison Medal in his honour to distinguished international musicologists.


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Death of Irish Writer Denis Johnston

Irish writer (William) Denis Johnston dies on August 8, 1984, at Ballybrack, County Dublin. He writes mostly plays, but also works of literary criticism, a book-length biographical essay of Jonathan Swift, a memoir and an eccentric work on cosmology and philosophy. He also works as a war correspondent and as both a radio and television producer for the BBC.

Johnston is born in Dublin on June 18, 1901, the only child of William John Johnston from Magherafelt, a barrister and later an Irish Supreme Court judge, and his wife Kathleen (née King), a teacher and singer from Belfast. They are Presbyterians and liberal home rulers. He sees the family home in Dublin occupied by rebels during the 1916 Easter Rising.

Johnston is educated at St. Andrew’s College, Dublin (1908–15, 1917–19), and Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh (1915–16). In 1918, he attempts to join Sinn Féin, offering to supply the party with weapons taken from his Officers’ Training Corps. In 1922, while reading history and law at Christ’s College, Cambridge (1919–23) he tries to enlist in the civil war Free State army. He goes on to study at the Harvard Law School (1923–24) and enters King’s Inns in Dublin and the Inner Temple in London.

In London, developing his interest in the theatre, Johnston abandons plans for a legal and political career.

Johnston is a protégé of W. B. Yeats and George Bernard Shaw, and has a stormy friendship with Seán O’Casey. He is a pioneer of television and war reporting. He works as a lawyer in the 1920s and 1930s before joining the BBC as a writer and producer, first in radio and then in the fledgling television service. His broadcast dramatic work includes both original plays and adaptation of the work of many different writers.

Johnston’s first play, The Old Lady Says “No!”, helps establish the worldwide reputation of Dublin’s Gate Theatre. His second play, The Moon in the Yellow River, has been performed around the globe in numerous productions featuring such storied names as James Mason, Jack Hawkins, Claude Rains, Barry Fitzgerald, James Coco and Errol Flynn. Later plays deal with the life of Jonathan Swift, the 1916 Rebellion, the pursuit of justice, and the fear of death. He writes two opera libretti and a pageant.

“Passionate in his radical skepticism and loathing of what he saw as the pernicious influence of the Roman Catholic Church,” at the end of 1933, Johnston joins the trade unionist John Swift, the Dublin novelist Mary Manning, and fellow northerner, the libertarian socialist Jack White, in forming The Secular Society of Ireland. “Convinced that clerical domination in the community is harmful to advance,” the society seeks “to establish in this country complete freedom of thought, speech and publication, liberty for mind, in the widest toleration compatible with orderly progress and rational conduct.” Among other things it aims to terminate the clerically-dictated ban on divorce, the Censorship of Publications Act and the system of clerical management, and consequent sectarian teaching, in schools.

This is at a time of heightened clerical militancy and as soon the meeting place of the Society (from which it distributed the British journal The Freethinker) is exposed, it has to shift to private houses outside of Dublin. In 1936, Johnston and the other members disband the society and donate the proceeds to the government of the beleaguered Spanish Republic. He has become a recognised man of the left. In 1930 he joins the Irish Friends of Soviet Russia, and though never a party member, until as late as the 1950s he professes faith in a communist future.

During World War II he serves as a BBC war correspondent, reporting from El Alamein, through the Italian campaign, to Buchenwald and Adolf Hitler‘s Berghof. For this he is awarded an OBE, a mention in dispatches, and the Yugoslav Partisans Medal. He then becomes Director of Programmes for the television service.

Johnston later moves to the United States and teaches at Mount Holyoke College, Smith College and other universities. He keeps extensive diaries throughout his life, now deposited in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and these together with his many articles and essays give a distinctive picture of his times and the people he knew. Another archive of his work is held at the library of Ulster University at Coleraine. He receives honorary degrees from Ulster University and Mount Holyoke College and is a member of Aosdána.

Johnston and actress Shelah Richards are the parents of Jennifer Johnston, a respected novelist and playwright, and a son, Micheal. His second wife is the actress Betty Chancellor, with whom he has two sons, Jeremy and Rory.

Johnston dies on August 8, 1984, at Ballybrack, County Dublin, and is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral close. His epitaph is a quotation from The Old Lady Says “No!” – Emmet’s lines praising Dublin “the strumpet city.”

Johnston’s war memoir, Nine Rivers from Jordan, reaches The New York Times‘ Best Seller list and is cited in the World Book Encyclopedia‘s 1950s article on World War II under “Books to Read,” along with Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, et al. Joseph Ronsley cites an unnamed former CBS Vietnam War correspondent who called the book the “Bible,” carrying it with him constantly, “reading it over and over in the field during his tour of duty.” In a profile in The New Yorker in 1938, Clifford Odets is quoted as saying that the only playwrights he admires are John Howard Lawson, Sean O’Casey, and Denis Johnston.

The Denis Johnston Playwriting Prize is awarded annually by Smith College Department of Theatre for the best play, screenplay or musical written by an undergraduate at Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The prize is endowed by his former student at Smith, Carol Sobieski.


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Murder of Nicholas Walsh, Church of Ireland Bishop of Ossory

Nicholas Walsh, (Irish: Nicolás Bhailis), Church of Ireland Bishop of Ossory and a pioneer of printing in Irish type, is murdered on December 14, 1585, by James Dullerde, against whom he had proceeded in his court for adultery.

Walsh is born in Waterford, County Waterford, in or before 1538. He is the son of Patrick Walsh, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore (d. 1578). The identity of his mother is unknown. She was Patrick’s concubine for many years and they apparently married only after 1558, meaning their son was born outside marriage. About 1551 Walsh leaves Ireland to study at the universities of Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, eventually graduating BA at Cambridge in 1562 or 1563. He receives the MA from Cambridge in 1567. He is appointed chancellor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1571.

As a fluent Irish speaker, Walsh is deeply committed to the propagation of the Protestant faith through the medium of the Irish language. In 1571 he helps to secure the publication in Dublin of a catechism written in Irish by John Kearney (Irish: Seán Ó Cearnaigh), whom he has known since his time at Cambridge. He then procures a government order for printing the Book of Common Prayer in Irish, and for the liturgy and a sermon to be communicated in Irish in a church in each large town. In practice this order has no effect. From about 1573 he and Kearney begin work on an Irish translation of the New Testament. This project is finally completed and published in 1602 or 1603. He also writes a collection of sermons in Latin.

In 1572 Walsh is offered the bishopric of Kilmacduagh in Connacht but declines as this diocese lay in a dangerous part of the country. In February 1578 he becomes Bishop of Ossory, upon which he resigns his chancellorship at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and presumably sets aside his translation of the New Testament. Through his family he has links with the area of his diocese, and he is assured of the protection of the dominant magnate, Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond. However, Catholicism is very strong in Ossory, particularly in the diocesan capital of Kilkenny. His arrival at Kilkenny is ignored by the citizens, and he finds himself presiding over an empty St. Canice’s Cathedral during Sunday services. In November 1578 he writes for support to the Lord Justice of Ireland, Sir William Drury, who empowers Walsh to fine recusants. That month Drury comes to Kilkenny and heavily fines a number of prominent citizens of Kilkenny for recusancy. However, these punitive efforts have little long-term impact and only increased Walsh’s unpopularity.

Walsh is further hampered by a lack of revenues from his diocese, which leads him in April 1581 to seek additional benefices that he can hold in commendam. in July 1582 he seeks a licence to solicit charitable donations in England. He also initiates legal proceedings to recover church property. At a time when the Church of Ireland episcopate is characterised by venality, cynicism, and crypto-Catholicism, he stands head and shoulders above his colleagues owing to his dedication, ability, and evangelising zeal. At the installation of the Bishop of Meath in 1584 he criticises his fellow bishops for neglecting their spiritual duties for political concerns. He is married to an Englishwoman and has four children.

Walsh’s life comes to a violent end on December 14, 1585, when he is stabbed to death in his own house at Kilkenny by James Dullerde, whom he had cited for adultery in his consistory court. He is buried in a tomb in St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny. Dullerde is caught and beheaded by Domhnall Spanaigh Kavanagh MacMurrough and his brother Cahir Carroughe.

(From: “Walsh, Nicholas (Nicolás Bhailis)” by Anthony M. McCormack and Terry Clavin, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Coat of arms of the Bishop of Ossory)


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Birth of Jonathan Swift, Essayist, Pamphleteer, Poet & Cleric

Jonathan Swift, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who becomes Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, is born in Dublin on November 30, 1667.

Swift’s father, an attorney, also named Jonathan Swift, dies just two months before he is born. Without steady income, his mother struggles to provide for her newborn. Moreover, he is a sickly child. It is later discovered that he suffers from Ménière’s disease, a condition of the inner ear that leaves the afflicted nauseous and hard of hearing. In an effort to give her son the best upbringing possible, Swift’s mother gives him over to Godwin Swift, her late husband’s brother and a member of the respected professional attorney and judges group Gray’s Inn. Godwin Swift enrolls his nephew with one of his cousins in Kilkenny College, which is perhaps the best school in Ireland at the time. He arrives there at the age of six, where he is expected to have already learned the basic declensions in Latin. He has not, and thus begins his schooling in a lower form. He graduates in 1682, when he is 15. His transition from a life of poverty to a rigorous private school setting proves challenging. He does, however, make a fast friend in William Congreve, the future poet and playwright.

In 1682, Swift commences his undergraduate studies at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1686, he receives a Bachelor of Arts degree and goes on to pursue a master’s degree. Not long into his research, huge unrest breaks out in Ireland. The king of Ireland, England and Scotland is soon to be overthrown. What becomes known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688 spurs him to move to England and start anew. For 10 years, Swift works in Surrey‘s Moor Park and acts as an assistant to Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet.

During his Moor Park years, Swift meets the daughter of Temple’s housekeeper, an 8-year-old named Esther Johnson, known as “Stella.” They become lovers for the rest of their lives until Johnson’s death in 1728. It is rumored that they marry in 1716 and that Swift keeps of lock of Johnson’s hair in his possession at all times.

During his decade of work for Temple, Swift returns to Ireland twice. On a trip in 1695, he takes all necessary requirements to become an ordained priest in the Anglican tradition. Under Temple’s influence, he also begins to write, first short essays and then a manuscript for a later book. Temple dies in 1699. Swift completes the task of editing and publishing Temple’s memoirs. He then leans on his priestly qualifications and finds work ministering to a pea-sized congregation just 20 miles outside of Dublin. For the next ten years, he gardens, preaches and works on the house provided to him by the church. He also returns to writing. His first political pamphlet is titled A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome.

In 1704, Swift anonymously releases A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books. Tub, although widely popular with the masses, is harshly disapproved of by the Church of England. Ostensibly, it criticizes religion, but Swift means it as a parody of pride. Nonetheless, his writings earn him a reputation in London and when the Tories come into power in 1710, they ask him to become editor of The Examiner, their official paper. After a time, he becomes fully immersed in the political landscape and begins writing some of the most cutting and well-known political pamphlets of the day, including The Conduct of the Allies, an attack on the Whigs. Privy to the inner circle of Tory government, he lays out his private thoughts and feelings in a stream of letters to his beloved Stella. They are later published as The Journal to Stella.

When he sees that the Tories will soon fall from power, Swift returns to Ireland. In 1713, he takes the post of Dean at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. While leading his congregation at St. Patrick’s, he begins to write what would become his best-known work. In 1726, at last finished with the manuscript, he travels to London and benefits from the help of several friends, who anonymously publish it as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, more simply known as Gulliver’s Travels. The book is an immediate success and has not been out of print since its first run.

Not long after the celebration of this work, Esther Johnson, falls ill. She dies in January 1728. Her death moves Swift to write The Death of Mrs. Johnson.

In 1742, Swift suffers a stroke and loses the ability to speak. He dies on October 19, 1745. He is laid to rest next to Esther Johnson inside Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.


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Death of William Rokeby, Statesman, Cleric & Archbishop of Dublin

William Rokeby, a leading statesman and cleric in early sixteenth-century Ireland, dies at Kirk Sandall, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, on November 29, 1521. He holds the offices of Bishop of Meath, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He is commemorated in the Rokeby Chapels in two Yorkshire churches, St. Oswald’s Church, Kirk Sandall, and Halifax Minster.

Rokeby is born at Kirk Sandall, eldest of the five sons of John Rokeby (died 1506). His younger brother, Sir Richard Rokeby (died 1523), is Comptroller of the Household to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and later Treasurer of Ireland. He retains a deep affection for Kirk Sandall and returns there to die. He goes to school at Rotherham, studies at the University of Oxford and becomes a fellow of King’s Hall, later Trinity College, Cambridge. He becomes vicar of his home parish in 1487 and is transferred to Halifax, another town for which he has a deep attachment, in about 1499. In 1507 he is made Bishop of Meath.

On the death of Walter Fitzsimon in 1511, Rokeby becomes Archbishop of Dublin. It has been suggested that his elevation is due at least in part to his English birth, as the Crown is anxious to place Englishmen high up in the Irish hierarchy. No doubt his brother’s close connection to Wolsey also plays a part. He is Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1512 to 1513 and from 1516 to 1522.

Writer Roderick J. O’Flanagan believes that Rokeby is a good and diligent Lord Chancellor, although he does not leave behind many written judgments. He is clearly a trusted servant of the Crown; in particular, Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Deputy, Surrey, with the approval of Henry VIII, choose Rokeby in 1520 as mediator in the feud between Maurice FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Desmond, and Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond, which has become exceptionally bitter.

As Archbishop Rokeby makes a reputation as a peacemaker, settling a long and bitter dispute between the Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. He gives permission to Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, for the original foundation of Maynooth College, which is suppressed in 1535. He is frequently at the English Court, so often indeed that he is accused of neglecting his official duties back in Ireland. He participates in the christening of the future Queen Mary I in 1516 and the ceremony by which Wolsey receives his cardinal’s hat.

As Archbishop of Dublin, Rokeby is best remembered for the Synod of 1518. The Synod prohibits the use of any tin chalice at Mass, and the disposal of Church property by laymen; and attempts to regulate the procedure for dealing with intestate estates, the payment of tithes and burial fees and the rules for admission to the clergy. Rather comically, he strictly forbids clergymen to play football.

Rokeby is appointed Archdeacon of Surrey on March 27, 1519. By 1521 his health is failing, and he retires to Kirk Sandall, where he dies on November 29. In his will he leaves £200 to rebuild St. Mary’s Church, Beverley, whose tower had collapsed the previous year.

Rokeby makes elaborate provisions in his will for the disposal of his remains. In accordance with his wishes, his body is buried in St. Oswald’s Church, Kirk Sandall, but his heart and bowels are buried in the Church of St. John the Baptist, Halifax (now known as Halifax Minster). Mortuary chapels are erected at both spots, which still exist today.

O’Flanagan praises Rokeby as a good man, a good bishop and, so far as we can tell from the scanty records, a good judge. Irish author F. Elrington Ball, while acknowledging his good qualities, suggests that he was a failure as Irish Lord Chancellor, due partly to his frequent absences in England.

(Pictured: Halifax Minster, where Rokeby’s heart is buried)


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St. Patrick’s Hospital for the Insane Opens in Dublin

Having been funded by a bequest from author Jonathan Swift following his death in 1745, St. Patrick’s Hospital for the Insane, Dublin, opens on September 19, 1757. The hospital is a psychiatric facility located near Kilmainham and the Phoenix Park.

Today, St. Patrick’s University Hospital, known for the innovative care of its patients, provides “Ireland’s largest, independent, not-for-profit mental health services.” When founded in 1745 it is the first psychiatric hospital to be built in Ireland mandated for the care of “Idiots and Lunaticks.”

Although new theories of madness and more therapeutic approaches to treatment are being proposed in the late 1700’s, during most of the eighteenth century society views the lunatic as one who has literally lost his reason, “the essence of his humanity,” and therefore “his claim to be treated as a human being.” Treatments, designed “to weaken the animal spirits that were believed to be producing madness,” still include restraints with chains, bloodletting, emetics, purging, and beating.

Confinement rather than cure is the focus of the earliest institutions in Great Britain. They resemble prisons with cells and keepers to control the inmates. Bethlem Hospital in London is the first to include lunatics in 1377. By the eighteenth century it has become infamous as “Bedlam” and has a reputation for cruelty, neglect, and poor living conditions, with an inadequate diet, rough clothing, and inactivity. Even worse, the mad in Bedlam are displayed as entertainment — a “freak show,” a “spectacle,” a “menagerie” from which “both provincial bumpkins and urban sophisticates could derive almost endless amusement” for a fee.

The earliest biographers of Jonathan Swift report that he had chosen to found St. Patrick’s Hospital because he had become insane himself at the end of his life. One writer even claims that he is the first patient to die there. Neither of these conclusions is accurate. It is his philosophical views and personal experiences that influence Swift’s decision to leave his estate for the establishment of St. Patrick’s.

Throughout the eighteenth century, medicine, politics, and literature all debate the relation between reason and madness, a subject that greatly interests Swift. In his most powerful satires, including Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and A Modest Proposal (1729), he sometimes explores the Lockean theory that “any person could fall into madness by the erroneous association of ideas.”

But the stronger motivation for Swift’s legacy grows from his involvement with the day-to-day problems of the Irish people, not only as an individual but also as Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a position he holds from 1713 until his death. At mid-century there are no provisions specifically for lunatics. If not being cared for by their families or found wandering the countryside, lunatics would sometimes be confined with criminals in prisons, with the poor in a workhouse, or with the sick in a hospital. Swift has firsthand knowledge of these conditions since he served as a governor of the workhouse and as a trustee of several hospitals. In 1710, after a visit to Bedlam, he gets himself elected a governor there in 1714. By 1731 he has decided on his legacy, intending his hospital to be charitable and more humane than Bedlam.

Another strong motivation may have been Swift’s ability to empathize with the sufferers of madness. Not mental illness but recurring attacks of Ménière’s disease (MD) afflict him for over fifty years, beginning at age twenty-three. The debilitating bouts of vertigo, nausea, tinnitus, and deafness worsen by the late 1730’s, and he complains of memory loss and difficulty in reading and writing. When he finalizes his will in 1740, he refers to himself as sound in mind but weak in body. In 1742, following a sudden decline in his health, his friends have him judged incompetent and appoint a guardian. Probable dementia increases his helplessness until his death on October 19, 1745.

Swift leaves an estate of about 12,000 pounds. In his will he lists details as to where St. Patrick’s should be built and how it should be run by his board of governors. Although they first meet in 1746, the asylum does not open until 1757. The governors need to acquire the site, oversee the plan and construction of the building, and ensure available money for operating expenses. Insufficient funds are the main obstacle, even after adding money from rents, donations, subscriptions and Parliament. Finally, St. Patrick’s has to accept paying patients to offset the costs of its charity cases.

Richard Leeper, who is appointed Resident Medical Superintendent in 1899, introduces a series of important initiatives including providing work and leisure activities for the patients. Norman Moore, who is appointed Resident Medical Superintendent in 1946, introduces occupational therapy, including crafts and farm work to the patients.

After the introduction of deinstitutionalisation in the late 1980s the hospital goes into a period of decline. In 2008 the hospital announces the expansion of its outpatient services to a series of regional centres across Ireland. A mental health facility for teenagers, known as the Willow Grove Adolescent Inpatient Unit, opens at the hospital in October 2010.

The hospital is affiliated with Trinity College Dublin, and has 241 inpatient beds.


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Birth of John Philpot Curran, Orator, Politician, Lawyer & Judge

John Philpot Curran, Irish orator, politician, wit, lawyer and judge, who holds the office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland, is born in Newmarket, County Cork, on July 24, 1750.

Curran is the eldest of five children of James Curran, seneschal of the Newmarket manor court, and Sarah, née Philpot. The Curran family are said to have originally been named Curwen, their ancestor having come from Cumberland as a soldier under Oliver Cromwell during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, originally settling in County Londonderry.

Curran is educated at Midleton College, County Cork, before studing law at Trinity College Dublin. He continues his legal studies at King’s Inns and the Middle Temple. He is called to the Irish Bar in 1775. Upon his first trial, his nerves get the better of him and he cannot proceed. His short stature, boyish features, shrill voice and a stutter are said to have impacted his career, and earn him the nickname “Stuttering Jack Curran.”

However, Curran can speak passionately in court on subjects close to his heart. He eventually overcomes his nerves and gets rid of his speech impediment by constantly reciting Shakespeare and Bolingbroke in front of a mirror, becoming a noted orator and wit. His championing of popular Irish causes such as Catholic emancipation make him one of the most popular lawyers in Ireland. He is also fluent in the Irish language which is still the language of the majority at the time. He writes a large amount of humorous and romantic poetry.

The case which cements Curran’s popularity is that of Father Neale and St. Leger St. Leger, 1st Viscount Doneraile at the County Cork Assizes in 1780. Having a passion for lost causes, he represents the priest and wins over the jury by setting aside the issue of religion.

A liberal Protestant whose politics are similar to Henry Grattan, Curran employs all his eloquence to oppose the illiberal policy of the Government, and also the Union with Britain. He stands as Member of Parliament (MP) for Kilbeggan in 1783. He subsequently represents Rathcormack (1790-98) and Banagher from 1800 until the Act of Union in 1801, which bitterly disappoints him, forcing him to contemplate emigrating to the United States.

In 1798, Ireland rebels against the British House of Commons and lack of reforms on Catholic emancipation. The British defeat the Irish rebels in numerous battles and soon establish their control over the country by 1799. Many of the Irish ring leaders are charged with treason and are facing death sentences. Curran plays an important role in court defending the leaders of the United Irishmen.

Curran’s youngest daughter Sarah‘s romance with United Irishmen leader Robert Emmet scandalises Curran, who had tried to split them up. He is arrested and agrees to pass their correspondence on to Standish O’Grady, 1st Viscount Guillamore, the Attorney-General for Ireland. In the circumstances he cannot defend Emmet. He is suspected of involvement in Emmet’s Rebellion, but is completely exonerated. However, his friend Arthur Wolfe, 1st Viscount Kilwarden, is killed by the rebels, and he loses any faith in the beliefs of the United Irishmen. Emmet is found guilty of rebelling against the Crown and the union between Great Britain and Ireland and is hanged in 1803. Curran disowns Sarah, who dies of tuberculosis five years later.

Curran is appointed Master of the Rolls in Ireland in 1806, following William Pitt the Younger‘s replacement by a more liberal cabinet.

Curran retires in 1814 and spends his last three years in London. He dies in his home in Brompton on October 14, 1817. In 1837, his remains are transferred from Paddington Cemetery, London to Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, where they are laid in an 8-foot-high classical-style sarcophagus. In 1845 a white marble memorial to him, with a carved bust by Christopher Moore, is placed near the west door of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.