seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Taoiseach


by Leave a comment

Ahern & Blair Conduct Talks at Hillsborough Castle

ahern-blair-hillsboroughTaoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair conduct talks at Hillsborough Castle on March 3, 2003, in the latest bid to salvage the floundering Good Friday Agreement. The negotiations last eight hours.

This meeting is very important, as it is Tony Blair’s last chance at intensive negotiation before his attention is totally caught up in the Iraq War. Progress cannot afford to slip further as the Stormont Assembly election has to be formally declared by March 21 if it is to take place as scheduled on May 1.

David Trimble, representing the unionists, has said the Irish Republican Army (IRA) must “go out of business” before his party will re-enter a coalition government with Sinn Fein. In late 2002, he uses the word “disbandment” but he is now careful to avoid being overly prescriptive.

He wants visible, verifiable decommissioning to restore unionist confidence, severely damaged by the IRA spy ring allegations which led to the collapse of devolution in October 2002. Trimble is also urging sanctions to punish republican politicians if the Provisionals renege.

The key demands of the republicans are demilitarisation, guarantees that unionists cannot pull down the Stormont Assembly again, devolution of policing and criminal justice, further police reforms, and a dispensation for 30-40 fugitive IRA members to go back to Northern Ireland without prosecution.

Republicans insist discussions must not revolve around getting rid of the IRA. They prefer to interpret the prime minister’s talk of “acts of completion” as an admission of failure to implement his obligations under the Good Friday Agreement, shortcomings they outlined in a 57-page dossier handed in to Downing Street.

Tony Blair claims he does not want to get involved in a bartering game – but in fact the government is prepared make major moves in return for IRA concessions. The prime minister is offering a radical three-year plan to withdraw 5,000 of the 13,000 soldiers in Northern Ireland and tear down a large number of border watchtowers and military bases.

Sinn Fein wants written guarantees on troop withdrawal and police reform, criminal justice and on-the-run terrorists. But important details need ironing out.

Policing and the return of fugitive paramilitaries are extremely sensitive issues for both republicans and unionists. A balance must be struck so that on-the-runs, mostly republican, are freed on licence after some sort of judicial process but not given amnesty, unacceptable to unionists.

Government sources claim Sinn Fein is poised to join the policing board, endorsing the police service for the first time, but this too will require delicate handling to ensure unionists don’t walk away.

One British government source states, “Everybody knows what has to be done, the question is if the will is there to achieve it. One of the problems is no one is absolutely clear what the IRA is prepared to do.”


by Leave a comment

The Sunningdale Agreement

council-of-ireland

The Sunningdale Agreement, an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland, is signed at Sunningdale Park in Sunningdale, Berkshire, England on December 9, 1973. Unionist opposition, violence, and a loyalist general strike causes the collapse of the Agreement in May 1974.

On March 20, 1973, the British government publishes a white paper which proposes a 78-member Northern Ireland Assembly, to be elected by proportional representation. The British government would retain control over law, order and finance, while a Council of Ireland composed of members of the executive of the Republic of Ireland, the Dáil Éireann, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly would act in a consultative role.

The Northern Ireland Assembly Bill resulting from the White paper becomes law on May 3, 1973, and elections for the new assembly are held on June 28. Republicans boycott the elections and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) continued its campaign of opposition throughout the outcome.

After the Assembly elections, negotiations between the pro-White Paper parties on the formation of a “power-sharing Executive” begin. The main concerns are internment, policing, and the question of a Council of Ireland. On November 21, an agreement is reached on a voluntary coalition of pro-agreement parties. This new power-sharing Executive take up office and have its very first meeting on January 1, 1974. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is deeply divided – its Standing Committee votes to participate in the executive by a margin of only 132 to 105.

Provisions for a Council of Ireland exist in the Government of Ireland Act 1920, but these have never been enacted. Unionists resent the idea of any “interference” by the Republic of Ireland in their newly established region. In 1973, after agreement has been reached on the formation of an executive, agreement is sought to re-establish a Council of Ireland to stimulate co-operation with the Republic of Ireland. Talks are held between December 6-9 in the Berkshire town of Sunningdale between the British Prime Minister Edward Heath, the Irish Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave and the three pro-agreement parties. On December 9, a communiqué announcing the agreement is issued, which later becomes known as the “Sunningdale Agreement.”

On December 10, the day after the agreement is announced, loyalist paramilitaries form the Ulster Army Council, a coalition of loyalist paramilitary groups, including the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, which oppose the agreement.

In January 1974, the Ulster Unionist Party narrowly votes against continued participation in the Assembly and Brian Faulkner resigns as leader. He is succeeded by the anti-Sunningdale Harry West. In March 1974, pro-agreement unionists withdraw their support for the agreement, calling for the Republic of Ireland to remove the Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution first. These Articles are not revised until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Following the defeat of a motion condemning power-sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Ulster Workers’ Council, a loyalist organisation, calls a general strike for May 15. After two weeks of barricades, shortages, rioting, and intimidation, Faulkner resigns as chief executive and the Sunningdale Agreement collapses on May 28, 1974.

(Pictured: Unionist Party leader and designated leader of Ulster’s new executive, Brian Faulkner, sits with SDLP leader Gerry Fitt and John Hume, during talks at Sunningdale, Berkshire, to establish a Council of Ireland.)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Sir Hugh Percy Lane, Gallery Director & Collector

hugh-percy-lane

Sir Hugh Percy Lane, art dealer, collector, and gallery director, is born in County Cork on November 9, 1875. He is best known for establishing Dublin‘s Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, the first known public gallery of modern art in the world, and for his contribution to the visual arts in Ireland, including the Lane Bequest.

Lane is brought up in Cornwall, England, and begins his career as an apprentice painting restorer and later becomes a successful art dealer in London.

Through regular visits to the home of his aunt, Lady Gregory, in Coole Park, near Gort in County Galway, Lane remains in contact with Ireland. He soon counts among his family, friends, and social circle those who collectively form the core of the Irish cultural renaissance in the early decades of the 20th century.

Extolling the cause of Irish art abroad, Lane also becomes one of the foremost collectors and dealers of Impressionist paintings in Europe, and amongst those works purchased by him for the new gallery are La Musique aux Tuileries by Édouard Manet, Sur la Plage by Edgar Degas, Les Parapluies by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and La Cheminée by Jean-Édouard Vuillard.

The Municipal Gallery of Modern Art opens in January 1908 in temporary premises in Harcourt Street, Dublin. Lane hopes that Dublin Corporation will run it, but the corporation is unsure if it will be financially viable. Lane does not live to see his gallery permanently located as he dies on May 7, 1915, during the sinking of the RMS Lusitania off the west coast of Cork. The gallery, extended in 2005, is now in Parnell Square in central Dublin.

For his “services to art” in Ireland, Lane is knighted in June 1909 at the comparatively young age of 33.

Following his death, Lane’s will bequeaths his collection to London, but an unwitnessed later codicil bequeaths it to Dublin. Having possession, London’s National Gallery does not recognise the codicil. At the request of Lane’s aunt, Lady Gregory, W.T. Cosgrave, leader of the Irish Government unsuccessfully approaches Ramsay MacDonald on the matter in 1929. When John A. Costello becomes Taoiseach in 1948, he initiates further negotiations with the government of the United Kingdom, eventually leading to a compromise in 1959, under Taoiseach Seán Lemass, whereby half of the Lane Bequest will be loaned and shown in Dublin every five years. In 1993 the agreement is varied so that 31 of the 39 paintings would stay in Ireland. The remaining 8 are divided into two groups, so that four would be loaned for six years at a time to Dublin. In 2008, The National Gallery in London arranges for the entire collection to be on display in Dublin together for the first time.


by Leave a comment

Mary Robinson Elected First Woman President of the Republic

mary-robinson-1

Mary Robinson becomes the first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland on November 7, 1990. She becomes the first Labour Party candidate, the first woman, and the first non-Fianna Fáil candidate in the history of contested presidential elections to win the presidency.

Brian Lenihan, the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence is chosen by Fianna Fáil as their candidate, though he faces a late challenge for the party nomination from another senior minister, John P. Wilson, TD. Lenihan is popular and widely seen as humorous and intelligent. He has delivered liberal policy reform (relaxed censorship in the 1960s) and is seen as a near certainty to win the presidency.

Fine Gael, after trying and failing to get former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and former Tánaiste Peter Barry to run, ultimately nominate the former civil rights campaigner and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) member Austin Currie. Currie is elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1989 general election and has been a minister in Brian Faulkner‘s power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland from 1973–1974. However, Currie has little experience in the politics of the Republic and is widely seen as the party’s last choice, nominated only when no one else is available.

The Labour Party lets it be known that it would for the first time run a candidate. Along with the Workers’ Party, Labour nominates the independent candidate Mary Robinson, SC, a former Labour Party member and senator, and liberal campaigner. Robinson is a former Reid Professor of Law in the Trinity College, Dublin. She is previously involved in the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform and the campaign to save Wood Quay.

Lenihan enters the race as odds-on favourite. No Fianna Fáil candidate has ever lost a presidential election. However, Lenihan is derailed when he confirms in an on-the-record interview with freelance journalist and academic researcher Jim Duffy that he has been involved in controversial attempts to pressurise the President, Patrick Hillery, over a controversial parliamentary dissolution in 1982. As a result of the contrast between his public denials during the campaign and his confirmation during an earlier interview recorded in May, he is dismissed from the Irish government.

At this point a cabinet colleague, Pádraig Flynn, launches a controversial personal attack on Mary Robinson “as a wife and mother,” an attack that is itself attacked in response as “disgraceful” on live radio by Michael McDowell, a senior member of the Progressive Democrats, then in coalition with Fianna Fáil and up to that point supporting Lenihan’s campaign. Flynn’s attack is a fatal blow to Lenihan’s campaign, causing many female supporters of Lenihan to vote for Robinson in a gesture of support.

Lenihan nonetheless receives a plurality of first-choice votes. Mary Robinson beats Austin Currie, forcing Fine Gael’s candidate into third place. Under Ireland’s system of single transferable vote, Robinson receives over 75% of the transfers when Austin Currie is eliminated, beating Lenihan into second place and becoming the seventh President of Ireland.

While the role of the presidency in day-to-day politics is a very limited one, the Robinson presidency is regarded by many observers as a watershed in Irish society, symbolising the shift away from the conservative ultra-Catholic male-dominated Ireland which existed up until the end of the 1980s to the more liberal society symbolised by Robinson.

Robinson is generally credited with raising the profile of the office of president, which has been considered little more than an honorary figurehead position under her predecessors. Prior to Mary Robinson’s presidency it was not unusual to hear commentators advocating the abolition of the office of president, a viewpoint that is almost never advanced nowadays.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Arthur William Conway, UCD President

arthur-william-conway

Arthur William Conway FRS, President of University College Dublin between 1940 and 1947, is born in Wexford, County Wexford, on October 2, 1875.

Conway receives his early education at St. Peter’s College, Wexford and proceeds to enter old University College, Dublin in 1892. He receives his BA degree from the Royal University of Ireland in 1896 with honours in Latin, English, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. In 1897, he receives his MA degree with highest honours in mathematics and proceeds to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, becoming University Scholar there in 1901. Also in 1901, he is appointed to the professorship of Mathematical Physics in the old University College and holds the Chair until the creation of the new college in 1909. He also teaches for a short time at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

Conway marries Agnes Christina Bingham on August 19, 1903. They have three daughters and one son.

One of Conway’s students is Éamon de Valera, whom he introduces to quaternions which originate in Ireland. De Valera warms to the subject and engages in research of this novelty of abstract algebra. Later, when de Valera becomes Taoiseach, he calls upon Conway while forming the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Conway is remembered for his application of biquaternion algebra to the special theory of relativity. He publishes an article in 1911, and in 1912 asserts priority over Ludwik Silberstein, who also applies biquaternions to relativity. This claim is backed up by George Temple in his book 100 Years of Mathematics. In 1947 Conway puts quaternions to use with rotations in hyperbolic space. The next year he publishes quantum mechanics applications which are referred to in a PhD thesis by Joachim Lambek in 1950.

In 1918, Conway is the Irish Parliamentary Party candidate in South Londonderry and in the National University of Ireland, coming in second in both.

Conway continues his scholarship in the field of mathematics and theoretical physics and makes a special study of William Rowan Hamilton. With John Lighton Synge, he edits the first volume of Hamilton’s mathematical papers, and, with A. J. McConnell, he edits the second volume of Hamilton’s mathematical papers. Conway is also active in college life, being appointed Registrar, a position he occupies until his election as president in 1940. He retires in 1947 from the presidency of UCD. In 1953, some of his writings are edited by J. McConnell for publication by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

He is elected President of the Royal Irish Academy from 1937 to 1940.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Fianna Fáil Politician Ray Burke

ray-burke

Raphael Patrick “Ray” Burke, disgraced former Fianna Fáil politician, is born on September 30, 1943, in Dublin. He is a former Teachta Dála and government minister who is convicted and imprisoned on charges arising from political corruption in office. Burke is also highly influential in decisions made by Dublin County Council.

Burke’s political career commences when he is elected to Dublin County Council for Fianna Fáil in 1967. He serves as chairman of the council from 1985 to 1987.

Burke is elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1973 general election for the Dublin County North constituency, succeeding his father Patrick J. Burke, who has held the seat for 29 years. Ray Burke represents this constituency and its successor Dublin North until his resignation almost twenty-five years later.

After Fianna Fáil’s landslide victory at the 1977 general election, Burke is appointed Minister of State at the Department of Industry and Commerce. In October 1980 Burke is promoted to Minister for the Environment, a position he holds until June 1981 and again in the short-lived Fianna Fáil government of 1982. After Fianna Fáil returns to power at the 1987 general election, Burke serves as Minister for Energy, where he makes controversial changes to the legislation governing oil and gas exploration. In 1988, he is appointed Minister for Industry, Commerce and Communications.

Following the formation of the Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats Coalition in 1989, he becomes Minister for Justice and Minister for Communications. When Albert Reynolds comes to power in 1992, he does not re-appoint Burke to the Cabinet. Following the 1997 general election, Fianna Fáil is back in power, and Burke is appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs by new Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Within months of his appointment as Minister for Foreign Affairs, allegations resurface that Burke has received IR£80,000 from a property developer regarding the former Dublin County Council. Burke denies the allegations but resigns from the Cabinet and from the Dáil on October 7, 1997, after just four months in office.

Having claimed since 1989 that Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) is biased against him, Burke is responsible for controversial legislation that severely limits RTÉ’s ability to collect advertising revenue and allows for the establishment of a series of local radio stations and one independent national radio station, Century Radio. RTÉ is ordered to provide a national transmission service for Century Radio at a price that RTÉ complains is far below the economic cost of providing such a service. Nevertheless, Century Radio fails to gain significant audience share and closes in 1991.

In July 2004 Burke pleads guilty to making false tax returns. The charges arise from his failure to declare for tax purposes the payments that he has received from the backers of Century Radio. On January 24, 2005, he is sentenced to six months in prison for these offences, making him one of the most senior Irish politicians to serve time in prison. He is released in June 2005 after four and a half months, earning a 25% remission of sentence because of good behaviour. He serves his time in Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin.


by Leave a comment

Ireland Reacts to Terrorist Attacks in U.S.

tricolour-at-ground-zero

President Mary McAleese goes on RTÉ Radio on September 11, 2001, to express her shock and horror at the terrorist attacks in the United States.

The President says that these atrocities are “crimes against the very foundations of our humanity.” She comments that “it is unbearable and almost unbelievable for the rest of the world to be witnessing such wanton destruction of human life in front of our eyes.”

President McAleese speaks by telephone with the United States Ambassador to Ireland, Richard Egan, and asks him to convey to President George W. Bush the heartfelt sympathies of the Irish people in this hour of great tragedy for the people of America, a nation which Ireland holds so dear.

The Irish government names more than a dozen of its natives among the dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Based on family names and individual stories, there are many hundreds of American dead with Irish heritage, including Americans who through parents or grandparents have become Irish citizens.

The website www.IrishTribute.com, set up in reaction to the September 11 attacks, estimates that perhaps one-sixth of the dead are in some way “Irish.” The website claims that “September 11, 2001 may well go down as the bloodiest day in the history of the Irish people. An estimated 1,000 people who were of Irish descent or of Irish birth were lost in the violent events on that day.”

A National Day of Mourning is held in Ireland on September 14 and a remembrance mass is held on September 12, 2001. Ireland is one of the few countries to hold a service day. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and President McAleese are both in attendance.

Families in Limerick take in American tourists grounded at Shannon Airport after all flights into and out of the United States are cancelled.

The only flag, other than the U.S. flag, to fly at the Ground Zero site is the Irish tricolour, which is put in place by the Carpenters Union #608 and FDNY Command Post.

In the wake of the attacks, the Irish government immediately begins reviewing security arrangements.


by Leave a comment

Death of Éamon de Valera

eamon-de-valera-dead

Éamon de Valera, prominent politician in twentieth-century Ireland, dies at the age of 92 in Linden Convalescent Home, Blackrock, County Dublin on August 29, 1975. His wife, Sinéad de Valera, four years his senior, had died the previous January, on the eve of their 65th wedding anniversary.

De Valera’s political career spans over half a century, from 1917 to 1973. He serves several terms as head of government and head of state. He also leads the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland.

De Valera is a leader in the Irish War of Independence and of the anti-Treaty opposition in the ensuing Irish Civil War (1922–1923). After leaving Sinn Féin in 1926 due to its policy of abstentionism, he founds Fianna Fáil, and is head of government from 1932 to 1948, 1951 to 1954, and 1957 to 1959, serving as President of the Executive Council and later Taoiseach. He resigns after being elected President of Ireland. His political creed evolves from militant republicanism to social and cultural conservatism.

Assessments of de Valera’s career are varied. He has often been characterised as a stern, unbending, devious, and divisive Irish politician. Biographer Tim Pat Coogan sees his time in power as being characterised by economic and cultural stagnation, while Diarmaid Ferriter argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere, cold and even backward figure is largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided.

On September 2, 1975, Éamon de Valera makes his final journey through the streets of Dublin to his final resting place at Glasnevin Cemetery. De Valera’s body is taken from St. Patrick’s Hall in Dublin Castle, where it has lain in state, to the the St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, where a requiem Mass is celebrated by his grandson, Father Seán Ó Cuív, and then on to Glasnevin Cemetery.

On a day of national mourning, over 200,000 people pay tribute to the statesman along the three-mile funeral route from Dublin city centre to Glasnevin. The Army No. 1 Band plays Wrap the Green Flag Round Me as de Valera is carried into Glasnevin Cemetery.

In attendance at the funeral are family, friends, colleagues, politicians, dignitaries, diplomats, veterans of the 1916 Easter Rising, and citizens who want to pay their respect. The final prayers are recited at the graveside by Father Ó Cuív. The firing party of young cadets from the Curragh fire a final volley in tribute over the grave.


by Leave a comment

IRA Announces End of 36-Year Armed Campaign

ira-ends-armed-campaignThe Irish Republican Army (IRA) issues a statement on July 28, 2005, announcing the end of its 36-year armed campaign and its resumption of disarmament. The campaign of armed conflict has a cost 3,500 lives, 1,800 of them at the hands of the Provisionals.

The IRA says its members have been ordered to pursue peaceful means and not to “engage in any other activities whatsoever” – a reference to the low-level paramilitary activities which have angered not just unionists, but the London and Dublin governments. The IRA gives no indication that it will disband.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams calls it an “emotional day” and, flanked by senior members of Sinn Féin, speaks directly to IRA volunteers by saying, “National liberation struggles have different phases – a time for struggle, a time for war, and also a time to engage, to put the war behind us all – this is that time.” He declares the IRA statement means the group is now committed to “purely peaceful and democratic methods” and calls it “a direct challenge to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to decide if they want to put the past behind them and make peace with the rest of the people of the island.”

The DUP reserves judgment, although an initial “holding statement” on their website from the party leader, Rev. Ian Paisley, criticises the failure to declare clearly they will end all criminal activity.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern says the British and Irish governments have worked for 11 years for this outcome. He says, “The war is over, the IRA’s armed campaign is over, paramilitarism is over and I believe that we can look to the future of peace and prosperity based on mutual trust and reconciliation and a final end to violence.”

Praising the “clarity” of the IRA statement, British Prime Minister Tony Blair says, “This may be the day when finally, after all the false dawns and dashed hope, peace replaces war, politics replaces terror on the island of Ireland.”

The IRA statement follows the release the previous night of IRA bomber Sean Kelly by the British government “on the expectation” of a move by the terrorist group.


by Leave a comment

Six Irish Students Killed in Berkeley Balcony Collapse

berkeley-balcony-collapse

Five Irish J-1 visa students and one Irish American die and seven others are injured in Berkeley, California, on June 16, 2015, after a fourth-floor balcony on which they are standing collapses. Thirteen people fall from the balcony and four are pronounced dead at the scene while two die later at the hospital.

One of the six killed is a dual Irish American citizen, Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park, California. The other five are Olivia Burke (Donohue’s cousin), Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai ‘Nick’ Schuster, Lorcán Miller, and Eimear Walsh, all aged 21 and from Dublin.

In June 2015, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates promises a broad and wide-ranging investigation into the cause of the accident with the likely cause being that the balcony of the building had not been constructed properly leading to the development of dry rot, leading to the balcony becoming structurally compromised. Overwhelming evidence points to dry rot as the cause of the collapse, and not the weight of the 13 students on it at the time.

The New York Times publishes an article reporting the deaths and suggesting the deceased are to blame for the collapse. The paper states that Irish students coming to the U.S. on J-1 visas are an “embarrassment to Ireland.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny and former President Mary McAleese criticise the newspaper for “being insensitive and inaccurate” in its handling of the story. The newspaper subsequently apologizes, although the article remains available at its website.

Alameda County prosecutors open up a criminal investigation on the accident on June 25. They state that involuntary manslaughter charges could be filed. Berkeley District Attorney Nancy O’Malley denies that pressure from the Irish community have led to the collapse inquiry.

On July 3, 2015, the Alameda County Superior Court rejects a restraining order bid against the examination of evidence by construction company Segue Builders. D.A. O’Malley had argued that the granting of a restraining order would amount to an interference in her duty to investigate the tragedy.

In December 2015, a court is told that the collapse happened because contractors cut corners to save costs. It is alleged that Greystar, the management company for the building, ignored a “red flag” when students who rented the apartment complained about the presence of mushrooms growing on the balcony. Legal cases by some of the victims are set to be combined and heard together sometime in 2016.

A joint funeral service for Olivia Burke and her cousin Ashley Donohoe takes place on June 20, four days after the collapse, in a church in Cotati, California. Funeral services are held in Dublin for the remaining victims.