Following an early career as an economist, working with the Irish Sugar Company until 1967, Halligan becomes involved in politics. In that year, he becomes General Secretary of the Labour Party.
The party leader, Brendan Corish, relies on Halligan’s intellectual and political skills in his new role. Under Halligan, the party undergoes an energetic reorganisation. New structures and policies are put in place, coinciding with the party’s leftward policy shift and an acute anti-coalition stance. He strongly supports both approaches, but is instrumental in securing the party’s eventual, somewhat unwilling, reversal of its anti-coalition stance after its disappointing result in the 1969 Irish general election. The 1973 Irish general election results in a Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition government coming to power.
Halligan continues to serve as General Secretary of the party until 1980, and is appointed a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1983 until 1984, replacing Frank Cluskey, where he specialises in economic affairs and energy policy.
In 1980, Halligan sets up CIPA, his own public affairs consultancy based in Dublin, and becomes a lecturer in Economics at the University of Limerick. He is also chairman of European Movement Ireland during the late 1980s. In 1985, he is appointed as Chairman of Bord na Móna, the Irish Peat Development Authority, a position he holds for ten years. In 1989 he founds the Institute of European Affairs (IEA), which later becomes the IIEA. He is Director of CIPA until 2014.
Resulting from his keen interest and experience in energy policy and renewable energy, Halligan serves as Chair of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland from 2007 until 2014. He is President of the IIEA, and he is also a Board Member of Mainstream Renewable Energy.
In later years Halligan also works on the foundation and development of the Ireland China Institute (ICI), which, with its maxim bridging the gap between knowledge and understanding, seeks to strengthen Irish-Chinese diplomatic relations, developing cultural links and fostering a deeper understanding of the respective cultural norms and values between the two nations. He is also President of ICI.
Halligan dies on August 9, 2020, after a long illness. On his death, TaoiseachMicheál Martin describes him as “a man who gave his life to politics and the public service with a deep commitment to the institutions of the state.” European Commissioner for TradePhil Hogan states that “Brendan was a committed European to his fingertips. He was a pragmatic European intellectual, in the tradition of Spinelli, Monnet and Schuman.”
Costello is the younger son of John Costello senior, a civil servant, and Rose Callaghan. He is educated at St. Joseph’s, Fairview, and then moves to O’Connell School, for senior classes, and later attends University College Dublin (UCD), where he graduates with a degree in modern languages and law. He studies at King’s Inns to become a barrister, winning the Victoria Prize there in 1913 and 1914. He is called to the Irish Bar in 1914, and practises as a barrister until 1922.
In 1922, Costello joins the staff at the office of the Attorney General in the newly established Irish Free State. Three years later he is called to the inner bar, and the following year, 1926, he becomes Attorney General of Ireland, upon the formation of the Cumann na nGaedheal government, led by W. T. Cosgrave. While serving in this position he represents the Free State at Imperial Conferences and League of Nations meetings.
Costello is also elected a Bencher of the Honourable Society of King’s Inns. He loses his position as Attorney General of Ireland when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932. The following year, however, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD. Cumann na nGaedheal soon merges with other parties to form Fine Gael.
During the Dáil debate on the Emergency Powers Act 1939, Costello is highly critical of the Act’s arrogation of powers, stating that “We are asked not merely to give a blank cheque, but to give an uncrossed cheque to the Government.” He loses his seat at the 1943 Irish general election but regains it when Éamon de Valera calls a snap election in 1944. From 1944 to 1948, he is the Fine Gael front-bench Spokesman on External Affairs.
In 1948, Fianna Fáil has been in power for sixteen consecutive years and has been blamed for a downturn in the economy following World War II. The 1948 Irish general election results show Fianna Fáil short of a majority, but still by far the largest party, with twice as many seats as the nearest rival, Fine Gael. It appears that Fianna Fáil is headed for a seventh term in government. However, the other parties in the Dáil realise that between them, they have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil, and if they band together, they would be able to form a government with the support of seven Independent deputies. Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan join to form the first inter-partygovernment in the history of the Irish state.
While it looks as if cooperation between these parties will not be feasible, a shared opposition to Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera overcomes all other difficulties, and the coalition government is formed.
Since Fine Gael is the largest party in the government, it has the task of providing a suitable candidate for Taoiseach. Naturally, it is assumed that its leader, Richard Mulcahy, will be offered the post. However, he is an unacceptable choice to Clann na Poblachta and its deeply republican leader, Seán MacBride. This is due to Mulcahy’s record during the Irish Civil War. Instead, Fine Gael and Clann na Poblachta agree on Costello as a compromise candidate. Costello had never held a ministerial position nor was he involved in the Civil War. When told by Mulcahy of his nomination, Costello is appalled, content with his life as a barrister and as a part-time politician. He is persuaded to accept the nomination as Taoiseach by close non-political friends.
During the campaign, Clann na Poblachta had promised to repeal the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936 but does not make an issue of this when the government is being formed. However, Costello and his Tánaiste, William Norton of the Labour Party, also dislike the act. During the summer of 1948, the cabinet discusses repealing the act, however, no firm decision is made.
In September 1948, Costello is on an official visit to Canada when a reporter asks him about the possibility of Ireland leaving the British Commonwealth. For the first time, he declares publicly that the Irish government is indeed going to repeal the External Relations Act and declare Ireland a republic. It has been suggested that this is a reaction to offence caused by the Governor General of Canada at the time, Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, who is of Northern Irish descent and who allegedly arranges to have placed symbols of Northern Ireland in front of Costello at an official dinner. Costello makes no mention of these aspects on the second reading of the Republic of Ireland Bill on November 24 and, in his memoirs, claims that Alexander’s behaviour had in fact been perfectly civil and could have had no bearing on a decision which had already been made.
The news takes the Government of the United Kingdom and even some of Costello’s ministers by surprise. The former had not been consulted and following the declaration of the Republic in 1949, the UK passes the Ireland Act that year. This recognises the Republic of Ireland and guarantees the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom for so long as a majority there want to remain in the United Kingdom. It also grants full rights to any citizens of the Republic living in the United Kingdom. Ireland leaves the Commonwealth on April 18, 1949, when The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 comes into force. Frederick Henry Boland, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, says caustically that the affair demonstrates that “the Taoiseach has as much notion of diplomacy as I have of astrology.” The British envoy, John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby, is equally critical of what he calls a “slipshod and amateur” move.
Many nationalists now see partition as the last obstacle on the road to total national independence. Costello tables a motion of protest against partition on May 10, 1949, without result.
In 1950, the independent-minded Minister for Health, Noël Browne, introduces the Mother and Child Scheme. The scheme would provide mothers with free maternity treatment and their children with free medical care up to the age of sixteen, which is the normal provision in other parts of Europe at that time. The bill is opposed by doctors, who fear a loss of income, and Roman Catholic bishops, who oppose the lack of means testing envisaged and fear the scheme could lead to birth control and abortion. The cabinet is divided over the issue, many feeling that the state cannot afford such a scheme priced at IR£2,000,000 annually. Costello and others in the cabinet make it clear that in the face of such opposition they will not support the Minister. Browne resigns from the government on April 11, 1951, and the scheme is dropped. He immediately publishes his correspondence with Costello and the bishops, something which had hitherto not been done. Derivatives of the Mother and Child Scheme are introduced in Public Health Acts of 1954, 1957 and 1970.
The Costello government has a number of noteworthy achievements. A new record is set in housebuilding, the Industrial Development Authority and Córas Tráchtála are established, and the Minister for Health, Noel Browne, with the then new Streptomycin, bring about an advance in the treatment of tuberculosis. Ireland also joins a number of organisations such as the Organization for European Economic Co-operation and the Council of Europe. However, the government refuses to join NATO, allegedly because the British remain in Northern Ireland. The scheme to supply electricity to even the remotest parts of Ireland is also accelerated.
While the “Mother and Child” incident does destabilise the government to some extent, it does not lead to its collapse as is generally thought. The government continues; however, prices are rising, a balance of payments crisis is looming, and two TDs withdraw their support for the government. These incidents add to the pressure on Costello and so he decides to call a general election for June 1951. The result is inconclusive but Fianna Fáil returns to power. Costello resigns as Taoiseach. It is at this election that his son Declan is elected to the Dáil.
Over the next three years while Fianna Fáil is in power a dual-leadership role of Fine Gael is taking place. While Richard Mulcahy is the leader of the party, Costello, who has proved his skill as Taoiseach, remains as parliamentary leader of the party. He resumes his practice at the Bar. In what is arguably his most celebrated case, the successful defence of The Leader against a libel action brought by the poet Patrick Kavanagh, dates from this period. Kavanagh generously praises Costello’s forensic skill, and the two men become friends.
At the 1954 Irish general election Fianna Fáil loses power. A campaign dominated by economic issues results in a Fine Gael-Labour Party-Clann na Talmhan government coming to power. Costello is elected Taoiseach for the second time.
The government can do little to change the ailing nature of Ireland’s economy, with emigration and unemployment remaining high, and external problems such as the Suez Crisis compounding the difficulty. Measures to expand the Irish economy such as export profits tax relief introduced in 1956 would take years have sizable impact. Costello’s government does have some success with Ireland becoming a member of the United Nations in 1955, and a highly successful visit to the United States in 1956, which begins the custom by which the Taoiseach visits the White House each St. Patrick’s Day to present the U.S. President with a bowl of shamrock. Although the government has a comfortable majority and seems set for a full term in office, a resumption of Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity in Northern Ireland and Great Britain causes internal strains. The government takes strong action against the republicans.
In spite of supporting the government from the backbenches, Seán MacBride, the leader of Clann na Poblachta, tables a motion of no confidence, based on the weakening state of the economy and in opposition to the government’s stance on the IRA. Fianna Fáil also tables its own motion of no confidence, and rather than face almost certain defeat, Costello again asks PresidentSeán T. O’Kelly to dissolve the Oireachtas. The general election which follows in 1957 gives Fianna Fáil an overall majority and starts another sixteen years of unbroken rule for the party. Some of his colleagues questioned the wisdom of his decision to call an election. The view is expressed that he was tired of politics and depressed by his wife’s sudden death the previous year.
Following the defeat of his government, Costello returns to the bar. In 1959, when Richard Mulcahy resigns the leadership of Fine Gael to James Dillon, he retires to the backbenches. He could have become party leader had he been willing to act in a full-time capacity. He remains as a TD until 1969, when he retires from politics, being succeeded as Fine Gael TD for Dublin South-East by Garret FitzGerald, who himself goes onto to become Taoiseach in a Fine Gael-led government.
During his career, Costello is presented with a number of awards from many universities in the United States. He is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy from 1948. In March 1975, he is made a freeman of the city of Dublin, along with his old political opponent Éamon de Valera. He practises at the bar until a short time before his death at the age of 84, in Ranelagh, Dublin, on January 5, 1976. He is buried at Dean’s Grange Cemetery in Dublin.
Johnson works on the docks for an Irish fish merchant, spending much of his time in Dunmore East and Kinsale. It is this way that he picks up ideas about socialism and Irish nationalism, joining a Liverpool branch of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. In 1900 he starts work as a commercial traveller, then moves in 1903 with his family to Belfast where he becomes involved in trade union and labour politics.
In 1907 Johnson helps James Larkin organise a strike in the port, but has to watch in dismay as the strike, which begins with remarkable solidarity between labour, Orange, and nationalist supporters, collapses in sectarian rioting. At various times he is the president, treasurer and secretary of the Irish Trades Union Congress (ITUC) which is, at the time, also the Labour Party in Ireland, until officially founded in 1912 by James Connolly and James Larkin. Johnson becomes Vice-president of the ITUC in 1913, and President in 1915.
Johnson sympathizes with the Irish Volunteers, many of whom are sacked from their jobs, for illegal activities. During the Easter Rising, he notes in his diary that people in Ireland paid little heed to the fate of the defeated revolutionaries. He succeeds as leader of the Labour Party from 1917, when the party does not contest the 1918 Irish general election. When the British government tries to enforce conscription in Ireland in 1918, he leads a successful strike in conjunction with other members of the Irish anti-conscription movement.
Johnson is later elected a TD for Dublin County to the Third Dáil at the 1922 Irish general election and remains leader of the Labour Party until 1927. As such, he is Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil of the Irish Free State, as the anti-treaty faction of Sinn Féin refuses to recognise the Dáil as constituted. He issues a statement of support for the Government of the 4th Dáil when the Irish Army Mutiny threatens civilian control in March 1924.
Johnson is the only Leader of the Labour Party who serves as Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil. He loses his Dáil seat at the September 1927 Irish general election, and the following year he is elected to Seanad Éireann, where he serves until the Seanad’s abolition in 1936.
In 1896 he meets Marie Tregay, then a teacher in St. Multose’s National school, outside Kinsale. A native of Cornwall, she has advanced political views. They marry in 1898 in Liverpool. Their only son, Frederick Johnson, is born in 1899, and becomes a well-known actor. Johnson dies on January 17, 1963, at 49 Mount Prospect Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin.
Each summer, Labour Youth holds the “Tom Johnson Summer School” to host panel discussions, debates and workshops.
O’Donnell is born on February 22, 1893, in Meenmore, near Dungloe, County Donegal, youngest among six sons and three daughters of Biddy and James O’Donnell. He is greatly influenced by his upbringing in the Rosses, in northwest Donegal, one of the poorest and most remote parts of Ireland. His father, a popular local fiddler, earns a living through his smallholding, seasonal labouring in Scotland, and winter work in a local corn mill. His mother, who comes from a radical labour and nationalist political background, works in a local cooperative store. He attends Rampart national school and Roshine national school, near Burtonport, where he is a monitor for four years. In 1911 he wins a scholarship to attend St. Patrick’s College in Drumcondra, Dublin, and returns in 1913 to the Rosses, where he spends two years teaching on the islands of Inishfree. In 1915 he is appointed head of Derryhenny national school, near Dungloe, and the following year becomes principal of a national school on the island of Arranmore, where he begins to write.
O’Donnell had long been concerned by the poor conditions of the local ‘tatie-hokers’ (potato pickers) who migrate annually to Scotland. In the summer of 1918, he travels there to help organise the Scottish Farm Servants’ Union. While there he is influenced by left-wing radicals such as Willie Gallacher, later a communistMember of Parliament (MP), and Emanuel ‘Manny’ Shinwell, later Baron Shinwell. In September 1918, against a background of rising labour militancy, he leaves teaching to become a full-time organiser for the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) in the west Ulster area. The following year he organises one of Ireland’s first “soviets” when the attendants and nurses of the Monaghan District Lunatic Asylum occupy the grounds and appoint O’Donnell as governor until their demands are met.
In early 1919 O’Donnell joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Monaghan, resigning from the ITGWU for full-time IRA service in late 1920. He leads the 2nd Battalion, Donegal IRA, from the summer of 1920. In December 1920 he goes “on the run” and leads a flying column in west Donegal until May 1921, when he is wounded. Regarded as insubordinate and militarily inexperienced, he is unpopular among the other senior officers of the 1st Northern Division. He, in turn, is disappointed by the lack of social radicalism among the nationalist leadership. He opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, is placed in command of the minority anti-treaty 1st Northern Division and is a member of the IRA executive that occupies the Four Courts in Dublin in defiance of the provisional government.
Arrested in June 1922, O’Donnell shares a prison cell with Liam Mellows and influences his radical “Notes from Mountjoy,” an important document for subsequent left-wing republicans. He spends the next two years in various prisons and internment camps. His execution is widely expected to follow those of December 8, 1922. In August 1923, he is elected as a Sinn FéinTeachta Dála (TD) for Donegal in the general election called after the end of the Irish Civil War. He goes on hunger strike for forty-one days in late 1923 and succeeds in escaping from the Curragh in March 1924. In June 1924, while on the run, he marries Lile O’Donel, a wealthy Cumann na mBan activist who had smuggled communications for republican prisoners. O’Donel, a radical and member of the Communist Party, is the daughter of Ignatius O’Donel, a prominent landowner from Mayo. They have no children but raise their nephew, Peadar Joe, as their own son after the death in New York of O’Donnell’s brother Joe.
O’Donnell begins writing seriously while in jail and remains a prolific writer, journalist, and editor until the 1960s. His first novel, Storm, set in the Irish War of Independence, is published in 1925. One of his most highly regarded books, Islanders, is published in 1928. Adrigoole, like Islanders a story of poverty and starvation in rural Ireland, is published the following year. The Knife (1930) and On the Edge of the Stream (1934) soon follow. The most significant of his later novels is probably The Big Windows (1954). Foremost among his qualities as a writer is his empathy for the people, life, and landscape of rural Ireland. But his novels have been criticised for their slow pace, excessive detail, and didactic nature. He claims his writing is incidental to his political activism. His trilogy of autobiographical non-fiction, The Gates flew Open (1932), Salud! An Irishman in Spain (1936), and There Will Be Another Day (1963), which respectively concern the Irish Civil War, his activism during the Spanish Civil War, and his role in the land annuities agitation, remain highly regarded. His other important literary achievement is with The Bell, an innovative literary and political magazine which plays a useful dissenting role in an insular and conservative period. He founds The Bell with the writer Seán Ó Faoláin in 1940 and edits it from 1946 until it ceases publication in 1954.
O’Donnell exercises an influential role in the interwar IRA, particularly through his editorship of An Phoblacht (1926–29), which he attempts to divert from militarism to socialist agitation. His ultimate aim is for a thirty-two-county socialist republic. His most successful campaign is organising small farmers against the payment of land annuities to the government in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This campaign is later adopted by Fianna Fáil and contributes to their electoral success in 1932. He is less successful in radicalising the IRA. After the failure of Saor Éire, a left-wing IRA front which provokes clerical and popular hostility against the IRA, increasing tensions between the IRA’s left-wing and the leadership lead O’Donnell, along with Frank Ryan and George Gilmore, to split from the IRA to establish the short-lived Republican Congress in 1934.
Although O’Donnell claims he was never a Communist Party member, he plays a central role in forging links between republicans and the revolutionary left both in Ireland and internationally and invariably supports the communist party line at critical junctures. After the failure of Republican Congress, he takes up the cause of the Spanish republic. His championing of unpopular causes such as communism and Spain entail a good deal of frustration. He is physically attacked at political meetings and in 1932, despite having never visited the Soviet Union, loses a high-profile libel action against the Dominican Irish Rosary, which claim he had studied in Moscow‘s Lenin College. He is banned from entering the United States for several decades, although he maintains: “My relations with all the great powers continue to be friendly.”
O’Donnell continues to support radical campaigns until his death. He is an outspoken advocate of Irish emigrants. He is prominent in the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and serves as its president in the early 1960s. He is a leading protester against the Vietnam War and a supporter of African anti-colonial movements such as that against apartheid. In later years he is involved in the “Save the west” campaign, highlighting the problems of the west of Ireland.
After several months of ill-health following a heart attack, O’Donnell dies in Dublin, aged 93, on May 13, 1986. He leaves instructions that there are to be “no priests, no politicians and no pomp” at his funeral, and those wishes are granted. He is cremated in Glasnevin Cemetery and his ashes are buried at his wife’s home in Swinford, County Mayo. Although he once remarked that every cause he fought for was a failure, he is now regarded as one of the most influential socialist republican theorists and an important voice of dissent in twentieth-century Ireland.
(From: “O’Donnell, Peadar” by Fearghal McGarry, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie)
Lehane is the only surviving child of Denis Lehane, an excise officer originally from County Cork, and his wife Mary (née Connolly), a native of the Falls Road, Belfast. He grows up in an Irish-speaking household. Joseph Connolly, the senator, is his uncle on his mother’s side, while Michael O’Lehane, the trade unionist, is his uncle on his father’s side. His family emigrates to Hartlepool, in County Durham, England, in 1912, and then to Dublin in 1920. He is educated at Synge Street CBS and University College Dublin (UCD), where he studies Law and qualifies as a solicitor. He marries Marie O’Neill in 1937, and they have a son and two daughters.
As a solicitor, Lehane takes to defending members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the Irish Courts. In 1927 he obtains permission for IRA prisoners to speak privately to their solicitors from the Irish High Court. He is active in other republican and nationalist circles. He is a member of the Moibhí Branch of Conradh na Gaeilge, and by the 1930s appears to become active in the IRA itself. In 1931 he is involved in Saor Éire, an attempt by the Irish left-wing to create a communist political party that would be linked to the IRA.
Lehane is a member of the IRA’s arms committee and in 1935 he is sentenced to 18-months’ imprisonment by the Military Tribunal for his membership of the IRA.
Lehane is an actor and has a keen interest in Irish language theatre. A committed Irish speaker, Lehane is at home in it, whether on radio, stage or in street conversation. He is one of the leading actors of the Irish Language Theatre Company between 1943 and 1958. He is a member of Dublin City Council and of the Citizens for Civil Liberties committee.
In 1977, the remains of Frank Ryan, one of the leading left-wing Republicans of the 1930s, are repatriated from East Germany, and Lehane delivers the eulogy.
Boland is the son of Irish Republican Brotherhood member James Boland and Kate Woods. He was active in GAA circles in early life and referees the 1914 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final. He joins the IRB at the same time as his older brother Gerald in 1904, following in the footsteps of his father, uncle and probably grandfather. He is educated at the Synge Street CBS, but hads a personality clash with one of the brothers so he refuses to carry on his attendance at the school. He then goes to De la Salle College, County Laois, as a novice.
Boland later joins the Irish Volunteers along with Gerry and his younger brother Ned. They take an active part in the Easter Rising of 1916.
At the 1918 Irish general election, Boland is elected as an MP for South Roscommon. In line with all the Sinn Féin MPs elected at that election, he does not take his seat in the British House of Commons but withdraws to sit in the declared independent Dáil Éireann (the First Dáil) and is named by Éamon de Valera as special envoy to the United States, a role his uncle Jack had played 25 years earlier. He leaves Ireland for the United States along with de Valera as part of a campaign to raise awareness and support for their cause in America. He negotiates a loan of $20,000 from the Irish Republic to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic through the head of the Soviet Bureau, Ludwig Martens, using some Russian jewelry as collateral. These jewels are transferred to Ireland when he returns. His sister Kathleen and her mother are entrusted with the safekeeping of jewels.
In the 1922 Irish general election, Boland is re-elected to the Dáil representing Mayo South–Roscommon South. Six weeks later, on July 31, he is shot by soldiers of the National Army when they attempt to arrest him at the Skerries Grand Hotel. Two officers enter his room and, although unarmed, he is shot and mortally wounded during a struggle.
Boland’s death affects Collins and possibly spurs him toward peace negotiations with Éamon de Valera.
Boland’s brother, Gerald Boland, is a prominent member of Fianna Fáil and later serves as Minister for Justice. His nephew, Kevin Boland, serves as a Minister until he resigns in solidarity with the two ministers, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, who are sacked from the government in May 1970 during the Arms Crisis. Kevin Boland’s resignation from Fianna Fáil and the subsequent loss of his seat marks the end of an era for the Boland political dynasty.
In the 1991 TV movie The Treaty, Boland is portrayed by Malcolm Douglas. In the 1996 film Michael Collins, he is portrayed by American actor Aidan Quinn. The film is criticised for fictionalising both Boland’s death and Collins’ life.
Daly’s father, Kevin Daly, was a colonel in the Irish Army, where he was Director of Signals. She is an atheist, while her brother and an uncle are Catholic priests. She studies accountancy at Dublin City University (DCU). She is twice elected president of the DCU Students’ Union and is active in the students’ movement as a campaigner for abortion rights and information. On leaving college she takes a job in the catering section of Aer Lingus on a low wage and becomes SIPTU‘s shop steward at Dublin Airport when the airline is engaged in extensive cost-cutting and outsourcing.
Since 2012, Daly has formed a close political association with Mick Wallace. After Wallace is condemned by left-wing TDs following the revelation his building company had avoided €2.1 million in taxes, she resigns from the Socialist Party in August 2012 in protest and redesignates herself as a United Left Alliance TD, before switching party again in 2015 to her current party, Independents 4 Change.
At the 2019 European Parliament elections, Daly is elected for the Dublin constituency. Since becoming an MEP, she has gained international attention for her foreign policy views, particularly regarding Russia and China, which have been the subject of controversy and criticism.
A report by The Irish Times in April 2022 describes Daly and Wallace’s media profile in China, and discusses how since January 2021, Daly has been featured in more Chinese-language news articles than any other Irish person, while Wallace has the second most Chinese-language news articles. In April 2022, Daly and Wallace initiate defamation proceedings against RTÉ.
Hales is born John Hales, eldest child of five sons and four daughters of Robert Hales, a farmer, and Margaret (née Fitzgerald) Hales. He is educated at Ballinadee national school and Warner’s Lane school, Bandon. After leaving school he goes to work on his father’s farm. He plays hurling with Valley Rovers GAA club and is the Munster champion in the 56-lb. weight-throwing competition. From an early age he follows in his father’s footsteps and becomes involved in the republican movement.
Hales joins the Irish Volunteers in 1915 and becomes captain of the Ballinadee company in 1916. Arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act after the 1916 Easter Rising, he is imprisoned in Frongoch internment camp in Wales. After his release, in April 1917 he becomes executive of the short-lived Liberty League promoted by Count George Plunkett. When the League merges with Sinn Féin, he helps reorganise the Volunteers. With his brothers, Tom, William, and Donal, he continues his father’s fight on behalf of evicted tenants and becomes involved with the anti-British Bandon People’s Food Committee and the anti-landlord Unpurchased Tenants’ Association. He helps in the Sinn Féin takeover of The Southern Star newspaper and is a member of the new board of directors. In 1919 he becomes battalion commander of the first (Bandon) battalion 3rd Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army, the name by which the Irish Volunteers increasingly became known. He leads the attack on TimoleagueRoyal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in February 1920, and the ambush of an Essex Regiment patrol at Brinny in August 1920. The military patrol at Brinny manages to surprise the ambushers and Lieutenant Tim Fitzgerald of Bandon is the first Volunteer to be killed in action in west Cork. Hales then commands the assault on two truckloads of British troops at Newcestown Cross in which a British officer is killed and several soldiers are wounded.
Hales is appointed section commander of the west Cork flying column in 1920 and takes part in the major action at Crossbarry on March 19, 1921. In retaliation for the burning of the Hales home in March 1921, he leads a contingent of Volunteers and burns Castle Bernard, the residence of the Earl of Bandon. The occupant, Lord Bandon, is held hostage until General Strickland, the British OC in Cork, guarantees he will not execute Volunteers in Cork prison. The British authorities yield and there is an end to the policy of executing prisoners of war in the Cork area.
At the 1922 Irish general election, Hales is elected to the Third Dáil as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the same constituency. He receives 4,374 first preference votes (7.9%). Shortly afterward, the Irish Civil War breaks out between the pro-Treaty faction, who are in favour of setting up the Irish Free State and the anti-Treaty faction, who would not accept the abolition of the Irish Republic.
On December 7, 1922, Hales is killed by anti-Treaty IRA men as he leaves the Dáil. Another TD, Pádraic Ó Máille, is also shot and badly wounded in the incident. His killing is in reprisal for the Free State’s execution of anti-treaty prisoners. In revenge for Hales’ killing, four republican leaders, Joe McKelvey, Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Richard Barrett, are executed the following day, December 8, 1922.
Hales is given a military funeral to the family burial place at St. Patrick’s Cemetery, Bandon.
According to information passed on to playwrightUlick O’Connor, an anti-Treaty IRA volunteer named Owen Donnelly of Glasnevin is responsible for the killing of Hales. Seán Caffrey, an anti-treaty intelligence officer told O’Connor that Donnelly had not been ordered to kill Hales specifically but was following the general order issued by Liam Lynch to shoot all deputies and senators they could who had voted for the Public Safety Act (September 28, 1922) which established military courts with the power to impose the death penalty.
A commemorative statue of Hayes is unveiled at Bank Place in Bandon in 1930.
Byrne is born on March 17, 1882, the second of seven children born to Thomas Byrne, an engineer, and Fanny Dowman. His childhood home is at 36 Seville Place, a terraced house with five rooms just off the North Strand in Dublin. He drops out of school at the age of thirteen and is soon juggling jobs as a grocer’s assistant and a bicycle mechanic. Eventually he uses his savings to buy a pub on Talbot Street. He marries Elizabeth Heagney in 1910.
Byrne becomes an Alderman on Dublin Corporation in 1914. He is a member of the Dublin Port and Docks Board, a significant position for a politician from the Dublin Harbour constituency. In the records of the Oireachtas his occupation is given as company director. He is elected as MP for Dublin Harbour as a candidate of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) in a by-election on October 1, 1915, following the death of William Abraham. The Easter Rising in 1916 is followed by the rapid decline of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the rise of Sinn Féin. At the 1918 Irish general election he is defeated by a Sinn Féin candidate, Philip Shanahan.
Byrne is elected as an Independent TD supporting the Anglo-Irish Treaty for the Dublin Mid constituency at the general election to the Third Dáil in 1922. From 1923 to 1928 he represents Dublin City North. In 1928 he is elected for a six-year term as a member of Seanad Éireann. He vacates his Dáil seat on December 4, 1928. He resigns from the Seanad on December 10, 1931, and returns to the Dáil in 1932. He remains a TD until his death in 1956, representing Dublin City North (1932–37) and Dublin North-East (1937–56). In several elections he secures more votes than any other politician in the country.
Byrne is elected as Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1930, serving in the post for nine consecutive years. When cycling or walking around the city he dispenses lollipops to children, who are often seen chasing him down the street. With a handshake and a few words for all, his eternal canvassing soon earns him the first of his nicknames: the Shaking Hand of Dublin. Married with eight children, he treats the people of Dublin as his second family. Every morning, he finds up to fifty people waiting for him in the Mansion House. None have appointments. All are met. He answers 15,000 letters in his first year as Lord Mayor. Many are from Dubliners looking for a job, a house, some advice or a reference. One morning in 1931 a journalist watches the Lord Mayor attend to his correspondence. Within an hour he accepts “seventeen invitations to public dinners, one invitation to a public entertainment and eight invitations to public functions.” Then he dictates forty-three sympathetic letters to men and women looking for employment.
In 1937, children between the ages of eight and eleven years old are being sentenced to spend up to five years in Industrial Schools. Their crime is stealing a few apples from an orchard. When Byrne says such sentences are “savage,” a judge responds with a defence of the Industrial School system, urging an end to “ridiculous Mansion House mummery.” He stands firm: “For the punishment of trifling offences the home of the children is better than any institution.” In 1938, he is favoured by the press for the presidency of Ireland, a ceremonial role created in the new Constitution, but he is outgunned by the political establishment.
When, in 1935, Byrne becomes the first Lord Mayor of Dublin to visit North America in 40 years, he is granted the freedom of Toronto, and The New York Times hails the arrival of a “champion showman.” He often extends a hand of friendship to Britain. He also improves relations between Dublin, until recently the centre of British authority, and the rest of the country. One night Dublin Fire Brigade gets an urgent call for assistance from Clones, County Monaghan. As Lord Mayor, he feels obliged to join the men on top of the fire engine as they set off on the 85-mile journey in the middle of the night.
In August 1936, Byrne addresses the inaugural meeting of the anti-communistIrish Christian Front, some of whose members later express anti-Semitic views. In 1938, as Lord Mayor, he presents a gift of a replica of the Ardagh Chalice to Italian naval cadets visiting Dublin on board two warships, who had been welcomed by the Irish government despite the protests of Dubliners. A photograph exists of Byrne giving a fascist salute along with Eoin O’Duffy, commander of the Blueshirts, around 1933.
In 1954, Byrne is elected as Lord Mayor for a record tenth time. This time he does not live in the Mansion House, but stays in Rathmines with his family, taking the bus to work each morning. He is just as devoted to the job. When flooding damages 20,000 houses in Fairview and North Strand, he rises from his sick bed to organise a relief fund. His final term as Lord Mayor comes to an end in 1955. Shortly afterwards, Trinity College Dublin awards him an honorary Doctor of Law, describing him as a “champion of the poor and needy, and a friend of all men.”
Byrne dies on March 13, 1956. His funeral is the largest seen in Dublin for many years. TheEvening Herald reports that “Traffic in O’Connell Street was held up for almost 20 minutes to allow the cortege of over 150 motor cars to pass, and at all the junctions along the route to Glasnevin people silently gathered to pay tribute to one of Dublin’s most famous sons.” The members of the Dáil stand and observe a short silence as a mark of respect. A telegram is sent to his widow from the Mayor of New York City, Robert F. Wagner Jr., expressing deepest sympathy, and stating “that Ald. Byrne had attained high office of Lord Mayor many times, but he never lost contact with the poor and the underprivileged, whose champion he was.”
The by-election caused by Byrne’s death, is won by his son, Patrick Byrne. Two other sons, A. P. Byrne and Thomas Byrne, are also TDs for various Dublin constituencies. Alfie Byrne Road in Clontarf is named after him. The Dublin Bay North branch of Young Fine Gael is renamed “Alfie Byrne YFG.”
Ben Briscoe, former Fianna Fáil politician, is born on March 11, 1934, in Dublin. He is a Teachta Dála (TD) for 37 years, representing constituencies in the south Dublin city area.
At the 1992 Irish general election Briscoe is involved in a marathon recount battle with Democratic Left‘s Eric Byrne to decide the fate of the final seat in Dublin South-Central. He is declared the victor after ten days of re-counting and re-checking ballot papers, leading to him describing the long count as being like “the agony and the ex-TD.”
Briscoe is sometimes critical of the leader of Fianna Fáil in the 1980s, once describing Charles Haughey‘s leadership as a “Fascist Dictatorship.” He fronts a quietly discontented anti-Haughey faction within the Parliamentary Party, which includes Charlie McCreevy, during Haughey’s time as Taoiseach.
In 1988–1989 Briscoe is Lord Mayor of Dublin, a post previously held by his father. His term covers the second half of Dublin’s Millennium Year 1988. After the Dublin City Council makes him Lord Mayor, he describes his selection for the honour as “one of the proudest moments of my life.”
The Molly Malone statue, previously at the bottom end of Grafton Street and now outside the Dublin Tourist Information Office around the corner, is unveiled by Briscoe during the Dublin Millennium celebrations in 1988, and he declares June 13 as Molly Malone Day in Dublin.
Briscoe is one of Ireland’s most famous Jewish politicians. The small Irish Jewish community have been enthusiastic and active participants in the country’s political and legal world. His father is one of several Jews involved in the Irish War of Independence and Sinn Féin movements. In his time, each of the three main political parties have a Jewish member in Ireland’s 166-member Dáil.
seamus dubhghaill 