seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Teachta Dála


by Leave a comment

Death of Peadar O’Donnell, Irish Republican & Socialist Activist

Peadar O’Donnell, Irish republican, socialist activist, politician, writer and one of the foremost radicals of 20th-century Ireland, dies in Dublin on May 13, 1986.

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 communist Member 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 Féin Teachta 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)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Con Lehane, Nationalist & Member of the IRA Army Council

Con Lehane, left-wing nationalist, member of the IRA Army Council, solicitor, actor and politician, is born in Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland, on May 7, 1912.

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 retires from the IRA in April 1938 with Seán MacBride as they are not prepared to support the planned bombing campaign in the United Kingdom during World War II. In 1940 he is a member of Córas na Poblachta, another attempt to build a Republican political party backed by the IRA.

Interned again in 1940 under the Offences against the State Act 1939, Lehane is made an officer commanding (OC) of the IRA prisoners in Arbour Hill Prison, Dublin. While interned he and five other Irish Republican prisoners go on a 26-day hunger strike, protesting being imprisoned without trial.

Lehane is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Clann na Poblachta Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South-Central constituency at the 1948 Irish general election. He loses his seat at the 1951 Irish general election.

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.

Lehane dies in Dublin at the age of 71 on September 18, 1983. He is buried in St. Fintan’s Cemetery, Sutton, Dublin.

(Pictured: Lehane speaking at a Clann na Poblachta event)


by Leave a comment

Birth of Harry Boland, Politician & President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood

Harry Boland, Irish republican politician who serves as President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) from 1919 to 1920, is born at 6 Dalymount Terrace, Phibsborough, Dublin, on April 27, 1887. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1922.

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.

During the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), Boland operates alongside Michael Collins, who is a close friend.

At the 1921 Irish elections, Boland is elected to the Second Dáil as one of the TDs for the Mayo South–Roscommon South. He opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In the ensuing Irish Civil War (1922-23), he sides with the Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army.

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.

The following day, August 1, 1922, Boland dies in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. As he lay dying, he refuses to give the name of his attacker to his sister, Kathleen. He is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery. The service takes place from the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church. The hearse is followed by Cumann na mBan, Clan na Gael and the Irish Citizen Army women’s section.

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.

Boland’s nephew, Harry Boland, is a basketball player who competes in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. He dies on December 18, 2013, at the age of 88.

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.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Clare Daly, Politician & Member of the European Parliament

Clare Daly, Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Dublin constituency since July 2019, is born in Newbridge, County Kildare, on April 16, 1968. She is a member of Independents 4 Change, part of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL.

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.

In the 1980s Daly is a member of the Labour Party as a teenager. A member of Labour’s Militant Tendency, she is expelled alongside Joe Higgins and other members after being accused of being Trotskyists infiltrating the party using the tactic of entryism. At first calling themselves Militant Labour, in 1996 they form the Socialist Party. In the 1999 Irish local elections she is elected as a Fingal County Councillor for the Swords area, a position she holds for 12 years. She is elected as a Socialist Party TD for the Dublin North constituency at the 2011 Irish general election.

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.

On September 15, 2022, Daly is one of sixteen MEPs who vote against condemning President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua for human rights violations, in particular the arrest of Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Seán Hales, Political Activist & Member of Dáil Éireann

Seán Hales, Irish political activist and member of Dáil Éireann from May 1921 to December 1922, is born in Ballinadee, Bandon, County Cork, on March 30, 1880.

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 Timoleague Royal 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 1921 Irish elections, Hales is elected to the Second Dáil as a Sinn Féin member for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency.

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 playwright Ulick 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.


by Leave a comment

Death of Alfie Byrne, Politician & Lord Mayor of Dublin

Alfred Byrne, Irish politician who serves as a Member of Parliament (MP), as a Teachta Dála (TD) and as Lord Mayor of Dublin, dies in Dublin on March 13, 1956. He is known as the “Shaking Hand of Dublin.” He holds the distinction of being the only person to serve as Councillor, Alderman, Lord Mayor of Dublin, MP, TD and Senator.

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-communist Irish 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. The Evening 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.”


by Leave a comment

Birth of Ben Briscoe, Fianna Fáil Politician

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.

Briscoe is first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Dublin South-West constituency at the 1965 Irish general election, succeeding his father, Robert Briscoe, who had been a TD for 38 years. He is elected at the 1969 Irish general election for Dublin South-Central, where he is re-elected in 1973. Following major boundary changes for the 1977 Irish general election, he is elected for the Dublin Rathmines West constituency. A subsequent boundary revision in advance of the 1981 Irish general election abolishes Dublin Rathmines West and divides the area between the neighbouring constituencies. Briscoe is re-elected for the re-established Dublin South-Central constituency, which he holds until he retires at the 2002 Irish general election.

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.


by Leave a comment

Death of Jonathan Philbin Bowman, Journalist & Radio Broadcaster

Jonathan Philbin Bowman, Irish journalist and radio broadcaster, dies in a fall at his Dublin home on March 6, 2000.

Born in Dublin on January 6, 1969, Bowman, the son of the historian and broadcaster John Bowman and Eimer Philbin Bowman. He is the brother of comedian and journalist Abie Philbin Bowman. He is educated at Sandford Park School and at Newpark Comprehensive School in Dublin. He chooses to leave formal education in his early teens, a decision he announces to the nation on RTÉ‘s flagship talk programme The Late Late Show.

Bowman works mostly as a freelance journalist. He co-presents a radio show, The Rude Awakening, on Dublin’s FM104 with Scott Williams, George Hellis and Margaret Callanan for two years between 1993 and 1994 before joining the Sunday Independent newspaper as a columnist. He later presents television programmes on RTÉ, such as the quiz show Dodge the Question.

Bowman dies in a fall at his home on Fitzgerald Street in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, on March 6, 2000. He is found lying in the kitchen near the foot of the stairs. His death is believed to be the result of a fall down the stairs or from a stool, which is found nearby.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern says that he is deeply saddened on learning the news of Bowman’s death. His thoughts and prayers he says are with his family at this very sad time.

The leader of the Labour Party, Ruairí Quinn TD, expresses his shock and sadness on hearing of the death. He says that Bowman was without doubt one of the bright lights of Irish journalism. He extends his deepest sympathies to Bowman’s son, Saul, and to his parents John and Eimer.

The Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, says that few people he knew brought a smile to the face of anyone they met more readily. He says that his infectious good humour and iconoclastic attitude to life conveyed itself to all with whom he came into contact. He adds that Bowman will be missed for many years to come.

The editor of the Sunday Independent, Aengus Fanning, says that Bowman was one of the most brilliant journalists of his generation.

Bowman is survived by his parents, his sister Emma, his brothers Abie and Daniel and his only son Saul Philbin Bowman.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Bethel Solomons, Medical Doctor & Rugby Player

Bethel Albert Herbert Solomons, gynaecologist and international rugby player for the Ireland national rugby union team, is born into a prominent Jewish family, one of the oldest continuous Jewish families in Ireland, at 32 Waterloo Road, Dublin, on February 27, 1885. He is also a supporter of the 1916 Easter Rising.

The Solomons come to Ireland from England in 1824. Solomons is the son of Maurice Solomons (1832–1922), an optician whose practice is mentioned in James Joyce‘s Ulysses. His grandmother, Rosa Jacobs Solomons (1833–1926), is born in Hull in England. His elder brother Edwin (1879–1964) is a stockbroker and prominent member of the Dublin Jewish community. His sister Estella Solomons (1882–1968) is a leading artist, and a member of Cumann na mBan during the 1916 Easter Rising. She marries poet and publisher Seumas O’Sullivan. His younger sister Sophie is a trained opera singer.

Solomons attends St. Andrew’s College, Dublin, where he is very interested in rugby. He earns ten international rugby caps for Ireland between 1908 and 1910. He studies medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, becomes a medical doctor, and is Master of the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin from 1926 to 1933, surprising those who felt that a Jew would never hold the post. When his term ends in 1933, his name is intimately linked with that of the hospital when James Joyce writes in Finnegans Wake, “in my bethel of Solyman’s I accouched my rotundaties.” He serves as president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) in the late 1940s and practices from No. 30 Lower Baggot Street.

In a biography of Solomons he is described as “World famous obstetrician & gynaecologist, Rugby international, horseman, leader of Liberal Jewry & of Irish literary & artistic renaissance.”

Following a brief courtship, Solomons marries Gertrude Levy, who had studied with his sister Sophie at the Royal Academy of Music, London, in the liberal synagogue in London in 1916. His second son, Dr. Michael Solomons (1919–2007), is a distinguished gynaecologist, a pioneer of family planning in Ireland, and a veteran of the bitter and divisive 1983 constitutional amendment campaign.

Solomons is a friend of the founder of Sinn Féin and TD, Arthur Griffith. He contributes to the purchase of a house for Griffith. He is a founding member and the first president of the Liberal Synagogue in Dublin. He establishes a dispensary for Jewish women with Ada Shillman. In retirement he is inspector of qualifying examinations and visitor of medical schools in midwifery for the general medical council. A volume of memoirs is published in 1956. He is an art collector, including the works of Jean Cooke.

Solomons dies on September 11, 1965, at his home, Laughton Beg, Rochestown Avenue, Dún Laoghaire. The Bethel Solomons medal is awarded annually to an outstanding student in midwifery at the hospital.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Garret FitzGerald, Eighth Taoiseach of Ireland

Garret Desmond FitzGerald, Fine Gael politician, economist and barrister who serves twice as Taoiseach (1981 to 1982 and 1982 to 1987), is born into a very politically active family in Ballsbridge, Dublin on February 9, 1926, during the infancy of the Irish Free State. He serves as Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 1965 to 1969, a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1969 to 1992, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1973 to 1977, Leader of Fine Gael from 1977 to 1987 and twice Leader of the Opposition between 1977 and 1982.

FitzGerald’s father, Desmond FitzGerald, is the Free State’s first Minister for External Affairs. He is educated at the Jesuit Belvedere College, University College Dublin and King’s Inns, Dublin, and qualifies as a barrister. Instead of practicing law, however, in 1959 he becomes an economics lecturer in the department of political economy at University College, Dublin, and a journalist.

FitzGerald joins Fine Gael, attaching himself to the liberal wing of the party. and in 1969 is elected to Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. He later gives up his university lectureship to become Minister for Foreign Affairs in the coalition government of Liam Cosgrave (1973–1977). When the coalition government is resoundingly defeated in the 1977 Irish general election, Cosgrave yields leadership of Fine Gael to FitzGerald. In his new role as Leader of the Opposition and party leader, he proceeds to modernize and strengthen the party at the grass roots. He briefly loses power in 1982 when political instability triggers two snap elections.

By the time of the 1981 Irish general election, Fine Gael has a party machine that can easily match Fianna Fáil. The party wins 65 seats and forms a minority coalition government with the Labour Party and the support of a number of Independent TDs. FitzGerald is elected Taoiseach on June 30, 1981. To the surprise of many FitzGerald excludes Richie Ryan, Richard Burke and Tom O’Donnell, former Fine Gael stalwarts, from the cabinet.

In his prime ministry, FitzGerald pushes for liberalization of Irish laws on divorce, abortion, and contraception and also strives to build bridges to the Protestants in Northern Ireland. In 1985, during his second term, he and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sign the Anglo-Irish (Hillsborough) Agreement, giving Ireland a consultative role in the governing of Northern Ireland. After his party loses in the 1987 Irish general election, he resigns as its leader and subsequently retires in 1992.

On May 5, 2011, it is reported that FitzGerald is seriously ill in a Dublin hospital. Newly elected Fine Gael Taoiseach Enda Kenny sends his regards and calls him an “institution.” On May 6 he is put on a ventilator. On May 19, after suffering from pneumonia, he dies at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin at the age of 85.

In a statement, Irish President Mary McAleese hails FitzGerald as “a man steeped in the history of the State who constantly strove to make Ireland a better place for all its people.” Taoiseach Enda Kenny pays homage to “a truly remarkable man who made a truly remarkable contribution to Ireland.” Henry Kissinger, the former United States Secretary of State, who serves as an opposite number to FitzGerald in the 1970s, recalls “an intelligent and amusing man who was dedicated to his country.”

FitzGerald’s death occurs on the third day of Queen Elizabeth II‘s state visit to the Republic of Ireland, an event designed to mark the completion of the Northern Ireland peace process that had been “built on the foundations” of FitzGerald’s Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher in 1985. In a personal message, the Queen offers her sympathies and says she is “saddened” to learn of FitzGerald’s death.

On his visit to Dublin, United States President Barack Obama offers condolences on FitzGerald’s death. He speaks of him as “someone who believed in the power of education; someone who believed in the potential of youth; most of all, someone who believed in the potential of peace and who lived to see that peace realised.”

FitzGerald is buried at Shanganagh Cemetery in Shankill, Dublin.

FitzGerald is the author of a number of books, including Planning in Ireland (1968), Towards a New Ireland (1972), Unequal Partners (1979), All in a Life: An Autobiography (1991), and Reflections on the Irish State (2003).