Gwynn is appointed first lady registrar of Trinity College Dublin in February 1905. Women had only been admitted to the university the previous year. Despite coming from a family of academics, she had been unable to get a university education herself. She is 39 years old when appointed to her position in the university.
Students describe Gwynn as a pioneer. Her role as women’s registrar is described by one of her charges as “to control our movements to some extent and to protect the college and the students from criticism.”
In 1907, Gwynn is summoned before the Fry Commission on Dublin University to defend the position of women at Trinity. She is supported by the parents of the students. The result is that the commission endorses the principle of women’s admission to the university.
In 1922, the Dublin University Women Graduates’ Association is founded, under Gwynn’s presidency.
Gwynn never marries. As an eldest daughter she is required to assist in the management of her parents’ household and attend to them in their old age. From her mother’s brother, architect Robert Donough O’Brien, she inherits the house he had designed and built at Parteen-a-Lax in County Clare, close to Limerick. It is there that she retires at the end of her working life. Her hobby is tending its beautiful garden which lay next to the River Shannon.
Gwynn dies in County Clare in 1947.
Founded, by subscription, in 1948 in memory of Lucy Gwynn, the Lucy Gwynn Memorial Prize is awarded annually in the Michaelmas term to a Junior Sophister woman student for distinction in her course. The award is made by two women on the university staff nominated by the Board, and one of the female tutors. The value of the prize is €1,207.
Drew is the son of the Rev. Thomas Drew, son of a Limerick grocer, and Isabella Drew (née Dalton), daughter of a Dublin attorney. He is one of four sons and eight daughters of the couple, although most of the children die young. His sister, Catherine Drew, is a prominent Londonjournalist and an early champion of women’s rights.
Drew is trained under Sir Charles Lanyon before moving to work in Dublin, where he becomes principal assistant to William George Murray. In 1865, he becomes the diocesan architect of the united dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore, and from that point forward Church architecture is his principal activity. He is consulting architect for both St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.
Drew marries Adelaide Anne, sister of William George Murray, in 1871.
From 1885 to 1892, Richard Orpen works with Drew as a managing assistant. Drew’s most significant work in Belfast is St. Anne’s Cathedral, completed in 1899.
Born Ann Teresa O’Donnell, she studies medicine at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She drops out without taking a degree and later marries a young barrister, Ronan Keane. The couple separates in the 1990s, but never divorce. Ronan Keane goes on to become Chief Justice of Ireland (2000-2004).
Keane spends the majority of her career working for the Irish newspaper, the Sunday Independent, where she is the principal contributor of the newspaper’s long-running gossip column, “The Keane Edge.”
In “The Keane Edge” column there are often hints of a relationship with a prominent political figure, named in the column as Sweetie, and her relationship is apparently widely known in certain circles, though never openly confirmed. She leaves the paper on bad terms after selling the story of her 27-year affair with former TaoiseachCharles Haughey to the British newspaper The Sunday Times, a rival to the affiliated LondonIndependent newspapers, though she admits her affair on The Late Late Show in 1999.
Keane’s death on May 31, 2008, after a long illness is announced by her son-in-law, the Irish garden designer and television personality Diarmuid Gavin. She is survived by her children Jane, Madeleine and Justine, who is married to Gavin. Her son Tim dies in 2004. One of her granddaughters, Holly Carpenter, is Miss Ireland in 2011.
Frederick May, Irish composer and arranger, dies in Dublin on September 8, 1985. His musical career is seriously hindered by a lifelong hearing problem, and he produces relatively few compositions.
May is born on June 9, 1911, into a Dublin Protestant family who lives in the suburb of Donnybrook. His father, also named Frederick, is employed at the Guinness Brewery. He pursues his musical studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he is taught composition by John Larchet. In 1930, McCullough Pigott and Co. publishes his Irish Love Song. That same year he is awarded the Esposito Cup at the Feis Ceoil and as a result of this he is nominated as the first recipient of a new scholarship prize worth £100 to be spent on the further study of piano. In July 1930, he takes his preliminary examination for the Bachelor of Music at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) before departing Dublin to utilise his scholarship in London. In September he enrolls at the Royal College of Music (RCM) where his teachers include Charles Kitson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, R. O. Morris and Gordon Jacob. He takes his final TCD examination in December 1931 submitting a string quartet and on December 10 his degree is conferred. During 1932 his study is funded by the RCM’s Foli Scholarship and in October he is awarded the Octavia Travelling Scholarship.
May’s compositions are few in number and he produces most of his small output in the 1930s and early 1940s. His first significant work is the Scherzo for Orchestra, written while he is still a student in London. The first orchestral run through of Scherzo for Orchestra takes place on March 17, 1933, and it receives its first public performance on December 1 when it is heard as part of the Patron’s Concert. Between the months of May and October he composes his Four Romantic Songs, which receive their premiere in London at a Macnaghten-Lemare concert on January 22, 1934. At some point, probably in the second half of 1933, he follows in the footsteps of other Octavia Scholarship winners and travels to Vienna to study with Egon Wellesz.
On January 1, 1936, May takes up the position of Director of Music at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, a position he retains until he is fired in 1948. His duties mainly consist of leading the piano trio which bears the title “The Abbey Orchestra” in music during the intervals of productions. In 1936, he composes what is today his best-known composition, the String Quartet in C Minor, described in the Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians as “one of the most individual statements from an Irish composer in the first half of the 20th century.” He composes the quartet as his hearing is beginning to deteriorate and he later describes it as “an appeal for release.” String Quartet in C Minor is not premiered until 1948 when it is performed by the Martin Quartet in the Wigmore Hall, London. This is followed by Symphonic Ballad (1937), Suite of Irish Airs (1937), Spring Nocturne (1938), Songs from Prison (1941) and Lyric Movement for Strings (1942). He effectively ceases original composition at this point.
Following a long break from composition, May produces what is to be his valedictory work in 1955, the nine-minute orchestral piece Sunlight and Shadows. It is given its first performance on January 22, 1956, by the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre. Although this is his last original work, he does not abandon music completely. He produces arrangements of Irish music for Radio Éireann, which while not perhaps rewarding artistically, does help to alleviate his always precarious financial situation. He also composes a number of songs for voice and piano and a short piece entitled Idyll for violin and piano. The latter is chosen as a set work for the junior violin competition at the Feis Ceoil in 2017.
Throughout his life May suffers from significant mental health issues which result in hospitalisation. He also experiences otosclerosis, as a result of which he gradually becomes increasingly deaf. In addition, he suffers from severe tinnitus with constant ringing noises in his head. In later life he becomes homeless for a time due to alcoholism and sleeps at night in Grangegorman Asylum, Dublin. He is rescued by some friends led by Garech Browne whose record company, Claddagh Records, records the String Quartet in 1974.
Throughout his career May is an advocate of better musical education in Ireland and expresses his views on this and other musical matters through the medium of The Bell, a monthly journal dealing with the arts. He is a co-founder, along with Brian Boydell and Aloys Fleischmann, of the Music Association of Ireland (now “Friends of Classical Music”), set up in 1948 to promote art music as an integral part of the cultural life of Ireland. Later he becomes a member of Aosdána. He lives the last years of his life at Orthopaedic Hospital of Ireland, Clontarf, Dublin. He dies on September 8, 1985, at the age of 74 and is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.
His brother, Richard Pennefather, has a longer and more successful career as a judge. Appointed a Baron of the Court of Exchequer in 1821, he serves for nearly 40 years and is held in universal regard. With the general support of the profession, he remains on the Bench until shortly before his death at eighty-six, by which time he is blind. Edward and Richard, “the two Pennefathers,” are leading practitioners in the Court of Chancery (Ireland).
Pennefather is generally regarded as more gifted, a master of the law of equity and also a skilled libel lawyer. In 1816, he is one of the lead counsels in the celebrated libel case of Bruce v. Grady, which arises from the publication of a scurrilous poem called “The Nosegay,” written by a barrister, Thomas Grady, about his former friend, the notably eccentric banker George Evans Brady of Hermitage House, Castleconnell, County Limerick. The quarrel is said to arise from a dispute over money which Bruce had loaned to Grady. The plaintiff claims £20000 but the jury awards £500.
According to Elrington Ball, Pennefather is considered to be one of the greatest Irish advocates of his time, and one with few rivals in any age, but he does not live up to expectations as a judge, due largely to his age and increasing ill-health. As a judge he is remembered mainly for presiding at the trial of Daniel O’Connell in 1843 for sedition, where his alleged bias against the accused damages his reputation: he is accused of acting as prosecutor rather than judge, and his summing-up is described as simply an extra speech for the prosecution. Further damage to his reputation is done by the majority decision of the House of Lords quashing the verdict in the O’Connell case: while many of the errors were the fault of the prosecution, the Law Lords do not spare Pennefather for his conduct of the proceedings, and in particular for his summing-up. The Law Lords comment severely that the course of the trial, if condoned, will make a mockery of trial by jury in Ireland.
The related trial of Sir John Gray descends into farce when the Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, who is noted for his hot temper, challenges one of the defence counsel, Gerald Fitzgibbon, to a duel, for having allegedly accused him of improper motives. Pennefather tells the Attorney-General severely that a man in his position has no excuse for such conduct, whereupon the Attorney-General agrees to let the matter drop. The public notes with interest that Fitzgibbon’s wife and daughter are present in Court during the contretemps.
Following a long illness, Pennefather dies in Dunlavin, County Wicklow, on September 6, 1847. He is buried in Christ Church Cemetery, Delgany, County Wicklow.
When appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1789, FitzGibbon is granted his first peerage as Baron FitzGibbon, of Lower Connello in the County of Limerick, in the Peerage of Ireland that year. This does not entitle him to a seat in the British House of Lords, only in the Irish House of Lords. His later promotions come mostly in the Peerage of Ireland, being advanced to a Viscountcy in 1793 and the Earldom of Clare in 1795. He finally achieves a seat in the British House of Lords in 1799 when created Baron FitzGibbon, of Sidbury in the County of Devon, in the Peerage of Great Britain.
As Lord Chancellor for Ireland, FitzGibbon is a renowned champion of the Protestant Ascendancy and an opponent of Catholic emancipation. He despises the Parliament of Ireland‘s popular independent Constitution of 1782. He is also personally and politically opposed to the Irish politician Henry Grattan who urges a moderate course in the Irish Parliament and is responsible for defeating Grattan’s efforts to reform the Irish land tithe system under which Irish Catholic farmers (and all non-Anglican farmers) are forced to financially support the minority Anglican Church of Ireland. These are not fully repealed until 1869 when the Church of Ireland is finally disestablished, although Irish tithes are commuted after the Tithe War (1831–1836).
FitzGibbon opposes the Irish Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 personally but apparently recommends its acceptance in the House of Lords, being forced out of necessity when that Act had been recommended to the Irish Executive by the British Cabinet led by William Pitt the Younger. Pitt expects Ireland to follow the British Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 and allow Catholics to vote again and hold public offices. At the same time, FitzGibbon apparently denounces the policy this Act embodies, so it is probably safe to say that FitzGibbon’s own beliefs and principles conflict with his obligations as a member of the Irish executive of the time.
FitzGibbon’s role in the recall, soon after his arrival, of the popular pro-Emancipation Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl of Fitzwilliam, is debatable. Although he is probably politically opposed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Fitzwilliam is apparently recalled, because of his own independent actions. Fitzwilliam is known to be friendly to the Ponsonby family and is generally a Foxite liberal Whig. His close association with and patronage of Irish Whigs led by Grattan and Ponsonby during his short tenure, along with his alleged support of an immediate effort to secure Catholic emancipation in a manner not authorized by the British cabinet is likely what leads to his recall. Thus, if anyone is to blame in the short-lived “Fitzwilliam episode” it is Henry Grattan and the Ponsonby brothers – presumably William Ponsonby, later Lord Imokilly, and his brother George Ponsonby — not to mention Lord Fitzwilliam himself. Irish Catholics at the time and later naturally see things very differently and blame hardline Protestants such as FitzGibbon.
Irish Catholics and FitzGibbon apparently agree on one point – Irish political and economic union with Great Britain, which eventually takes place in 1801. Pitt wants Union with Ireland concomitantly with Catholic emancipation, commutation of tithes, and the endowment of the Irish Catholic priesthood. Union is opposed by most hardline Irish Protestants, as well as liberals such as Grattan. FitzGibbon is a strong supporter of the Union since 1793 but refuses to have Catholic emancipation with the Union.
In the end, FitzGibbon’s views wins out, leading to the Union of Ireland with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland without any concessions for Ireland’s Catholic majority, or for that matter, Catholics in the rest of the new United Kingdom. He later claims that he has been duped by the way in which the Act is passed and is bitterly opposed to any concessions during the short remainder of his life.
FitzGibbon’s role as Lord Chancellor of Ireland during the period of the 1798 rebellion is questionable. According to some, he supports a hardline policy which uses torture, murder and massacre to crush the rebellion, or that as Lord Chancellor, he has considerable influence on military affairs, and that martial law cannot be imposed without his consent. Others allege that as Lord Chancellor, he has no say in military affairs. His former side is displayed by sparing the lives of the captured United Irish leaders in return for their confession of complicity and provision of information relating to the planning of the rebellion. However, this willingness of the prisoners to partake of the agreement is spurred by the execution of the Sheares brothers on July 14, 1798.
In contrast to the leniency shown to the largely upper-class leadership, the full weight of military repression is inflicted upon the common people throughout the years 1797–98 with untold thousands suffering imprisonment, torture, transportation and death. Fitzgibbon ss inclined to show no mercy to unrepentant rebels and in October 1798 he expressed his disgust upon the capture of Wolfe Tone that he had been granted a trial and his belief that Tone should have been hanged as soon as he set foot on land.
FitzGibbon is quick to recognise that sectarianism is a useful ally to divide the rebels and prevent the United Irishmen from achieving their goal of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, writing in June 1798, “In the North nothing will keep the rebels quiet but the conviction that where treason has broken out the rebellion is merely popish.”
FitzGibbon is noted by some as a good, improving landlord to both his Protestant and Catholic tenants. Some claim that the tenants of his Mountshannon estate call him “Black Jack” FitzGibbon. However, there is no evidence to support this claim, although there is little to no evidence on his dealings as a landlord. Irish nationalists and others point out that while he might have been interested in the welfare of his own tenants on his own estate, he treats other Irish Catholics very differently. Without further evidence, his role as a Protestant landowner in mainly Catholic Ireland is of little importance against his known dealings as Lord Chancellor.
FitzGibbon dies at his home, 6 Ely Place near St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on January 28, 1802, and is buried in the churchyard at St. Peter’s Church, Aungier Street, Dublin. A hero to Protestant hardliners, but despised by the majority Catholic population, his funeral cortege is the cause of a riot and there is a widespread story that a number of dead cats are thrown at his coffin as it departs Ely Place.
(Pictured: “Portrait of John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare,” painting by Gilbert Stuart, 1789)
William Corbet, an Anglo-Irish soldier in the service of France, is born in Ballythomas, County Cork, on August 17, 1779. In September 1798, he accompanies James Napper Tandy in an aborted French mission to Ireland in support of the United Irish insurrection. After two years of incarceration, he escapes from Ireland and serves in the campaigns of Napoleon reaching the rank of colonel. In 1831, under the July Monarchy, he is employed in the Morea expedition to Greece. He returns to France in 1837, retiring with the rank of Major-General.
Corbet is born into a branch of the Corbet family, an Anglo-Irish Protestant family. In 1798, as a member of the Society of United Irishmen, he is expelled from Trinity College Dublin with Robert Emmet and others for treasonable activities and goes instead to Paris. In September of the same year, he joins a French military force under James Napper Tandy with the rank of Captain and sails from Dunkirk with arms and ammunition for Ireland. The expedition has to turn back following the defeat of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert and arriving in Hamburg they are handed over to the British authorities and taken to Ireland, where they are imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol.
Corbet escapes in 1803 and returns to France. He is appointed professor of English at the military college of Saint-Cyr. Later that year he becomes a captain in the Irish Legion. Following the death of his brother Thomas (who was also in the Legion) in a duel with another officer, he is transferred to the 70th Regiment of the line, where he serves in André Masséna‘s expedition to Portugal, and distinguishes himself in the retreat from Torres Vedras and the Battle of Sabugal. After the Battle of Salamanca, he is appointed chef de bataillon of the 47th regiment and serves until 1813 when he is summoned to Germany to join the staff of MarshalAuguste de Marmont. He serves at the battles of Lützen, Bautzen, Dresden and others and is made a commander of the Legion of Honour. In December 1814, he is naturalised as a French citizen. In 1815, after the abdication of Napoleon, he is promoted to colonel and chief of staff to General Louis-Marie-Celeste d’Aumont at Caen.
In 1837, Corbet returns to France where, with the rank of Major-General, he is commander in the region of Calvados. He dies at Saint-Denis on August 12, 1842.
The Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth bases the main theme of her novel Ormond on Corbet’s 1803 escape from Kilmainham Gaol.
Hogan is called to the Bar in July 1984 and becomes a Senior Counsel in 1997. He appears domestically in cases in the High Court and the Supreme Court and internationally at the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.
Hogan is noted in particular for his experience in constitutional law. He acts for the Attorney General of Ireland in references made by President Mary Robinson under Article 26 of the Constitution of Ireland to the Supreme Court regarding the Information (Termination of Pregnancies) Bill 1995 and the Employment Equality Bill of 1997. He appears again for the Attorney General (with Dermot Gleeson and Paul Gallagher) in another reference made by President Mary McAleese regarding the Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2004.
Hogan is a law lecturer and fellow at Trinity College Dublin from 1982 to 2007. He lectures on constitutional law, competition law and the law of tort. He is regarded as “one of the foremost constitutional and administrative lawyers in Ireland.” He is the co-author of Administrative Law in Ireland and JM Kelly: The Irish Constitution, the core Irish legal texts in Irish administrative and constitutional law respectively. He also writes a text on political violence and a book chronicling the origins of the Constitution of Ireland.
Hogan appears for Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan in Zappone v. Revenue Commissioners in the High Court and Miss D in her case related to the rights to travel abroad for an abortion. He represents the State in the High Court and the Supreme Court in litigation that emerges following a court finding that an offence of unlawful carnal knowledge is unconstitutional. In 2008, he acts for Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly in the Supreme Court who are contesting an action taken by families of victims of the Omagh bombing when they are refused access to books of evidence.
Hogan is the first barrister to appear in an Irish court without a wig, following the enactment of the Courts and Court Officers Act 1995.
Throughout his career, Hogan has been a member of committees and boards in areas requiring legal expertise. He chairs the Department of Justice‘s Balance in Criminal Law Review Group and is a member of three other review groups: the Constitution Review Group, the Competition and Mergers Review Group and the Offences Against the State Acts Review Group. He is also a member of the Competition Authority‘s Advisory Panel and the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure.
Hogan is appointed a Judge of the High Court in 2010. Soon after his appointment, he holds an emergency hearing in his home regarding a blood transfusion for a sick baby. He is one of three judges who hears a case taken by Marie Fleming, seeking a right to die in 2012. His reference to the European Court of Justice in 2014 regarding the International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, results in a declaration by the Grand Chamber that the Safe Harbour Decision is invalid. He subsequently becomes a Judge of the Court of Appeal upon its establishment in October 2014.
In May 2018, Hogan is nominated by the Government of Ireland for appointment as the Advocate General to the European Court of Justice. His term begins in October 2018 and was scheduled to expire in October 2024. Anthony Collins is appointed in 2021 to complete his term following his appointment to the Supreme Court. He concludes his term on October 7, 2021.
In one of his first opinions, on a reference from the French Conseil d’État, Hogan finds that Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 25, 2011, requires that products originating from Israeli-occupied territories should indicate if these products come from such a territory. His opinion is followed by the Court of Justice.
In April 2021, the Irish government nominates Hogan to the Supreme Court of Ireland. He is appointed in October 2021.
Scriven is born on September 10, 1819, of prosperous parents in Banbridge, County Down. He graduates with a degree from Trinity College Dublin in 1842. His fiancée accidentally drowns in 1843, the night before they are to be married. In 1844, at the age of 25, he leaves his native country and migrates to Canada, settling in Woodstock, Ontario. He leaves his country feeling a spiritual calling to serve the Lord in his Plymouth Brethren faith. He remains in Canada only briefly after becoming ill but returns for good in 1847.
For two or three years Scriven conducts a private school at Brantford. In 1855, while staying with James Sackville in Bewdley, Ontario, north of Port Hope, he receives news from Ireland of his mother being terribly ill. He writes a poem to comfort his mother called “Pray Without Ceasing.” It is later set to music and renamed by Charles Crozat Converse, becoming the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Scriven does not have any intentions nor dream that his poem would be published in the newspaper and later become a favorite hymn among the millions of Christians around the world.
About 1857, Scriven moves near to Port Hope, Ontario. Here he again falls in love and is due to be married, but in August 1860 his fiancée becomes ill with pneumonia and dies. He then devotes the rest of his life to tutoring, preaching and helping others.
In 1869, Scriven publishes a collection of 115 hymns entitled Hymns and other verses which does not include “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
Scriven drowns at age 66 on August 10, 1886. At the time of his death, he is very ill with fever and has been brought to a friend’s home to recover. It is a very hot night, and he goes outside possibly to cool down or to get a drink of cold water from the spring. His friend reports, “We left him about midnight. I withdrew to an adjoining room to watch and pray. You may imagine my surprise and dismay when upon visiting his room I found it empty. All search failed to find a trace of the missing man, until a little after noon his body was discovered in the nearby river, lifeless and cold in death.” To this day, no one knows for certain if his death is an accident or a suicide. He is buried next to his second fiancée in her family cemetery, Pengelley Family Cemetery, at Pengelly Landing, Peterborough County, Ontario, Canada.
A tall obelisk is built upon his grave with the words from the song and the following inscription:
“This monument was erected to the memory of Joseph M. Scriven, B.A., by lovers of his hymn, which is engraved hereon, and is his best memorial. Born at Seapatrick, Co. Down, Ireland, 10 Sept. 1819, emigrated to Canada 1844. Entered into rest at Bewdley, Rice Lake, 10 August 1886, and buried here. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.“
A plaque can be found on the Port Hope-Peterborough Highway with the following inscription:
“Four miles north, in the family Pengelley Cemetery, lies the philanthropist and author of this great masterpiece, written at Port Hope, 1857. The composer of the music, Charles C. Converse, was a well-educated versatile and successful Christian, whose talents ranged from law to professional music. Under the pen name of Karl Reden, he wrote numerous scholarly articles on many subjects. Though he was an excellent musician and composer with many of his works performed by the leading American orchestras and choirs of his day, his life is best remembered for this simple music so well suited to Scriven’s text.“
Lukas Media LLC releases the full-length documentaryFriends in Jesus, The stories and Hymns of Cecil Frances Alexander and Joseph Scriven in 2011. The 45-minute documentary movie details the life of Scriven and his influence on popular hymns.
seamus dubhghaill 