Among those to welcome the new organisation is Sinn Féin President, Éamon de Valera, who promises all the support he can offer. CardinalMichael Logue, CatholicPrimate of Ireland, also offers his assistance: “Even if peace were restored, of which there seems little prospect at present, all the help which can be obtained shall be necessary, to restore the country from the wreck to which it has been reduced, and to help those who have been left destitute by the murder of those on whom they depended, or ruined by the destruction of their property.”
The Irish White Cross is managed by the Quaker businessman, and later Irish Free Statesenator, James G. Douglas. The organisation continues to operate until the Irish Civil War and its books are officially closed in 1928. From 1922, its activities are essentially wound down and remaining funds divested to subsidiary organisations. The longest running of these aid committees is the Children’s Relief Association which distributes aid to child victims of this troubled period, north and south of the border, until 1947. The head of the Children’s Relief Association is Áine Ceannt, the widow of Éamonn Ceannt who is perhaps one of the least known signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
St. John is the eldest of six children born to Tommy and Lottie Mooney. He is educated at Scoil Muire Gan Smál and Synge Street CBS. He emigrates to Ontario, Canada in 1958 where he takes what labouring jobs he can find. Within six months he meets a woman named Gert Gorman who has an electrical contracting company in the United States. She and her husband sponsor him to move to Washington, D.C., where he is able to work as an electrician. He marries his sweetheart, Susie Bourke, who is from a well-known Dublin theatrical family with links to both the Gaiety and the Olympia theatres. They have two sons, Kieron and Brian. He travels widely and becomes involved in the peace movement and the civil rights movement. He remains in the United States until 1970, returning to settle in Collins Avenue in north Dublin.
The Dublin city that St. John returns to is a changed place from the one he had grown up in and proves to be the spur that inspires his songwriting. He chooses “St. John” as his nom de plume, inspired by a middle name he had been given while at school when all the boys in his class were assigned saints’ names. In 1975, he is running a theatre in Petticoat Lane on Marlborough Street, and while fixing an alarm outside a window on the first floor, the ledge on which he is leaning gives way, resulting in a bad fall. He breaks his elbow and hip and spends six months in the hospital recuperating. It is during this time that he takes to songwriting in earnest.
St. John is an extrovert who loves people. He is a voracious reader with a particular interest in Irish history. His son Kieron recalls his father writing “The Rare Aul Times” during this recovery period and singing it to his family. The Dublin City Ramblers is the first band to cover the song, but it is Danny Doyle’s version that achieves a real breakthrough, spending eleven weeks in the Irish Singles Chart, reaching No. 1 in 1978.
In 1978, St. John writes “The Fields of Athenry,” a tale of a man exiled to Botany Bay for stealing food to feed his family during the Famine. It has been recorded by several artists, charting in the Irish Singles Chart on a number of occasions. A recording by Paddy Reilly, which is released in 1982, remains in the Irish charts for 72 weeks.
St. John pays close attention to the melding of lyric and melody and has particular form in writing memorable melodies that sound timeless, resonating deeply with listeners across all walks of life. His songs sometime express regret for the loss of old certainties, for example, the loss of Nelson’s Pillar and the Metropole Ballroom, two symbols of old Dublin, as progress makes a “city of my town.”
St. John describes his chosen craft with affection. “Songs are magic carpets. They can tell a story over and over again without boring the pants off the listener and maybe take us out of ourselves for a few moments of peaceful escapism. With easy to remember melody lines, the words can tell of times and events in our daily lives that are worth noting or remembering.”
St. John’s songbook consists of hundreds of compositions, including “The Ferryman,” “Waltzing on Borrowed Time” and “The Furey Man” and are recorded by over 2,500 artists. He is a founding member of the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and is always generous and supportive of younger writers, some of whom he continues to mentor well into his 80s.
St. John is surprised and delighted at the affiliation that emerges between “The Fields of Athenry” and rugby and football sporting events. He is present in Croke Park in 2007 when Ireland beats England in the Six Nations, and where the song is sung three times over. It is a song often heard in Anfield in Liverpool, and at Glasgow Celtic games, and reverberates around the stadium at Chicago’s Soldier Field when Ireland beats the All Blacks on November 5, 2016.
St. John wins several awards, including the Irish Music Rights Organisation “Irish Songwriter of the Year.”
St. John lives life to the fullest, and while he suffers ill health in his later years with both diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, he never loses his zest for life. His son Kieron describes his father with affection as a man who had nine lives and lived them all to the fullest. He lives independently at home until his admission to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. He dies peacefully there at the age of 90 on March 12, 2022. After his funeral, Paddy Reilly and Glen Hansard perform “The Fields of Athenry” at Beaumont House in Dublin as a tribute.
Wright is born to Joseph Wright and Mary Montgomery. At the age of eleven, he is sent to the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, regarded at the time as the finest in the world, where he is educated to become an officer.
At the age of fourteen, following his junior officer training, Wright embarks on a sea voyage on board HMS Newcastle under the captaincy of Lord George Stuart. On this vessel he sails to the east coast of the United States where he is engaged in blockading activities in the squadron of Admiral John Borlase Warren. In 1817 he returns to England, having attained the junior officer’s rank of midshipman.
Although Wright passes the lieutenant‘s examination, promotional opportunities are diminishing in the Royal Navy, and he is not given a commission like many young junior officers in Britain. Collectively, he and others decide to enlist in Simón Bolívar’s revolutionary army and sail for South America in support of the uprisings against Spanish colonial rule. In November 1817, he enlists as an officer in the British Legions of Simón Bolívar, under the patronage of Luis Lopez Mendez, Bolivar’s agent in London. Originally setting off from the River Thames in November 1817, several snags delay the departure until January 2, 1818. They depart from Fowey harbor and sail on a brigantine named Dowson, under naval commander Captain Dormer, with 200 other volunteers armed with valuable weapons and ammunition. They land in the Saint Thomas Island after several weeks. Admiral Luis Brión arrives with his squadron on the Island of St Thomas and Pigott and the Rifle Corps are shipped on Patriot vessels to Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela, arriving on April 21, 1818.
They are sent to Guayana and then to Angostura, beginning the campaign in the Apure. At Angostura (present-day Ciudad Bolívar), Wright first meets Simón Bolívar, for whom he develops a deep admiration. Bolívar opens the liberating campaign in Apure. During 1818–1819, one of the earliest battles with Wright partaking as an officer is at Trapiche de Gamarra on March 27, 1819. These encounters inspire Bolívar to begin his New Granada campaign and the march 1,500 miles over the Andes Mountains. Wright accompanies Bolívar on the legendary crossing on which 25% of the British/Irish troops die.
Wright takes part in the entire land campaign to liberate the northern countries of South America, and fights in numerous land battles with Bolívar’s army. He plays leading roles in the Battle of Vargas Swamp, and later in the victory at the Battle of Boyacá in August 1819, after which he is promoted to captain. In 1820, he returns with his Rifles regiment to the coastal plains to campaign in the jungles east of the Magdalena against the Spanish based on Santa Marta. The Rifles Corp are then transported by sea to Maracaibo, and on June 21, 1821, take part in Simon Bolívar’s decisive victory in the Battle of Carabobo. Cartagena is also seized, and the Rifles are brought in boats up the Magdalena River en route to Popayán. They form part of the forces led by Bolívar in the second of his famed Andean campaigns. After the successful battle at Bomboná on 7 April 7, 1822, Wright is twice mentioned in Bolívar’s order of the day for his exceptional skill and courage. Again, he is promoted and from February 1822 he is an acting lieutenant colonel.
In early 1824, Bolívar realizes that, despite the Patriot Army success on land, unless the South American revolutionary armies can control the seas off their coasts, they will forever be under sea blockade from imperial Spain. He appoints Wright to the newly fledged United Pacific Naval Squadron.
After Guayaquil seizes independence, John Illingworth Hunt is appointed as Commanding General of the Maritime Department. Immediately he takes care of organizing everything concerning the Navy. Thus, in 1823, the first Ecuadorian naval force is formed.
Wright, who in February 1824 is promoted to captain, becomes Commodore of the South Squadron, and embarks on the brig Chimborazo, and conducts patrols along the Peruvian coast with seven transports properly equipped and ready to assist in the transfer of troops, when Bolívar’s army would require it. Following Bolivar’s defeat of the royalist forces at the Battle of Junín on August 6, 1824, Wright is instructed to proceed to Callao with a squadron of five ships and is placed under the orders of Admiral Martin Guisse, head of the United Squadron. The Gran Colombian units, forming this squadron, participate in some naval actions against the royalists and also in the blockade of Callao, the last Spanish stronghold in South America.
Bolívar installs Wright as a Commodore of the Pacific Southern Squadron. He is appointed to command a small fleet of ships in support of Admiral Martin Guisse and joins the Patriotic naval force blockading off Callao. Along with Admiral Guisse and a handful of other former Royal Navy officers, they spearhead the blockade of Callao that successfully fights the Spanish naval squadron sent to lift the blockade of the besieged city. The blockade holds and Callao capitulates in early 1826, ending Spanish rule in South America.
The revolutionary independence struggles end with the unfolding liberation of South America countries, and Wright settles in Ecuador where he helps establish the Ecuadorian Navy and helps create the Ecuadorian naval school that is named in his honor.
The downfall and expulsion of the Spanish colonial power leads to land disputes and new wars among the South American home nations that once were united against Spain. In 1827, Peruvian PresidentJosé de la Mar invades Bolivia and then invades Ecuador. Wright takes up the cause of defending his new adopted homeland. His navy fights two battles with the Peruvians in the Gulf of Guayaquil.
Ecuador declares itself a republic in 1830, though the region is completely unsettled with Peru and Colombia both claiming parts of Ecuador as part of their territory. At this time Wright goes back in the Navy with his own flag officer’s pendant. He is also appointed to the army with the rank of General of Brigade in 1830. Two unconstitutional presidents, Vincente Rocafuerte and Valdivieso, declare themselves in office. Wright and Flores lead Rocafuerte’s army into a decisive battle that takes place at Minarica in 1835. This action is decisive, and they defeat General Barriga, who is Valdivieso’s appointed General. The victory guarantees the stability and future of Ecuador, with Rocafuerte becoming Ecuador’s president.
In 1835, Wright is Comandante del Apostadero, later changed to Comandancia General de la Marina (Commander-in-Chief of the Navy) for many years. He does not found the Ecuadorian Naval School, as often incorrectly cited. The college is named in his honor. He is the commanding officer of the Ecuadorian Naval Squadron before Ecuador becomes a Republic, as such he is considered a founding father of the Ecuadorian Navy. In this year he is also promoted to Army General of Division.
In 1843, Wright becomes the Governor of Guayaquil. This is the premier military position in the city.
In 1845, a military coup plot overthrows the liberal government supported by Wright and he goes into exile for fifteen years in Chile and Peru. In Chorrillos, Peru, he befriends the Ecuadorian exile Eloy Alfaro and exerts a massive influence on him as a mentor. Alfaro later becomes President of Ecuador from 1897 to 1913. Wright returns from exile in 1860 and opposes Gabriel García Moreno until his death in 1868.
Logue grows up outside the village of Claudy in County Londonderry, the eldest of nine children born to Denis Logue, a bricklayer, and Kathleen (née Devine). He gains a scholarship to St. Columb’s College which he attends from 1961 to 1967. In 1967, he commences at St. Joseph’s Teacher Training college (Queen’s University) in Belfast from which he qualifies as a teacher of Mathematics in 1970. He first comes to prominence as a member of the executive of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), the only SDLP member of the executive. He stands as a candidate in elections to the new Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 and is elected for Londonderry, at the age of 24, the youngest candidate elected that year. With John Hume and Ivan Cooper, he is arrested by the British Army during a peaceful demonstration in Londonderry in August 1971. Their conviction is ultimately overturned by the Law LordsR. (Hume) v Londonderry Justices (972, N.I.91) requiring the then British Government to introduce retrospective legislation to render legal previous British Army actions in Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland State Papers of 1980 show that together with John Hume and Austin Currie, Logue plays a key role in presenting the SDLP’S ‘Three Strands’ approach to the Thatcher Government’s Secretary of State for Northern IrelandHumphrey Atkins in April 1980. The “Three Strands” approach eventually becomes the basis for the Good Friday Agreement. The Irish State papers from 1980 reveal that he is a confidante of the Irish Government of that time, briefing it regularly on the SDLP’s outlook.
Logue is also known for his controversial comments at Trinity College Dublin at the time of the power sharingSunningdale Agreement, which many blame for helping to contribute to the Agreement’s defeat, to wit, that: [Sunningdale was] “the vehicle that would trundle Unionists into a united Ireland.” The next line of the controversial speech says, “the speed the vehicle moved at was dependent on the Unionist community.” In an article in The Irish Times in 1997 he claims that this implies that unity is always based on consent and acknowledged by Unionist Spokesman John Laird in the NI Assembly in 1973.
Logue unsuccessfully contests the Londonderry seat in the February 1974 and 1979 Westminster Elections. He is elected to the 1975 Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention and the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly. He is a member of the New Ireland Forum in 1983. In the 1980s he is a member of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace and plays a prominent part in its efforts to resolve the 1981 Irish hunger strike. His role is credited in Ten Men Dead: The Story of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike by David Beresford, Biting the Grave by P. O’Malley and, more recently, in Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-block Hunger Strike (New Island Books, 2016) and Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer that Changed Irish History (Lilliput Press, 2011) by former Provisional Irish Republican ArmyvolunteerRichard O’Rawe. Following the New Ireland Forum in 1984 and John Hume’s decision to represent the redrawn Londonderry constituency as Foyle and a safe seat, Logue leaves the Dublin-based, National Board for Science and Technology and joins the European Commission in 1984 in Brussels.
Following the 1994 Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, Logue, along with two EU colleagues, is asked by EU President Jacques Delors to consult widely throughout Northern Ireland and the Border regions and prepare recommendations for a Peace and Reconciliation Fund to underpin the peace process. Their community-based approach becomes the blueprint for the Peace Programme. In 1997, then EU President Jacques Santer asks the team, led by Logue, to return to review the programme and advise for a renewed Peace II programme. Papers published by National University Galway in 2016 from Logue’s archives indicate that he is the originator of the Peace Fund concept within the European Commission.
At the European Commission from 1984 to 1998, Logue creates Science and Technology for Regional Innovation and Development in Europe (STRIDE). In 1992, he is joint author with Giovanni de Gaetano, of RTD potential in the Mezzogiorno of Italy: the role of science parks in a European perspective and, with A. Zabaniotou and University of Thessaloniki, Structural Support For RTD.
Further publications by Logue follow: Research and Rural Regions (1996) and RTD potential in the Objective 1 regions (1997). With the fall of the Berlin Wall, his attention turns to Eastern Europe and in March 1998 publishes a set of studies Impact of the enlargement of the European Union towards central central and Eastern European countries on RTD- Innovation and Structural policies.
Logue convenes the first EU seminar on “Women in Science” in 1993 and jointly publishes with LM Telapessy Women in Scientific and Technological Research in the European Community, highlighting the barriers to women’s advancement in the Research world.
As the former vice-chairman of the North Derry Civil Rights Association, Logue gives evidence at the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. He is special adviser to the Office of First and Deputy First Minister from 1998 to 2002 and as an official of the European Commission. In 2002–03, he is a fellow of the Institute for British – Irish Studies at University College Dublin (UCD). In July 2006, he is appointed as a board member of the Irish Peace Institute, based at the University of Limerick and in 2009 is appointed Vice Chairman. He is a Life Member of the Institute of International and European Affairs.
On December 17, 2007, Logue is appointed as a director to InterTradeIreland (ITI), the North-South Body established under the Good Friday Agreement to promote economic development in Ireland. There he chairs the ITI’s Fusion programme, bringing north–south industrial development in Innovation and Research. Integrating Ireland economically is a theme of his writing throughout his career, most recently in The Irish Times and in earlier publications as economic spokesman for the SDLP. He is economist at the Dublin-based National Board for Science and Technology from 1981 to 1984.
Logue, after leaving the European Commission in 2005, becomes involved in Renewable Energy and is chairman of Priority Resources as well as a director of two companies, one in solar energy, the other in wind energy. In November 2011, he is elected to the main board of European Association of Energy (EAE).
In November 2023, Logue is awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Galway in recognition of “a lifetime dedicated to civil rights, human rights, equality and peace in Northern Ireland, Ireland and Europe.” He donates an archive of material, more than 20 boxes of manuscripts, documents, photographs and political ephemera, on the development of the SDLP from the early 1970s to the University of Galway.
Donal Donnelly, Irish theatre and film actor, dies in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 2010. Perhaps best known for his work in the plays of Brian Friel, he has a long and varied career in film, on television and in the theatre. He lives in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States at various times, and his travels lead him to describe himself as “an itinerant Irish actor.”
Donnelly gets his start in an amateur group calling itself the Globe Theatre Players. It is organised and run by Jim Fitzgerald and Monica Brophy. He then later tours with Anew McMaster‘s Irish repertory company before moving to England where he stars with Rita Tushingham in the film The Knack …and How to Get It.
For many years, Donnelly tours a one-man performance of the writings of George Bernard Shaw, adapted and directed by Michael Voysey and entitled My Astonishing Self.
On television, Donnelly plays the lead role of Matthew Browne in the 1970s ITV sitcom Yes, Honestly, opposite Liza Goddard. But from the late 1950s onwards, he often appears in such British TV programs as The Avengers, Z-Cars and The Wednesday Play.
In 1968, Donnelly records an album of Irish songs, Take the Name of Donnelly, which is arranged, produced and conducted by Tony Meehan formerly of the Shadows.
Donnelly, who is a heavy smoker all his life, dies from cancer at the age of 78 in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 2010. He is survived by his wife, Patricia ‘Patsy’ Porter, a former dancer he met working on Finian’s Rainbow, and two sons, Jonathan and Damian. Their only daughter, Maryanne, predeceases him after being killed in a riding accident. A brother, Michael Donnelly, is a Fianna Fáil senator and councillor, and Lord Mayor of Dublin (1990–91).
Markham is born on January 8, 1886, at Gower, Cooraclare, County Clare, the youngest in the large family of Michael Markham, farmer, and Margaret Markham (née Keane). She attends national school in Cooraclare from 1893 to 1899. Although she does not speak or understand the Irish language, as do her father and likely her mother, the Rosary is recited in Irish at home. She and a sister are the only siblings not to emigrate. Her mother plays the fiddle, while her older sister Margaret (Maggie) plays the concertina and probably influences her to do likewise. She has no single teacher and acquires tunes and her style of playing from neighbours and family friends. She begins to play a two-row German-type concertina at house dances throughout west Clare and becomes very much in demand.
In 1914, Markham marries Michael (Miko) Crotty from Gowerhass, the townland next to Gower. Miko had been in the United States for a couple of years and uses the money earned there to buy a public house on the Market Square in Kilrush, now known as “Crotty’s Pub.” They live in the Square in Kilrush and Miko bottles his own whiskey. The pub is an important venue for Irish traditional music, especially for those who wish to hear Crotty play. She remains relatively unknown outside of Clare until the early 1950s, and there are a relatively small number of recordings of her playing the concertina. The broadcaster Ciarán Mac Mathúna conducts recording sessions in her house in 1955 and she is to be heard on A Job of Journeywork, his programme on Radio Éireann. She possesses a number of concertinas, but the Lachenal that she purchases in the 1950s is her favourite and the one with which she is most closely identified. In 1954, she is a founder member and the first president of the Clare branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. During her time as president, the All Ireland Fleadh is held in Ennis in 1956.
Crotty often sings the traditional song “An draighneán donn,” which is one of her favourites. Among tunes she enjoys playing are the “Ewe reel,” the “Dublin reel,” and “The maid of Mount Cisco,” along with “The wind that shakes the barley.” Her straight style of playing for dancing and dancers increases her popularity. Seán Ó Riada regards her as one of the finest concertina players he ever heard. Although she does not read or write staff notation, she creates a written code for herself by giving the concertina keys a number and by using a symbol for the press or draw movement on the concertina keys.
Crotty suffers from severe angina which necessitates visits for medical treatment to Dublin, where she becomes friends with fiddle player Kathleen Harrington (née Gardiner). They attend the Pipers’ Club in Thomas Street, play together on Radio Éireann, and travel together to fleadhanna.
Crotty dies on December 27, 1960, of an anginal attack while at her home. She is buried in (old) Shanakyle cemetery. She loses her first three children, and a son drowns in the River Shannon in 1945. Another son, Thomas, becomes a priest. A festival, ‘Éigse Mrs Crotty’, is held in her memory each summer in Kilrush. Her son Paddy gives three perpetual trophies for presentation at the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil.
(From: “Crotty, Elizabeth (‘Lizzie’)” by Ríonach uí Ógáin, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
Remaining active during the interwar years, Dill serves as chief assistant to the commandant of the Staff College (1919–22) before commanding the Welsh Border Brigade, TA (1922–23), and 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot (1923–26). In late 1926, he is appointed army instructor at the newly established Imperial Defence College. A period in India follows as general staff officer of the Western Command (1929–31), based at Quetta. On return to England, he is promoted to major general and made commandant of the Staff College. Appointments as commander of the British forces in Palestine and Transjordan (1936–37) and the Aldershot Command (1937–39) follow. During this period, he shows a remarkable ability to both train and inspire those under his command. Most of his colleagues expect him to become the new chief of the Imperial General Staff and are surprised when Major General Lord Gort, junior to Dill in both rank and seniority, is appointed to the post.
At the outbreak of World War II Dill commands I CorpsBritish Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and is made a full general. In April 1940, he is made vice-CIGS and in May takes over as CIGS. His initial period in office is not a happy one, and he has to inform the public of setbacks in both Norway and France. His workload is enormous, and after the evacuation at Dunkirk in late May he devotes himself to preparing the defences of Britain against invasion. He clashes with Winston Churchill throughout 1941, advocating a more cautious and realistic approach to the situations in North Africa, Greece, and Crete.
The workload begins to affect his health adversely, and in November 1941 it is announced that he will resign as CIGS on reaching the age of 60 and serve as governor-designate of Bombay with the rank of field marshal. He seeks to be more actively involved in the war effort, however, and in December 1941 he visits the United States with Churchill, remaining there as head of the British joint staff mission in Washington, D.C. He plays a significant role in promoting Anglo–American military cooperation and attends the Casablanca, Quebec, and Tehran conferences.
Dill first marries (1907) Ada Maud Le Mottée, daughter of Col. William Le Mottée of the 18th Regiment. Their son, Major John de Guerin Dill, serves as an artillery officer throughout World War II. In October 1941, Dill marries Nancy Isabelle Charrington, widow of Brigadier Denis Walter Furlong. Dill’s honours include a GCB (1942), an honorary degree from Princeton University (1944), the Howland Memorial Prize of Yale University (1944), and a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) from the United States government. There are portraits of him in Cheltenham College and the Imperial War Museum, and a statue in Washington, D.C.
(From: “Dill, Sir John Greer” by David Murphy, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Sir John Greer Dill, bromide print, 1932, by Walter Stoneman, National Portrait Gallery, London)
In June 1919, de Valera arrives in the United States for what is to be an 18-month visit. He has recently escaped from Lincoln Gaol in England in sensational fashion, after a duplicate key is smuggled into the jail in a cake and he escapes dressed as a woman. A few months later he is a stowaway aboard the SS Lapland from Liverpool bound for America.
De Valera’s plan is to secure recognition for the emerging Irish nation, tap into the huge Irish American community for funds, and to pressurize the U.S. government to take a stance on Irish independence. Playing on his mind is the upcoming Versailles conference where the nascent League of Nations is preparing to guarantee “existing international borders” – a provision that will imply Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom.
De Valera also has a challenge in winning over PresidentWoodrow Wilson, who is less than sympathetic to Ireland’s cause.
De Valera’s interest in America is of course personal. He is born in New York City on October 14, 1882, and his U.S. citizenship is one of the reasons he is spared execution after the 1916 Easter Rising.
At first de Valera keeps a low profile in America. Though he is greeted by Harry Boland and others when he docks in New York City, he first goes to Philadelphia and stays with Joseph McGarrity, the County Tyrone-born leader of Clan na Gael and a well-known figure in Irish America. He also quietly pays a visit to his mother in Rochester, New York.
De Valera’s first major engagement is on June 23, 1919, when he is unveiled to the American public at a press conference in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City. Crowds throng the streets around the hotel, and de Valera proclaims, “I am in America as the official head of the Republic established by the will of the Irish people in accordance with the principle of self-determination.”
De Valera then embarks upon a tour across America. Vast crowds turn out to see the self-proclaimed “president of the Irish republic.” In Boston an estimated crowd of 70,000 people hear him talk in Fenway Park. In San Francisco he unveils a statute of Irish revolutionary hero Robert Emmet in Golden Gate Park.
Later in the year, de Valera holds a huge rally in Philadelphia, where he is welcomed by the mayor at Independence Hall. He also visits smaller towns and cities across the United States, and his trip garners huge press coverage – an invaluable boon for his campaign to heighten awareness of the Irish issue in America.
But difficulties soon emerged during de Valera’s visit. He becomes embroiled in a bitter split among Irish Americans. He finds himself at odds with Judge Daniel Cohalan and John Devoy, central figures in the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) association. Part of the dispute centers around money. De Valera had settled on an idea for a bond sale as a way of raising money for the cause – investors would be given bond certificates that would be exchangeable for bonds of the Irish Republic once it gets international recognition. But Cohalan and Devoy, who have already raised thousands through the Friends of Irish Freedom, are opposed, concerned about the scheme’s legality for one.
De Valera’s claim in an interview that Irish-British relations can be analogous to the relationship between Cuba and America also enrages the Cohalan-Devoy camp, who accuse him of surrendering the idea of full Irish sovereignty.
De Valera’s increasingly acrimonious relationship with Cohalan and Devoy spills over into the 1920 Republican and Democratic conventions. Against the advice of Cohalan and Devoy, he advances a resolution about Irish independence which is rejected 12-1 at the Republican convention in June of that year. A rival resolution by Cohalan squeezes through but ultimately is overturned. Similarly, he fails to secure the inclusion of the Irish issue in the Democratic Party’s policy platform during the Democrats’ convention in San Francisco.
De Valera leaves the United States in December 1920 with mixed results. Though he has raised millions of dollars through the bond sale, he has made little progress in co-opting official America to Ireland’s cause. Much as division is to characterise the next chapter of his political career in Ireland, de Valera’s sojourn in America leaves Irish America more divided than it has ever been.
(From: “Éamon de Valera’s US trip that left Irish America divided” by Suzanne Lynch, The Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com, June 1, 2019 | Pictured: Éamon de Valera (center) in New York with Friends of Irish Freedom’s Judge Daniel Cohalan and John Devoy in July 1919, Topical Press Agency/Getty)
Cohalan graduates from Manhattan College in 1885, takes a master’s degree in 1894, and is given an honorary LL.D. in 1911. He is admitted to the bar in 1888, and practices law in New York City. In September 1889, he removes to the Bronx, practices law there, and enters politics, joining Tammany Hall, becoming an adviser to party boss Charles F. Murphy and later to John F. Curry. He is Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society from 1908 to 1911.
Cohalan is active in Democratic Party politics by 1900, drafting state party platforms and serving as a delegate to the national conventions in 1904 and 1908.
On May 18, 1911, Cohalan is appointed by Gov. John Alden Dix to the New York Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy caused by the election of James Aloysius O’Gorman as U.S. Senator from New York. In November 1911, he is elected to succeed himself. On December 28, 1923, he tenders his resignation, to become effective on January 12, 1924, claiming that the annual salary of $17,500 is not enough to provide for his large family.
Cohalan is a close associate of Irish revolutionary leader John Devoy and is influential in many Irish American societies including Clan na Gael. He helps to form the Sinn Féin League in 1907 and is a key organiser of the Irish Race Convention and the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) on March 4-5, 1916. He is involved with the financing and planning of the Easter Rising in Dublin and is instrumental in sending Roger Casement to Germany in 1914. He is Chairman of the Irish Race Convention held in Philadelphia on February 22-23, 1919, and active in the Friends of Irish Freedom (1916–34).
When the United States enters World War I, Cohalan’s earlier work to obtain German assistance for Ireland becomes a liability, but he urges Irish Americans to support the war effort and to insist that self-determination for Ireland be included among the war aims. He opposes the peace treaty and the League of Nations and leads an Irish American delegation to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearings, contributing to the defeat of the treaty in the Senate.
State Senator John P. Cohalan (1873–1950) is one of Cohalan’s eleven siblings, and church historian Monsignor Florence Daniel Cohalan (1908–2001) is one of his nine children.
Davitt is born in Straide, County Mayo, on March 25, 1846. He is the founder of the Irish National Land League, which organizes resistance to absentee landlordism and seeks to relieve the poverty of the tenant farmers by securing fixity of tenure, fair rent, and free sale of the tenant’s interest.
Davitt is the son of an evicted tenant farmer. After their eviction, the family emigrates to England. In 1856, at the age of 10, he starts work in a cotton mill, where he loses an arm in a machinery accident a year later. In 1865, he joins the revolutionary Fenian Brotherhood, an international secret society that seeks to secure political freedom for Ireland. He becomes secretary of its Irish analogue, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), in 1868. Arrested in Paddington Station in London for sending firearms to Ireland on May 14, 1870, he is sentenced to 15 years in Dartmoor Prison and there lays plans to link Charles Stewart Parnell’s constitutional reform with Fenian activism to achieve political-agrarian agitation.
Paroled from prison in 1877, Davitt rejoins the IRB and goes to the United States, where the Fenian movement originated. There he is deeply influenced by Henry George’s ideas about the relationship between land monopoly and poverty.
Back in Ireland, using funds raised by John Devoy and Clan na Gael in the United States, Davitt wins Parnell’s cooperation in organizing the Land League in 1879, which leads, however, to his expulsion from the supreme council of the IRB in 1880. He is elected member of Parliament for North Meath in 1882 but is disqualified as he is a convict. He is also imprisoned for seditious speeches in 1881 and 1883.
Because of his public championing of Henry George’s theories of land reform, Parnell repudiates him. Davitt actively defends the Nationalists before the Parnell Commission, which meets between 1887 and 1889. When the Irish party splits in 1890 over Parnell’s involvement in Capt. William Henry O’Shea’s divorce case, Davitt is among the first to oppose Parnell’s continuance as leader.
Davitt is elected to Parliament in 1892 and 1893 but is unseated in both cases. He is elected again, for South Mayo in 1895, but resigns in 1899 in protest against the Second Boer War.
Davitt dies in Elphis Hospital, Dublin on May 30, 1906, at the age of 60, from blood poisoning. The fact that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland attends his funeral is a public indication of the dramatic political journey this former Fenian prisoner has taken. There is no plan for public funeral, and hence Davitt’s body is brought quietly to the Carmelite Friary, Clarendon Street, Dublin. However, the next day over 20,000 people file past his coffin. His remains are taken by train to Foxford, County Mayo, and buried in the grounds of Straide Abbey at Straide, near his place of birth.
Davitt’s book, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (1904), is a valuable record of his time.
seamus dubhghaill 