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Birth of Peadar O’Donnell, Irish Republican Politician & Writer

Peadar O’Donnell, Irish republican, socialist activist, politician, writer and one of the foremost radicals of 20th-century Ireland, is born on February 22, 1893, in Meenmore, near Dungloe, County Donegal.

O’Donnell is the 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)


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Birth of Margaret Pearse, Politician & Mother of Patrick Pearse

Margaret Pearse (née Brady), Irish politician and mother of Patrick and Willie Pearse, who are both executed after the 1916 Easter Rising, is born in Dublin on February 12, 1857.

Margaret Brady is born to Patrick Brady, a coal merchant whose family are from County Meath, and Brigid Brady (née Savage) of Oldtown, Dublin. She is baptised in St. Lawrence O’Toole’s parish. At the time, her parents are living at 1 Clarence Street. She has three known siblings and is educated by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. She is employed as a stationery shop assistant where she meets her future husband, James Pearse.

In 1877, she marries James Pearse at St. Agatha’s Church, off the North Strand. James is born in Bloomsbury, Middlesex, on December 8, 1839, and later lives in Birmingham. He comes to Ireland to work as a sculptor in the late 1850s with his first wife, Emily Susanna Fox, who dies in 1876. They have four children together. The first three children are Margaret Mary (born on August 4, 1878), Patrick (born on November 10, 1879) and William (born on November 15, 1881). All three children are born while the family lives in 27 Great Brunswick Street. Their youngest child, Mary Brigid, is born on September 29, 1888, by which time the family has moved to Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount. Pearse’s aunt, Margaret Brady, an Irish speaker, is a frequent visitor to the family home and encourages the children’s interest in the Irish language and culture. Her husband dies in 1900. Pearse does not permit her children to play with other children, however, she supports her children in all their aspirations. She has a very strong relationship and consequent effect on her eldest son, Patrick, who founds St. Enda’s School in 1908 and is the headmaster up until the time of his execution. She takes over the responsibility of Housekeeper at the school.

Pearse supports her sons’ political beliefs. After their execution, she wishes to maintain their legacy and becomes involved in political life. She joins Sinn Féin after the Rising and gives support and endorsement to candidates during the 1918 Westminster election. During the 1920 Poor Law Elections for the Rathmines area of Dublin, she stands as a Sinn Féin candidate and is elected on the first count. She is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin County constituency at the 1921 Irish elections.

Pearse strongly opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, as do all the female TDs. She states during the Treaty debate that:

“I rise to support the motion of our President for the rejection of the Treaty. My reasons for doing so are various, but my first reason for doing so I would like to explain here today is my son’s account. It has been said here on several occasions that Patrick Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account, I will not accept it.”

Later she continues in a similar vein:

“Always we had to be on the alert. But even the Black and Tans alone would not frighten me as much as if I accepted this Treaty; because I feel in my heart – and I would not say it only I feel it – that the ghosts of my sons would haunt me.”

Following the ratification of the Treaty Pearse leaves the Dáil with the other anti-Treaty deputies. She is defeated at the 1922 Irish general election. She supports those who oppose the Treaty during the Irish Civil War and continues to be a member of Sinn Féin until 1926. In 1926 she leaves the party conference with Éamon de Valera and becomes a founder member of Fianna Fáil. She never stands for election again.

At the launch of The Irish Press newspaper, Pearse is asked to press the button to start the printers rolling. At many public occasions she states that were her sons alive they too would have joined Fianna Fáil. Accordingly, Patrick Pearse is recognised as the spiritual figurehead of the party to this day.

After Patrick’s death, the responsibility for running the school falls to Pearse and her two daughters. As Patrick Pearse had died without a will, the school is left in a precarious financial position. In May 1924, when she is aged 70, she undertakes a trip to the United States to raise funds for the school, alongside showing support for Éamon de Valera and the Irish Republic. At an event in Brooklyn on May 19, 1924, when referencing the execution of her two sons, she declares herself the “proudest mother in Ireland.” She also states that Michael Collins had attempted to “bribe” her with an offer to subsidise the school, which she refused. During a meeting in Seattle on August 11, 1924, she again discusses her sons and how she believes “the best way to honour their memory was to carry on their work for Ireland.” She raises over $10,000 in donations for the school during the trip. Notwithstanding her fundraising activities, St. Enda’s continues to decline and eventually closes in 1935. Great Brunswick Street, where she and the Pearse family originally lived, is renamed Pearse Street in 1920 by a resolution passed at the Dublin City Council meeting.

Pearse dies on April 22, 1932. She is honoured with a large state funeral and a motion is passed at the meeting of Dublin City Council expressing sympathy with the Pearse family. On April 26, 1932, sizeable crowds pay their respects as her funeral procession makes its way through the streets of Dublin. At the General Post Office (GPO), where Patrick and William fought during the Easter Rising, the funeral cortege pauses for a minute of silence before proceeding to Glasnevin Cemetery. Éamon de Valera gives an oration as she is laid to rest, which praises her inspiring courage, charity and cheerfulness during the years after her son’s death.

After Pearse’s death, her daughter, Mary Margaret, continues to reside at St. Enda’s. She also joins Fianna Fáil, and serves as a TD from 1933 to 1937 and later serves in Seanad Éireann as a Senator from 1938 until her death in 1968. Upon her death, as per her mother’s request, she passes St. Enda’s on to the people of Ireland.


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Birth of Tom Kettle, Parliamentarian, Writer & Soldier

Thomas “Tom” Michael Kettle, parliamentarian, writer, and soldier, is born on February 9, 1880, in Artane, Dublin, the seventh among twelve children of Andrew Kettle, farmer and agrarian activist, and his wife, Margaret (née McCourt). His father’s record in nationalist politics and land agitation, including imprisonment in 1881, is a valuable political pedigree.

The family is prosperous. Kettle and his brothers attend Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School in Richmond Street, Dublin, before being sent to board at Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare. Popular, fiery, and something of a prankster, he soon proves to be an exceptional scholar and debater, as well as a keen athlete, cyclist, and cricketer. He enrolls in 1897 at University College Dublin (UCD), his contemporaries including Patrick Pearse, Oliver St. John Gogarty and James Joyce. He thrives in student politics, where his rhetorical genius soon wins him many admirers and is recognised in his election as auditor of the college’s Literary and Historical Society. He also co-founds the Cui Bono Club, a discussion group for recent graduates. In 1899, he distributes pro-Boer propaganda and anti-recruitment leaflets, arguing that the British Empire is based on theft, while becoming active in protests against the Irish Literary Theatre‘s staging of The Countess Cathleen by W. B. Yeats. In 1900, however, he is prevented from taking his BA examinations due to a mysterious “nervous condition” – very likely a nervous breakdown. Occasional references in his private diaries and notes suggest that he is prone to bouts of depression throughout his life. He spends the following two years touring in Europe, including a year at the University of Innsbruck, practising his French and German, before taking a BA in mental and moral science of the Royal University of Ireland (RUI) in 1902. He continues to edit the college newspaper, remaining active in student politics. He participates, for example, in protests against the RUI’s ceremonial playing of “God Save the King” at graduations as well as its senate’s apparent support for government policy, threatening on one occasion to burn publicly his degree certificate.

In 1903, Kettle is admitted to the Honourable Society of King’s Inns to read law and is called to the bar two years later. Nonetheless, he soon decides on a career in political journalism. Like his father, he is a keen supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and in 1904 is a co-founder of the resonantly titled Young Ireland Branch of the United Irish League. Here he comes to the notice of John Redmond, who offers him the prospect of a parliamentary seat, but he chooses instead to put his energies into editing the avowedly pro-Irish-party paper, The Nationist, in which he promises that a home rule administration will uphold women’s rights, industrial self-sufficiency, and Gaelic League control of Irish education. He hopes that the paper will offer a corrective alternative to The Leader, run by D. P. Moran, but in 1905 he is compelled to resign the editorship due to an article thought to be anti-clerical. In July 1906, he is persuaded to stand in a by-election in East Tyrone, which he wins with a margin of only eighteen votes. As one of the youngest and most talented men in an ageing party, he is already tipped as a potential future leader. His oratory is immediately put to good use by the party in a propaganda and fund-raising tour of the United States, as well as on the floor of the House of Commons, where his oratorical skills earn him a fearsome reputation. He firmly advocates higher education for Catholics and the improvement of the Irish economy, while developing a close alliance with Joseph Devlin and the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH).

Kettle meanwhile makes good use of his connections to Archbishop William Walsh, the UCD Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Catholic Graduates and Undergraduates Association, as well as political support, to secure the professorship of national economics. T. P. Gill, of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, exceptionally acts as his referee. His detractors regard the appointment as a political sinecure and Kettle as a somewhat dilettantish “professor of all things,” who frequently neglects his academic duties. However, he takes a keen interest in imperial and continental European economies. He does publish on fiscal policy, even if always taking a pragmatic interest in wider questions, greatly impressing a young Kevin O’Higgins, later Vice-President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. He has little time for what he regards as the abstract educational and economic idealism of D. P. Moran. He acknowledges that the “Hungarian policy” of Arthur Griffith has contributed significantly to a necessary debate about the economy, but argues that the Irish are “realists,” that Ireland’s natural resources ought to be scientifically measured, and that the imperial connection is crucial to Ireland’s future development. The achievement of home rule would, he asserts, encourage a healthy self-reliance as opposed to naive belief in self-sufficiency.

Kettle is encouraged by the heightened atmosphere of the constitutional crisis over the 1909 David Lloyd George budget, culminating in the removal of the House of Lords veto, which has been an obstacle to home rule. He is also a supporter of women’s enfranchisement, while stressing that the suffragist cause should not delay or deflect attention from the struggle for home rule. He holds his East Tyrone seat in the January 1910 United Kingdom general election but decides not to stand at the general election in December of the same year. Returning to an essentially journalistic career, he publishes a collection of essays outlining his constitutional nationalist position. He opposes suffragette attacks on private property, but, in contrast, supports the Dublin strikers in 1913, highlighting their harsh working and living conditions. He tries without success to broker an agreement between employers and workers though a peace committee he has formed, on which his colleagues include Joseph Plunkett and Thomas P. Dillon. His efforts are not assisted, however, by an inebriated appearance at a crucial meeting. Indeed, by this time his alcoholic excesses are widely known, forcing him to attend a private hospital in Kent.

In spite of deteriorating health, Kettle becomes deeply involved in the Irish Volunteers formed in November 1913 to oppose the Ulster Volunteers. His appraisal of Ulster unionism is somewhat short-sighted, dismissing it as being “not a party [but] merely an appetite,” and calling for the police to stand aside and allow the nationalists to deal with unionists, whose leaders should be shot, hanged, or imprisoned. These attitudes are mixed in with a developing liberal brand of imperialism based on dominion federalism and devolution, warmly welcoming a pro-home-rule speech by Winston Churchill with a Saint Patrick’s Day toast to “a national day and an empire day.” Nevertheless, he uses his extensive language skills and wide experience of Europe to procure arms for the Irish Volunteers. He is in Belgium when the Germans invade, and the arms he procured are confiscated by the Belgian authorities, to whom they were donated by Redmond on the outbreak of war.

On his return to Dublin, Kettle follows Redmond’s exhortation to support the war effort. He is refused an immediate commission on health grounds, but is eventually granted the rank of lieutenant, with responsibilities for recruitment in Ireland and England. He makes further enemies among the advanced nationalists of Sinn Féin, taunting the party for its posturing and cowardly refusal to confront Ulster unionists, the British Army, and German invaders alike. Coming from a staunchly Parnellite tradition, he is no clericalist, yet he is a devout if liberal Catholic, imbued by his Jesuit schooling with a cosmopolitan admiration for European civilisation which has been reinforced by his European travels, and in particular has been outraged by the German destruction of the ancient university library of Louvain. Despite a youthful flirtation with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, he comes to regard “Prussianism” as the deadliest enemy of European civilisation and the culture of the Ten Commandments, there not being “room on earth for the two.” He increasingly believes that the German threat is so great that Irish farmers’ sons ought to be conscripted to defend Ireland. He also believes that considerable good might come out of the conflict, exhorting voters in East Galway to support what is practically a future home rule prime minister, cabinet, and Irish army corps. He unsuccessfully seeks nomination as nationalist candidate in the 1914 East Galway by-election in December. Nevertheless, he continues to work tirelessly on behalf of the party, publishing reviews, translations, and treatises widely in such journals as the Freeman’s Journal, The Fortnightly Review, and the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.

As a recruiting officer based far from the fighting, Kettle is stung by accusations of cowardice from advanced nationalists. He had tried repeatedly to secure a front-line position, but was rejected, effectively because of his alcoholism. He is appalled by trench conditions and the prolongation of the war, a disillusionment further encouraged by the Easter Rising, in which his brother-in-law, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, is murdered by a deranged Anglo-Irish officer, J. C. Bowen-Colthurst. He senses that opinion in Ireland is changing, anticipating that the Easter insurgents will “go down in history as heroes and martyrs,” while he will go down, if at all, as “a bloody British officer.” Nevertheless, he regards the cause of European civilisation as greater than that of Ireland, remaining as determined as ever to secure a combat role. Despite his own poor health and the continuing intensity of the Somme campaign, he insists on returning to his unit, the 9th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

Kettle’s writings demonstrate the mortal danger he is placing himself in, evident not least in his frequently quoted poem, “To my daughter, Betty, the gift of God,” as well as letters settling debts, apologising for old offences, and providing for his family – his wealth at death being less than £200. He has no death wish, wearing body armour frequently, but as Patrick Maume notes, “As with Pearse, there is some self-conscious collusion with the hoped-for cult.” He is killed on September 9, 1916, during the Irish assault on German positions at Ginchy.

Kettle marries Mary Sheehy, alumna of UCD, student activist, suffragist, daughter of nationalist MP David Sheehy, and sister-in-law of his friend Francis Sheehy Skeffington, on September 8, 1909. In 1913 the couple has a daughter, Elizabeth.

Kettle is commemorated by a bust in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and in the House of Commons war memorial in London. He is a man of great passions and proven courage. George William Russell put his sacrifice on a par with Thomas MacDonagh and the Easter insurgents:

“You proved by death as true as they, In mightier conflicts played your part, Equal your sacrifice may weigh, Dear Kettle, of the generous heart (quoted in Summerfield, The myriad minded man, 187).

(From: “Kettle, Thomas Michael (‘Tom’)” by Donal Lowry, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Tom Kettle as a barrister when called to the Irish law bar in 1905)


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Birth of “Buckey” O’Neill, Sheriff, Editor & Member of the Rough Riders

William Owen “Buckey” O’Neill, a sheriff, newspaper editor, miner, politician, Georgist, gambler and lawyer, mainly in Arizona, is born the first of four children to John Owen, an Irish immigrant, and Mary O’Neill (nee McMenimin) in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 2, 1860.

O’Neill’s father most likely arrived in the United States during the 1850s. By Spring 1862, the family has moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When the American Civil War begins, his father joins the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteers. On December 13, 1862, during the Battle of Fredericksburg, he is wounded and serves the rest of the war as a member of the Invalid Corps. The younger O’Neill is educated at Gonzaga College High School and Georgetown Law School.

During the first part of 1879, O’Neill responds to an item in The Washington Star calling for men to migrate to the Arizona Territory. He arrives in Phoenix, riding a burro, in September of the same year. Upon his arrival in town, he is hired as a printer by the Phoenix Herald. By late 1880, he has become bored with the position and seeks to experience the “Real West” in the boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona.

In Tombstone, O’Neill takes the opportunity to experience the local saloons before taking a job with The Tombstone Epitaph. By mid-1881 he again feels a wanderlust and leaves town. Where he goes next is unknown, one story having him journey to Hawaii, unlikely due to the travel time, and then traveling through California. He is known to visit Santa Fe before going to Albuquerque, New Mexico and works briefly as a court reporter. In early 1882, he is back in Phoenix working as a deputy to Marshal Henry Garfias. Several weeks later he moves to Prescott, his home for the next fifteen years.

In Prescott O’Neill rapidly progresses in his journalistic career. Starting as a court reporter, he soon founds his own newspaper, Hoof and Horn, a paper for the livestock industry. He becomes the editor of the Arizona Miner weekly newspaper in 1884 to February 1885.

In 1886, O’Neill becomes captain of the Prescott Grays, the local unit of the Arizona Militia. On February 5, 1886, Dennis Dilda, a convicted murderer, is hanged. O’Neill and the Prescott Grays stand honor guard for the event. When the trap drops, O’Neill faints, which causes him severe embarrassment. He later writes a story called “The Horse of the Hash-Knife Brand.” In it, a member of a posse admits to nearly fainting at the hanging of a horse thief.

On April 27, 1886, O’Neill marries Pauline Schindler. They have a son, but he dies shortly after being born premature.

In 1888, while serving as Yavapai County, Arizona judge, O’Neill is elected county sheriff, running on the Republican ticket.

On March 20, 1889, four masked men, William Sterin, John Halford, Daniel Harvick, and J. J. Smith, rob the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad passenger train in Canyon Diablo. A four-man posse, made up of O’Neill, Jim Black, Carl Holton, and Ed St. Clair, is soon formed and they take off after the robbers. On April 1, the posse catches up with the robbers. After exchanging rifle shots, the posse captures the four men. During the fight, no men are injured, but one of the robber’s horses is killed. All four are sent to the Yuma Territorial Prison but are pardoned eight years later. There is unfounded speculation that, in 1898, Sterin enlists under a false name in the Rough Riders and is killed in action in the Battle of San Juan Hill.

After his term is up, O’Neill is unanimously elected mayor of Prescott. In 1894 and 1896 he runs for Delegate to the United States House of Representatives from Arizona Territory, running on the People’s Party ticket.

In 1897, after years of speculating on mines, O’Neill sells a group of claims near the Grand Canyon to Chicago backers, who also propose building a railroad from Williams to the mines and the South Rim. He becomes a director of the development companies, and soon begins railroad surveys, mine developments, and building a smelter. He also uses profits to begin building rental buildings, leading him to financial independence.

O’Neill also helps introduce a bill allowing women to vote in municipal elections in 1897. Although he convinces his Populist friends to sign the bill into law, the high court dismisses the bill in 1899.

In 1898, war breaks out between the United States and Spain. O’Neill joins Theodore Roosevelt‘s Rough Riders and becomes Captain of Troop A. First Lieutenant Frank Frantz serves as O’Neil’s Deputy Commander. Along with Alexander Brodie and James McClintock, he tries to make an entire regiment made up of Arizona cowboys. Eventually though, only three troops are authorized.

The Rough Riders land at Daiquirí on June 22, 1898. Two Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment fall overboard. Upon seeing this, O’Neill jumps into the water in full uniform and sabre. He searches for the men for two minutes before having to come up for breath.

On June 25, 1898, the Rough Riders see their first action. O’Neill leads his men at the front of the line in the Battle of Las Guasimas, capturing the Spanish flank. During the action he sees several men, who he believes to be Spaniards, across the road from him, and shouts “Hostiles on our right, fire at will!” He learns after the firing ceases that the men he exchanged shots with were Cuban rebels.

On July 1, 1898, at about 10:00 a.m., the Rough Riders and the 10th Cavalry are stationed below Kettle Hill. The Spaniards, who are on top of the hill, pour Mauser rifle fire down on the Americans. O’Neill is killed in action.

Before the fighting is over, O’Neill’s men bury him on the slope of San Juan Hill. After the war, his family and friends enlist help from the United States Department of War to find and recover his body. After six men fail to find the site, the War Department sends Henry Alfred Brown, the Rough Riders’ Chaplain, to find him. Despite it being eight months since O’Neill’s death, Chaplain Brown locates the site within two hours after arriving in Santiago de Cuba. The well-preserved body is exhumed, placed in a coffin, and returned to the United States on the Army transport Crook. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington County, Virginia. The epitaph on his gravestone reads, “Who would not die for a new star on the flag?”

On July 3, 1907, a monument by sculptor Solon Borglum is dedicated to O’Neill and the other Rough Riders in their memory in Prescott, Arizona. Seven thousand people gather to witness the unveiling.

O’Neill Spring, in the Pumphouse Wash wetlands south of Flagstaff, Arizona, is named after O’Neill, as is O’Neill Butte in the Grand Canyon and Bucky O’Neill Hill in Bisbee, Arizona. Bucky (sic) O’Neill is a main character in the TNT movie Rough Riders, portrayed by Sam Elliott.


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Founding of the Irish American Athletic Club

The Irish American Athletic Club, an amateur athletic organization based in Queens, New York, is established on January 30, 1898, originally as the Greater New York Irish Athletic Association. They shorten the name to the Irish American Athletic Club a few years later. They purchase a plot of land in what is then called Laurel Hill, Long Island, near Calvary Cemetery, Queens, and build a state-of-the-art athletic facility on what is farmland. The stadium, called Celtic Park, formally reopens after renovations on May 9, 1901, and until the facility is sold for housing in 1930, some of the greatest American athletes train or compete on Celtic Park’s track and field. The Irish American Athletic Club adopts a winged fist adorned with American flags and shamrocks as their emblem, with the Irish Gaelic motto “Láim Láidir Abú” or “A strong hand will be victorious,” and are often referred to as the “Winged Fists.” At one time they have clubs in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Yonkers, New York.

During the thirty odd years of its existence, all of the following athletes compete for the Irish American Athletic Club at some point:  Dan Ahearn, and his brother Tim Ahearne, Charles Bacon, George Bonhag, Joseph Bromilow, Frank Castleman, Robert Cloughen, Harvey Cohn, Tom Collins, Edward Cook, James Crowley, John Daly, James H. Duncan, John Eller, John Flanagan, William Frank, Patrick J. Flynn, Harry Gissing, Sidney Hatch, Johnny Hayes, Denis Horgan, Bill Horr, Daniel Kelly, Abel Kiviat, Hannes Kolehmainen, Emilio Lunghi, Alvah Meyer, James Mitchel, Pat McDonald, Matt McGrath, Emil Muller, Peter O’Connor, Edwin Pritchard, Harry Porter, Myer Prinstein, Richard Remer, John J. Reynolds, Frank Riley, William Robbins, Lawson Robertson, James Rosenberger, Michael J. Ryan, Pat Ryan, Harry Schaaf, Arthur Shaw, Mel Sheppard, Martin Sheridan, James P. Sullivan, Lee Talbott, John Baxter Taylor, Jr., Con Walsh, William Galvin and Harold Wilson.

The Irish American Athletic Club is predominantly composed of Irish-born and first generation Irish American athletes, but many of the athletes who compete for the Winged Fist organization are neither.

The Irish American Athletic Club wins the Amateur Athletic Union national outdoor track and field team championship titles in 1904, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914 and 1916. They also win the national indoor track and field team championship titles in 1906, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1913, 1914 and 1915. Individual athletes of the IAAC win 81 national outdoor championships titles and 36 individual national indoor championship titles.

In addition to winning numerous local and regional Amateur Athletic Union competitions, Irish American Athletic Club members compete for the United States Olympic team in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, Greece, the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm and the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. From 1900 to 1924, men who are at one time members of the Irish American Athletic Club win 54 Olympic medals for the U.S. Olympic team, including 26 gold medals.

In 1912–13, 1913–14, 1914–15 and 1916–17 the Irish American Athletic Club has a team, the New York Irish-Americans, represented in the American Amateur Hockey League. The team is coached by James C. “Jimmy” O’Brien and has on its roster for various seasons future NHL players Tom McCarthy and Moylan McDonnell. John McGrath and Patsy Séguin also play for the club.

Before the largest crowd that has ever assembled to see a track meet in the United States, on September 9, 1916, the Irish American Athletic Club defeats the New York Athletic Club at the Amateur Athletic Union’s National Championships, by a score of 38 to 27. Before a crowd of 30,000 spectators at Newark, New Jersey‘s Weequahic Park, the Irish American Athletic Club wins what is to be their last national championship title. The club disbands a year later when the United States becomes a combatant in World War I.


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Death of John Costello, Fine Gael Politician & 3rd Taoiseach

John Aloysius Costello, Fine Gael politician who serves as Taoiseach from 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957, Leader of the Opposition from 1951 to 1954 and from 1957 to 1959, and Attorney General of Ireland from 1926 to 1932, dies in Ranelagh, Dublin, on January 5, 1976. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1933 to 1943 and from 1944 to 1969.

Costello is born on June 20, 1891, in Fairview, Dublin, the younger son of John Costello senior, a civil servant, and Rose Callaghan. He is educated at St. Joseph’s, Fairview, and then moves to O’Connell School, for senior classes, and later attends University College Dublin (UCD), where he graduates with a degree in modern languages and law. He studies at King’s Inns to become a barrister, winning the Victoria Prize there in 1913 and 1914. He is called to the Irish Bar in 1914, and practises as a barrister until 1922.

In 1922, Costello joins the staff at the office of the Attorney General in the newly established Irish Free State. Three years later he is called to the inner bar, and the following year, 1926, he becomes Attorney General of Ireland, upon the formation of the Cumann na nGaedheal government, led by W. T. Cosgrave. While serving in this position he represents the Free State at Imperial Conferences and League of Nations meetings.

Costello is also elected a Bencher of the Honourable Society of King’s Inns. He loses his position as Attorney General of Ireland when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932. The following year, however, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD. Cumann na nGaedheal soon merges with other parties to form Fine Gael.

During the Dáil debate on the Emergency Powers Act 1939, Costello is highly critical of the Act’s arrogation of powers, stating that “We are asked not merely to give a blank cheque, but to give an uncrossed cheque to the Government.” He loses his seat at the 1943 Irish general election but regains it when Éamon de Valera calls a snap election in 1944. From 1944 to 1948, he is the Fine Gael front-bench Spokesman on External Affairs.

In 1948, Fianna Fáil has been in power for sixteen consecutive years and has been blamed for a downturn in the economy following World War II. The 1948 Irish general election results show Fianna Fáil short of a majority, but still by far the largest party, with twice as many seats as the nearest rival, Fine Gael. It appears that Fianna Fáil is headed for a seventh term in government. However, the other parties in the Dáil realise that between them, they have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil, and if they band together, they would be able to form a government with the support of seven Independent deputies. Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan join to form the first inter-party government in the history of the Irish state.

While it looks as if cooperation between these parties will not be feasible, a shared opposition to Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera overcomes all other difficulties, and the coalition government is formed.

Since Fine Gael is the largest party in the government, it has the task of providing a suitable candidate for Taoiseach. Naturally, it is assumed that its leader, Richard Mulcahy, will be offered the post. However, he is an unacceptable choice to Clann na Poblachta and its deeply republican leader, Seán MacBride. This is due to Mulcahy’s record during the Irish Civil War. Instead, Fine Gael and Clann na Poblachta agree on Costello as a compromise candidate. Costello had never held a ministerial position nor was he involved in the Civil War. When told by Mulcahy of his nomination, Costello is appalled, content with his life as a barrister and as a part-time politician. He is persuaded to accept the nomination as Taoiseach by close non-political friends.

During the campaign, Clann na Poblachta had promised to repeal the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936 but does not make an issue of this when the government is being formed. However, Costello and his Tánaiste, William Norton of the Labour Party, also dislike the act. During the summer of 1948, the cabinet discusses repealing the act, however, no firm decision is made.

In September 1948, Costello is on an official visit to Canada when a reporter asks him about the possibility of Ireland leaving the British Commonwealth. For the first time, he declares publicly that the Irish government is indeed going to repeal the External Relations Act and declare Ireland a republic. It has been suggested that this is a reaction to offence caused by the Governor General of Canada at the time, Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, who is of Northern Irish descent and who allegedly arranges to have placed symbols of Northern Ireland in front of Costello at an official dinner. Costello makes no mention of these aspects on the second reading of the Republic of Ireland Bill on November 24 and, in his memoirs, claims that Alexander’s behaviour had in fact been perfectly civil and could have had no bearing on a decision which had already been made.

The news takes the Government of the United Kingdom and even some of Costello’s ministers by surprise. The former had not been consulted and following the declaration of the Republic in 1949, the UK passes the Ireland Act that year. This recognises the Republic of Ireland and guarantees the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom for so long as a majority there want to remain in the United Kingdom. It also grants full rights to any citizens of the Republic living in the United Kingdom. Ireland leaves the Commonwealth on April 18, 1949, when The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 comes into force. Frederick Henry Boland, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, says caustically that the affair demonstrates that “the Taoiseach has as much notion of diplomacy as I have of astrology.” The British envoy, John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby, is equally critical of what he calls a “slipshod and amateur” move.

Many nationalists now see partition as the last obstacle on the road to total national independence. Costello tables a motion of protest against partition on May 10, 1949, without result.

In 1950, the independent-minded Minister for Health, Noël Browne, introduces the Mother and Child Scheme. The scheme would provide mothers with free maternity treatment and their children with free medical care up to the age of sixteen, which is the normal provision in other parts of Europe at that time. The bill is opposed by doctors, who fear a loss of income, and Roman Catholic bishops, who oppose the lack of means testing envisaged and fear the scheme could lead to birth control and abortion. The cabinet is divided over the issue, many feeling that the state cannot afford such a scheme priced at IR£2,000,000 annually. Costello and others in the cabinet make it clear that in the face of such opposition they will not support the Minister. Browne resigns from the government on April 11, 1951, and the scheme is dropped. He immediately publishes his correspondence with Costello and the bishops, something which had hitherto not been done. Derivatives of the Mother and Child Scheme are introduced in Public Health Acts of 1954, 1957 and 1970.

The Costello government has a number of noteworthy achievements. A new record is set in housebuilding, the Industrial Development Authority and Córas Tráchtála are established, and the Minister for Health, Noel Browne, with the then new Streptomycin, bring about an advance in the treatment of tuberculosis. Ireland also joins a number of organisations such as the Organization for European Economic Co-operation and the Council of Europe. However, the government refuses to join NATO, allegedly because the British remain in Northern Ireland. The scheme to supply electricity to even the remotest parts of Ireland is also accelerated.

While the “Mother and Child” incident does destabilise the government to some extent, it does not lead to its collapse as is generally thought. The government continues; however, prices are rising, a balance of payments crisis is looming, and two TDs withdraw their support for the government. These incidents add to the pressure on Costello and so he decides to call a general election for June 1951. The result is inconclusive but Fianna Fáil returns to power. Costello resigns as Taoiseach. It is at this election that his son Declan is elected to the Dáil.

Over the next three years while Fianna Fáil is in power a dual-leadership role of Fine Gael is taking place. While Richard Mulcahy is the leader of the party, Costello, who has proved his skill as Taoiseach, remains as parliamentary leader of the party. He resumes his practice at the Bar. In what is arguably his most celebrated case, the successful defence of The Leader against a libel action brought by the poet Patrick Kavanagh, dates from this period. Kavanagh generously praises Costello’s forensic skill, and the two men become friends.

At the 1954 Irish general election Fianna Fáil loses power. A campaign dominated by economic issues results in a Fine Gael-Labour Party-Clann na Talmhan government coming to power. Costello is elected Taoiseach for the second time.

The government can do little to change the ailing nature of Ireland’s economy, with emigration and unemployment remaining high, and external problems such as the Suez Crisis compounding the difficulty. Measures to expand the Irish economy such as export profits tax relief introduced in 1956 would take years have sizable impact. Costello’s government does have some success with Ireland becoming a member of the United Nations in 1955, and a highly successful visit to the United States in 1956, which begins the custom by which the Taoiseach visits the White House each Saint Patrick’s Day to present the U.S. President with a bowl of shamrock. Although the government has a comfortable majority and seems set for a full term in office, a resumption of Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity in Northern Ireland and Great Britain causes internal strains. The government takes strong action against the republicans.

In spite of supporting the government from the backbenches, Seán MacBride, the leader of Clann na Poblachta, tables a motion of no confidence, based on the weakening state of the economy and in opposition to the government’s stance on the IRA. Fianna Fáil also tables its own motion of no confidence, and rather than face almost certain defeat, Costello again asks President Seán T. O’Kelly to dissolve the Oireachtas. The general election which follows in 1957 gives Fianna Fáil an overall majority and starts another sixteen years of unbroken rule for the party. Some of his colleagues questioned the wisdom of his decision to call an election. The view is expressed that he was tired of politics and depressed by his wife’s sudden death the previous year.

Following the defeat of his government, Costello returns to the bar. In 1959, when Richard Mulcahy resigns the leadership of Fine Gael to James Dillon, he retires to the backbenches. He could have become party leader had he been willing to act in a full-time capacity. He remains as a TD until 1969, when he retires from politics, being succeeded as Fine Gael TD for Dublin South-East by Garret FitzGerald, who himself goes onto to become Taoiseach in a Fine Gael-led government.

During his career, Costello is presented with a number of awards from many universities in the United States. He is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy from 1948. In March 1975, he is made a freeman of the city of Dublin, along with his old political opponent Éamon de Valera. He practises at the bar until a short time before his death at the age of 84, in Ranelagh, Dublin, on January 5, 1976. He is buried at Dean’s Grange Cemetery in Dublin.


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Death of Frank Fay, Actor & Co-founder of the Abbey Theatre

Frank J. (Francis John) Fay, actor, theatrical producer and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, dies on January 2, 1931.

Fay is born on August 30, 1870, at 10 Lower Dorset Street, Dublin, the eldest son of four children of William Patrick Fay, a government clerk, and his wife, Martha Fay (née Dowling). He is educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, where he learns shorthand and typing, before leaving to become a secretary for an accountancy firm in Dublin. From an early age he has a passion for the theatre and immerses himself in books on the subject, becoming a drama expert. His brother, William George Fay, shares his enthusiasm and they take part in many amateur productions, setting up the Ormonde Dramatic Company in 1891.

Fay is an ardent nationalist, and Arthur Griffith appoints him drama critic for his newspaper, the United Irishman (1899–1902), where he develops his ideas on how the theatre should be run. Initially in favour of plays in the Irish language, he soon abandons this as unworkable. In May 1901 he attacks W. B. Yeats for his faulty notions about theatre and even his work as a dramatist, ending with the fiercely nationalistic assertion that “there is a herd of Saxon and other swine fattening on us. They must be swept into the sea with the pestilent breed of West Britons with which we are troubled, or they will sweep us there.” Yeats’s and Lady Gregory‘s next play is Cathleen ni Houlihan.

In 1902, Fay writes a famous article advocating a national theatre company that will “be the nursery of an Irish dramatic literature which, while making a world-wide appeal, would see life through Irish eyes.” He is a member of his brother’s National Dramatic Society, which merges with the Irish Literary Theatre in 1902 to form the Irish National Theatre Society, the originating body of the Abbey Theatre. The following year Yeats declares that the national theatre owes its existence to the two Fay brothers. Fay soon abandons Griffith and begins to champion the cause of Yeats.

An excellent tragic actor, Fay can make audiences forget his less than five feet six-inch stature through the power of his voice. When the Abbey Theatre opens on December 27, 1904, he stars in Yeats’s On Baile’s Strand as Cú Chulainn, a role he makes his own. He spends much time training the other actors. As an elocution teacher he has no equal. One play has Yeats leaving with his “head on fire” because of the quality of the voices on stage. Yeats dedicates his play The King’s Threshold (1904) with the words: “In memory of Frank Fay and his beautiful speaking in the character of Seanchan.”

Fay has a close but turbulent relationship with his brother William, whom he defers to in all theatrical matters except acting. Their heated arguments sometimes lead to blows. His temper is always volatile, and he is prone to histrionics and fits of depression. After 1905, the Abbey Theatre becomes a limited company owing to the patronage of Annie Horniman, and the Fays lose most of their control, which results in much tension and bitterness. In 1907, Fay plays Shawn Keogh in the first production of The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge.

Disagreements with Yeats over the approach to choosing and staging of plays comes to a head late in late 1907 and the Fays resign on January 13, 1908. On March 13 they are suspended from the Irish National Theatre Society. They tour the United States with Charles Frohman before separating. Fay then tours England in minor Shakespearean roles and melodrama. Between 1912 and 1914, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Mary Plunkett attempt to persuade him to become actor-manager of an Irish theatre. In 1918 he returns to the Abbey Theatre in two short-lived revivals of Yeats’s The Hour Glass and The King’s Threshold. He retires to Dublin permanently in 1921, teaching elocution and directing plays in local colleges.

Fay marries, in 1912, Freda, known as “Bird.” They live at Upper Mount Street, Dublin, and have one son, Gerard, who becomes a popular writer and memoirist. Fay dies on January 2, 1931, having never really recovered from the death of his wife, and is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery. He is credited with creating the Abbey Theatre style of acting, which becomes internationally known, and influences many other schools of acting. He wanted actors to behave as naturally as possible and to speak the lines as people would in real life, rather than with an exaggerated stage delivery. His training is a major influence on subsequent generations, as actors learned to “speak words with quiet force, like feathers borne on puffs of wind.”

(From: “Fay, Frank J. (Francis John)” by Patrick M. Geoghegan, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009) | Pictured: Portrait of Frank Fay by John Butler Yeats, commissioned by Annie Horniman for the opening of the Abbey Theatre, December 27, 1904)


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Birth of Stephen Hayes, Member & Leader of the IRA

Stephen Hayes, a member and leader of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from April 1939 to June 1941, is born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, on December 26, 1902.

During the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), Hayes is commandant of the Wexford Brigade of Fianna Éireann. He takes the Anti-Treaty side during the Irish Civil War (1922-23), during which he is interned.

Hayes is active in Gaelic Athletic Association circles in Wexford. In 1925, he helps Wexford win the Leinster Senior Football Championship. He also serves as secretary to the county board for ten years, from the 1920s to 1930s.

Hayes joins the IRA and is on the IRA Army Council in January 1939 when it declares war on the British government. When IRA Chief of Staff Seán Russell departs on IRA business to the United States, and subsequently to Nazi Germany, Hayes becomes IRA Chief of Staff. His time in office is marred by controversy and it is widely believed that he serves as an informer to the Garda Síochána.

Hayes sends a plan for the invasion of Northern Ireland by German troops to Germany in April 1940. This plan later becomes known as Plan Kathleen. He is also known to have met with German agent Hermann Görtz on May 21, 1940, in Dublin shortly after the latter’s parachuting into Ireland on May 5, 1940, as part of Operation Mainau. He is known to have asked Görtz for money and arms to wage a campaign in Northern Ireland, although shortly after this meeting the original Plan Kathleen is discovered. The discovery of the plan leads to the acceleration of joint British and Irish military planning for a German invasion known as Plan W.

Another meeting on August 15, 1940, on Rathgar Road, Dublin, organised by Hayes and attended by senior IRA men Paddy McGrath, Tom Harte and Tom Hunt, is also raided by the Garda Síochána.

McGrath and Harte are both arrested and tried by Military Tribunal, established under the Emergency Powers Act 1939. They challenge the legislation in the High Court, seeking a writ of habeas corpus, and ultimately appeal to the Supreme Court of Ireland. They are represented in the courts by Seán MacBride. The appeal is unsuccessful, and they are executed by firing squad at Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison on September 6, 1940.

On June 30, 1941, Northern-based IRA men kidnap Hayes, accusing him of being a spy. By his own account, he is tortured and “court-martialed” for “treason” by his comrades, and would have been executed, but he buys himself time composing an enormously long confession. He manages to escape on September 8, 1941, and hands himself in to the Garda for protection.

The Officer Commanding (O/C) of the IRA Northern Command, Seán McCaughey, is convicted on September 18, 1941, of the kidnapping. After a long hunger and thirst strike in Portlaoise Prison, he dies on May 11, 1946.

Hayes is later sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by the Special Criminal Court on account of his IRA activities.

Within IRA circles, Hayes is still considered a traitor and an informer. One of the main allegations against him is that he informed the Garda Síochána about IRA arms dumps in Wexford. However, this is later blamed on a Wexford man named Michael Deveraux, an officer of the Wexford Battalion of the IRA who is subsequently abducted and executed by an IRA squad in County Tipperary on Hayes’ orders. George Plant, a Protestant IRA veteran, is later executed in Portlaoise Prison for Devereux’s murder.

After his release, Hayes resumes his clerical position at Wexford County Council. He dies in Enniscorthy on December 28, 1974.


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Execution of John Kehoe, the Last of the Molly Maguires

John “Black Jack” Kehoe, the last of the Molly Maguires, is hanged in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, on December 18, 1878.

The Molly Maguires is an Irish secret society that is allegedly responsible for some incidents of vigilante justice in the coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. They defend their actions as attempts to protect exploited Irish American workers. They are, in fact, often regarded as one of the first organized labor groups.

In the first five years of the Great Famine in Ireland that begins in 1845, 500,000 immigrants come to the United States from Ireland — nearly half of all immigrants to the United States during these years. The tough economic circumstances facing the immigrants lead many Irish men to the anthracite fields in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners work under dangerous conditions and are severely underpaid. Small towns owned by the mining companies further exploit workers by charging rent for company housing. In response to these abuses, secret societies like the Molly Maguires spring up, leading sporadic terrorist campaigns to settle worker/owner disputes.

Members of the Molly Maguires are accused of murder, arson, kidnapping, and other crimes. Industry owners become increasingly concerned about the threat posed by the Molly Maguires. Franklin B. Gowen, president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, hires the Pinkerton Detective Agency to infiltrate the secret society and find evidence that can be used against them. James McParland, who later becomes the most celebrated private detective of the era, takes the high-risk assignment and goes undercover within the organization. For more than two years, he establishes his place in the Molly Maguires and builds trust among his fellow members.

Eventually, several Molly Maguires confess their roles in a murder to McParland. When he is finally pulled out of the society in February 1876, his information leads to the arrest and conviction of nineteen men.

In June 1877, ten Molly Maguires are hanged on a single day in what becomes known as “Pennsylvania’s Day of the Rope.” In December of the following year, Kehoe is arrested and hanged for the 1862 murder of Frank W. S. Langdon, a mine foreman, despite the fact that it is widely believed he is wrongly accused and not actually responsible for anyone’s death. Although the governor of Pennsylvania, John F. Hartranft, believes Kehoe’s innocence, he signs the death warrant anyway. Kehoe’s hanging at the gallows is officially hailed as “the Death of Molly-ism.”

Though the deaths of the vigilante Molly Maguires help quell the activity of the secret society, the increased assimilation of the Irish into mainstream society and their upward mobility out of the coal jobs is the real reason that protective secret societies like the Molly Maguires eventually fade into obscurity.

In 1979, Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp grants a posthumous pardon to Kehoe after an investigation by the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons. The request for a pardon is made by one of Kehoe’s descendants. Kehoe proclaims his innocence until his death. The Board recommends the pardon after investigating Kehoe’s trial and the circumstances surrounding it. Shapp praises Kehoe, saying the men called “Molly Maguires” are “martyrs to labour” and heroes in the struggle to establish a union and fair treatment for workers.


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Death of P. S. O’Hegarty, Writer, Editor & Historian

Patrick Sarsfield O’Hegarty (Irish: Pádraig Sáirséal Ó hÉigeartaigh), Irish writer, editor and historian and a member of the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, dies on December 17, 1955.

O’Hegarty is born on December 29, 1879, at Carrignavar, County Cork, to John and Katherine (née Hallahan) Hegarty. His parents’ families emigrate to the United States after the Great Famine, and his parents are married in Boston, Massachusetts. His father is a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

He is educated at North Monastery CBS, where he forms an enduring friendship with Terence MacSwiney. In 1888, his father dies of tuberculosis at the age of 42. Left destitute, his mother pawns her wedding ring to pay for an advertisement looking for work, and eventually becomes a cook.

He joins the postal service in Cork in 1897. Along with J. J. Walsh, he plays on the Head Post Office hurling team. He joins the IRB and represents Munster on the IRB Supreme Council. He starts writing for Arthur Griffith‘s United Irishman and the Shan van Vocht, a periodical established by Alice Milligan and Ethna Carbery.

He serves at the main Postal Sorting Office in Mount Pleasant, London, from 1902 to 1913. Along with J. J. Walsh, he spends three years at King’s College London, studying for the Secretary’s Office. While he succeeds in his studies, Walsh does not and returns to Ireland. O’Hegarty becomes the IRB representative for South East England and joins the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin and becomes a strong advocate of the Irish language. In 1905, he is elected secretary of the local Dungannon Club, which draws in as members Robert Lynd, Herbert Hughes and George Cavan. In 1907, as Sinn Féin’s London Secretary, he approves and signs the membership card of Michael Collins, later becoming friend and mentor to Collins.

He has to return to Ireland for a break due to overwork in 1909 and gives up some of his work for the Gaelic League. However, he takes over as editor of the IRB publication, Irish Freedom. It is in this publication that he famously writes, concerning the visit of King George V to Ireland in 1911: “Damn your concessions, England: we want our country!” In 1912, at the height of the Playboy riots, he writes four articles entitled “Art and the Nation” in Irish Freedom, which take a very liberal and inclusionist approach to Anglo-Irish literature and art in general but invokes the wrath of many of the paper’s readers.

In 1913, he is re-posted to Queenstown (present-day Cobh) as postmaster. He continues editing nationalist newspapers such as Irish Freedom (founded in 1910 and suppressed in December 1914 on account of its seditious content) and An tÉireannach and joins the Irish Volunteers. At the outbreak of war he is moved to Shrewsbury, probably on account of his political activities. In 1915, he marries Wilhelmina “Mina” Smyth, a schoolteacher and suffragist, and is then moved to Welshpool, Montgomeryshire. In the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising, he is opposed to physical force. In 1918, he refuses to take the British Oath of Allegiance and resigns his position in the Post Office.

O’Hegarty feels that the Abbey Theatre is “doing good for Ireland” and supports W. B. Yeats against attacks from Arthur Griffith and like-minded Nationalists. He opposes the extremist views of D. P. Moran, who seeks a Roman Catholic Irish-speaking Ireland.

He is Secretary of the Irish Department of Post and Telegraphs from 1922 to 1945. He is elected a member of the Irish Academy of Letters in 1954.

His son, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, is a founder of the Irish-language publishing house Sáirséal agus Dill. His daughter Gráinne, a harpist, marries Senator Michael Yeats, son of W. B. Yeats.

O’Hegarty’s papers are acquired by the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas. This includes an outstanding collection of books, pamphlets and periodicals of W. B. Yeats.

(Pictured: “P. S. O’Hegarty, 1929,” pastel on paper by Harry Kernoff, RHA, property from the Yeats family)