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Birth of Helena Concannon, Historian, Writer & Politician

Helena Concannon (née Walsh), Irish historian, writer, language scholar and Fianna Fáil politician, is born in Maghera, County Londonderry, on October 28, 1878.

Concannon is educated by the Loreto nuns in Coleraine, County Londonderry. In 1897, she studies modern languages at the Royal University of Ireland on a three-year scholarship. She studies abroad during these years as in 1899, she travels to Germany and studies German in Berlin University accompanied by her friend, Mary Macken. She then travels to France to study French at Sorbonne University. In 1900, she graduates Bachelor of Arts with first class honours and goes on to study Master of Arts in 1902 at the Royal University of Ireland. She is fortunate to being one of the first generation of educated women.

In 1906, Concannon marries Tomás Bán Ó Conceanainn, who she met in 1900 when he arrived home from the United States. They settle down in County Galway where they share the same love for the Irish language and write many Irish texts. They have no children. In Galway, she is a professor at University College Galway where she teaches history, which mainly involves the history of Irish women. In 1909, she is offered a lectureship at University College Dublin, in Italian, but the offer is then withdrawn before she can accept it, so she decides to pursue a writing career.

Concannon produces over twenty books, including works on religion, the history of Ireland and Irish women’s history. Her works are highly impacted by her political and nationalist views. Her analyses of Irish history is based on Catholicism and patriotism. She is also an advocate of Irish language restoration. Her first writings are love poems to her husband. These poems are ”simple, sensuous and passionate.”

Concannon also produces a number of imaginative historical text for children. She uses her married name for her publications and her first book, entitled A Garden of girls, or the famous schoolgirls of former days, is published in 1914. It is about “school life and education of real little girls” Her next well known piece is the Life of St. Columban in 1915, which is a study about the Irish ancient monastic life and a biography of a sixth-century saint.

Two of Concannon’s books, Daughters of Banba (1922) and St. Patrick (1932), receive the Tailteann Medal for Literature, and The Poor Clares in Ireland (1929) wins the National University Prize, a D.Litt. higher doctorate degree for historical research.

Concannon’s most common publication, Women of ‘Ninety Eight, is dedicated to all the dead women and all the living ones who have given their loved ones. This book emerges on the ideologies of Catholicism and patriotism “praising the devotion of Irish nationalist women while emphasising the centrality of women’s spiritual and domestic role in the home to the well-being of the nation.” As this work is written during the time of the Irish War of Independence, she stresses the importance of women help during the rebellion as “they acted as messengers and intelligence officers,” and in some cases, they fought as any men.

Concannon was elected to the 8th Dáil for Fianna Fáil at the 1933 Irish general election for the National University of Ireland constituency, serving from February 8, 1933 until June 14, 1937.

Concerning the Land Purchase (Guarantee Fund) Bill 1935, which according to George Cecil Bennett will negatively impact the rural middle class of which he is a representative, Bennett accuses Concannon and her fellow Dublin men of not caring about the people of the country. Concannon goes on to vote that the Dáil should disagree with the Seanad Éireann-proposed bill with 71 others.

Though Concannon is a TD as a university representative, she votes with her party to remove university representation from the Dáil, leading one TD to say, “I am very much surprised to see such a distinguished scholar and such a great contributor to Irish literature as Deputy Mrs. Concannon voting for the disfranchisement of the University that she has so well and so ably represented.”

Concannon speaks on behalf of Irish women in the Dáil in 1936. She speaks on how Irish women play a fundamental role in Ireland’s agricultural economy and therefore more money should be put toward educating these women.

Concannon is one of the minority voices against the role appointed to women in Éamon de Valera‘s constitution. She does not contest the Dáil election of 1937.

After the adoption of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937, the National University of Ireland constituency is reconstituted in the new Seanad Éireann. The first election takes place in 1938, and Concannon is elected. She is a popular figure and is re-elected each election in the Seanad until she dies in office on February 27, 1952.


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Birth of Arthur Clery, Politician & University Professor

Arthur Edward Clery, Irish republican politician and university professor, is born at 46 Lower Leeson Street in Dublin on October 25, 1879.

Clery is the son of Arthur Clery (who also uses the names Arthur Patrick O’Clery and Arthur Ua Cléirigh), a barrister, and Catherine Moylan. His father, who practises in India, publishes books on early Irish history.

Clery is brought up to a considerable extent by a relative, Charles Dawson. A cousin, William Dawson, who uses the pen-name “Avis,” becomes his closest friend and associate. He is educated at the Catholic University School on Leeson Street (where he acquires the confirmation name “Chanel” in honour of the Marist martyr Peter Chanel, which he often uses as a pseudonym), at Clongowes Wood College, and University College Dublin in St. Stephen’s Green. He is a university contemporary of James Joyce.

Clery’s principal themes include the difficulties of Roman Catholic graduates seeking professional employment, dramatic criticism (he hails Lady Gregory‘s play Kincora as the Abbey Theatre‘s first masterpiece but is repulsed by the works of John Millington Synge), Catholic-Protestant rivalry, tension within the Dublin professional class, and the vagaries of the Gaelic revival movement.

Clery advocates partition on the basis of a two nations theory, first advanced in 1904–1905, possibly in response to William O’Brien‘s advocacy of securing Home Rule through compromise with moderate Unionists. Several of his articles on the subject are reprinted in his 1907 essay collection, The Idea of a Nation.

Clery derives this unusual view for a nationalist from several motives, including a belief that arguments for Irish nationalists’ right to self-determination can be used to justify Ulster Unionists’ right to secede from Ireland, fear that it might be impossible to obtain Home Rule unless Ulster is excluded, and distaste for both Ulster Protestants and Ulster Catholics, whom he sees as deplorably anglicised. He remains a partitionist for the rest of his life. He is not particularly successful as a barrister, but on the establishment of University College Dublin (UCD) in 1909, he is appointed to the part-time post of Professor of the Law of Property.

After 1914, Clery moves from unenthusiastic support for John Redmond‘s Irish Parliamentary Party to separatism. Before the 1916 Easter Rising he is an inactive member of the Irish Volunteers, and is defence counsel at the court-martial of Eoin MacNeill. During the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland he campaigns for Sinn Féin. As one of the few barristers prepared to assist the Sinn Féin Court system, he is appointed to the Dáil Supreme Court in 1920.

Clery opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty because he believes it will lead to re-Anglicisation and the eventual return of the Union. He is elected to Dáil Éireann as an abstentionist independent Teachta Dála (TD) for the National University of Ireland constituency at the June 1927 Irish general election.

Clery does not take his seat and does not contest the September 1927 Irish general election since new legislation obliges candidates to pledge in advance that they will take their seat. He is one of the lawyers who advises Éamon de Valera that the Irish Free State is not legally obliged to pay the Land Annuities which had been agreed in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922.

Clery was a close friend of Tom Kettle, with whom he founds a dining club, the “Cui Bono.” Hugh Kennedy is also a lifelong friend. As Auditor of the L & H, he tries to prevent James Joyce from reading a paper praising Henrik Ibsen, asserting that “the effect of Henrik Ibsen is evil,” but Joyce succeeds in reading it after he argues his case with the college president. The principal influence on Clery is the Irish Ireland editor D. P. Moran, to whose weekly paper, The Leader, Clery becomes a frequent contributor. In addition to The Idea of a Nation, he publishes Dublin Essays (1920) and (as Arthur Synan) The coming of the king.

Clery dies, unmarried, on November 20, 1932, in Dublin from heart failure caused by pneumonia. He is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery, Deansgrange, County Dublin.


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Death of Ulick O’Connor, Writer, Historian & Critic

Ulick O’Connor, Irish writer, historian and critic, dies on October 7, 2019, in Rathgar, County Dublin.

Born in Rathgar on October 12, 1928, to Matthew O’Connor, the Dean of the Royal College of Surgeons, O’Connor attends Garbally College, Ballinasloe, St. Mary’s College, Rathmines, and later University College Dublin (UCD), where he studies law and philosophy, becoming known as a keen sporting participant, especially in boxing, rugby and cricket, as well as a distinguished debater. During his time at UCD he is an active member of the Literary and Historical Society. He subsequently studies at Loyola University, New Orleans. He was called to the bar in 1951.

After practising at the Irish Bar in Dublin, O’Connor spends time as a critic before turning to writing. His work spans areas such as biography, poetry, Irish history, drama, diary, and literary criticism. He is a sports correspondent for The Observer from 1955 to 1961.

O’Connor is a well-known intellectual figure in contemporary Irish affairs and expresses strong opinions against censorship and the war on drugs. He contributes a regular poetry column to the Irish daily, the Evening Herald, also writes a column for the Sunday Mirror and a sporting column for The Sunday Times, as well as broadcasting on RTÉ.

O’Connor’s best-known writing is his biographies of Oliver St. John Gogarty, Brendan Behan, his studies of the early 20th-century Irish troubles and the Irish Literary Revival.

O’Connor is also known for the autobiographical The Ulick O’Connor Diaries 1970-1981: A Cavalier Irishman (2001), which details his encounters with well-known Irish and international figures, ranging from political (Jack Lynch and Paddy Devlin) to the artistic (Christy Brown and Peter Sellers). It also documents the progress of the Northern Ireland peace process during the same time, and the progress of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Although he travels extensively, he lives in his parental home in Dublin’s Rathgar. He is a member of Aosdána.

O’Connor’s great-grandfather is Matthew Harris, Land Leaguer, Fenian, and Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) Member of Parliament. He is related to American actor Carroll O’Connor. He dies in Rathgar on October 7, 2019, five days short of his 91st birthday. He is buried at Dean’s Grange Cemetery, Deansgrange, County Dublin.


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Death of James Ryan, Doctor, Revolutionary & Fianna Fáil Politician

James Ryan, medical doctor, revolutionary and politician who serves in every Fianna Fáil government from 1932 to 1965, dies on his farm at Kindlestown, County Wicklow, on September 25, 1970.

Ryan is born on the family farm at Tomcoole, near Taghmon, County Wexford, on December 6, 1892. The second-youngest of twelve children, he is educated at St. Peter’s College, Wexford, and Ring College, Waterford. In 1911, he wins a county council scholarship to University College Dublin (UCD) where he studies medicine.

In March 1917, Ryan passes his final medical examinations. That June he sets up medical practice in Wexford. In 1921, he moves to Dublin where he opens a doctor’s practice at Harcourt Street, specialising in skin diseases at the Skin and Cancer Hospital on Holles Street. He leaves medicine in 1925, after he purchases Kindlestown, a large farm near Delgany, County Wicklow. He lives there and it remains a working farm until his death.

In July 1919, Ryan marries Máirín Cregan, originally from County Kerry and a close friend of Sinéad de Valera throughout her life. Cregan, like her husband, also fought in the Easter Rising and is subsequently an author of children’s stories in Irish. They have three children together.

One of Ryan’s sisters, Mary Kate, marries Seán T. O’Kelly, one of Ryan’s future cabinet colleagues and a future President of Ireland. Following her death O’Kelly marries her sister, Phyllis Ryan. Another of Ryan’s sisters, Josephine (‘Min’) Ryan, marries Richard Mulcahy, a future leader of Fine Gael. Another sister, Agnes, marries Denis McCullough, a Cumann na nGaedheal TD from 1924 to 1927. He is also the great-grandfather of Ireland and Leinster Rugby player James Ryan.

While studying at university in 1913, Ryan joins the Gaelic League at Clonmel. The company commander recruits the young Catholic nationalist, who becomes a founder-member of the Irish Volunteers and is sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) the following year. In 1916, he goes first to Cork to deliver a message from Seán Mac Diarmada to Tomás Mac Curtain that the Easter Rising is due to happen on Easter Sunday, then to Cork again in a 12-hour journey in a car to deliver Eoin MacNeill‘s cancellation order, which attempts to stop the rising. When he arrives back on Tuesday, he serves as the medical officer in the General Post Office (GPO) and treats many wounds, including James Connolly‘s shattered ankle, a wound which gradually turns gangrenous. He is, along with Connolly, one of the last people to leave the GPO when the evacuation takes place. Following the surrender of the garrison, he is deported to HM Prison Stafford in England and subsequently Frongoch internment camp. He is released in August 1916.

Ryan rejoins the Volunteers immediately after his release from prison, and in June 1917, he is elected Commandant of the Wexford Battalion. His political career begins the following year when he is elected as a Sinn Féin candidate for the constituency of South Wexford in the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland. Like his fellow Sinn Féin MPs, he refuses to attend the Westminster Parliament. Instead he attends the proceedings of the First Dáil on January 21, 1919. As the Irish War of Independence goes on, he becomes Brigade Commandant of South Wexford and is also elected to Wexford County Council, serving as chairman on one occasion. In September 1919, he is arrested by the British and interned on Spike Island and later Bere Island. In February 1921, he is imprisoned at Kilworth Internment Camp, County Cork. He is later moved on Ballykinlar Barracks in County Down and released in August 1921.

In the 1922 Irish general election, Ryan and one of the other two anti-Treaty Wexford TDs lose their seats to pro-Treaty candidates. During the Irish Civil War, he is arrested and held in Mountjoy Prison before being transferred to Curragh Camp, where he embarks on a 36-day hunger strike. While interned he wins back his Dáil seat as an abstentionist at the 1923 Irish general election. He is released from prison in December 1923.

In 1926, Ryan is among the Sinn Féin TDs who follow leader Éamon de Valera out of the party to found Fianna Fáil. They enter the Dáil in 1927 and spend five years on the opposition benches.

Following the 1932 Irish general election, Fianna Fáil comes to office and Ryan is appointed Minister for Agriculture, a position he continuously holds for fifteen years. He faces severe criticism over the Anglo-Irish trade war with Britain as serious harm is done to the cattle trade, Ireland’s main export earner. The trade war ends in 1938 with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement between both governments, after a series of talks in London between the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, de Valera, Ryan and Seán Lemass.

In 1947, after spending fifteen years as Minister for Agriculture, Ryan is appointed to the newly created positions of Minister for Health and Minister for Social Welfare. Following Fianna Fáil’s return to power at the 1951 Irish general election, he returns as Minister for Health and Social Welfare. Following the 1954 Irish general election, Fianna Fáil loses power and he moves to the backbenches once again.

Following the 1957 Irish general election, Fianna Fáil are back in office and de Valera’s cabinet has a new look to it. In a clear message that there will be a change to economic policy, Ryan, a close ally of Seán Lemass, is appointed Minister for Finance, replacing the conservative Seán MacEntee. The first sign of a new economic approach comes in 1958, when Ryan brings the First Programme for Economic Development to the cabinet table. This plan, the brainchild of T. K. Whitaker, recognises that Ireland will have to move away from self-sufficiency toward free trade. It also proposes that foreign firms should be given grants and tax breaks to set up in Ireland.

When Lemass succeeds de Valera as Taoiseach in 1959, Ryan is re-appointed as Minister for Finance. Lemass wants to reward him for his loyalty by also naming him Tánaiste. However, the new leader feels obliged to appoint MacEntee, one of the party elders to the position. Ryan continues to implement the First Programme throughout the early 1960s, achieving a record growth rate of 4 percent by 1963. That year an even more ambitious Second Programme is introduced. However, it overreaches and has to be abandoned. In spite of this, the annual growth rate averages five percent, the highest achieved since independence.

Ryan does not stand in the 1965 Irish general election, after which he is nominated by the Taoiseach to Seanad Éireann, where he joins his son, Eoin Ryan Snr. At the 1969 dissolution he retires to his farm at Kindlestown, County Wicklow, where he dies at age 77 on September 25, 1970. He is buried at Redford Cemetery, Greystones, County Wicklow. His grandson, Eoin Ryan Jnr, serves in the Oireachtas from 1989 to 2007 and later in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009.


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Birth of Irish Novelist Joseph O’Connor

Joseph Victor O’Connor, an Irish novelist, is born in Dublin on September 20, 1963. His 2002 historical novel Star of the Sea is an international number one bestseller. Before success as an author, he is a journalist with the Sunday Tribune newspaper and Esquire. He is a regular contributor to RTÉ and a member of the Irish artists’ association Aosdána.

O’Connor is the eldest of five children and brother of singer Sinéad O’Connor. He is from the Glenageary area of south Dublin. His parents are Sean O’Connor, a structural engineer who later turns barrister, and Marie O’Connor.

Educated at Blackrock College, O’Connor graduates from University College Dublin (UCD)with an MA in Anglo-Irish literature. He does post-graduate work at Oxford University and receives a second MA from Leeds Metropolitan University‘s Northern School of Film and Television in screenwriting. In the late 1980s, he works for the British Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign. His second novel, Desperadoes (1993), draws on his experiences in revolutionary Nicaragua.

O’Connor’s novel Cowboys and Indians (1991) is on the shortlist for the Whitbread Book Award.

On February 10, 1985, O’Connor’s mother is killed in a car accident. The mother of his character Sweeney in The Salesman (1998) dies in the same manner.

In 2002, O’Connor writes the novel Star of the Sea, which The Economist lists as one of the top books of 2003. His 2010 novel Ghost Light is loosely based on the life of the actress Maire O’Neill, born Mary “Molly” Allgood, and her relationship with the Irish playwright John Millington Synge. It is published by Harvill Secker of London in 2010.

O’Connor is a Research Fellow at the New York Public Library and Visiting Professor of Creative Writing/Writer in Residence at Baruch College, the City University of New York.

In 2014, O’Connor is announced as the inaugural Frank McCourt Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick, where he teaches on the MA in Creative Writing.

O’Connor is a regular contributor to Drivetime, an evening news and current affairs programme on RTÉ Radio 1.

O’Connor’s Shadowplay, published in 2019, is shortlisted for the2019 Costa Book Award in the Novel category.

O’Connor is married to television and film writer Anne-Marie Casey. They have two sons. He and his family have lived in London and Dublin, and occasionally reside in New York City.


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Death of Liam Ó Briain, Irish Language Expert & Political Activist

Liam Ó Briain, Irish language expert and political activist, dies on August 12, 1974, in Cabinteely, County Dublin.

Christened as William O’Brien, Ó Briain is born at 10 Church Street, North Wall, Dublin, on September 16, 1888, the seventh child of Arthur O’Brien, clerk, and Mary O’Brien (née Christie), who is from County Meath. He takes an interest in the Irish language from an early age and begins learning Irish by himself from a grammar book, as it is not encouraged by his teachers at the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School nor spoken by his parents. While still at the O’Connell School, he starts using the Irish version of his name. He also attends meetings of the Gaelic League, then attends University College Dublin (UCD) on a scholarship, where he studies French, English and Irish, receiving a BA (1909) and an MA (1910).

UCD decides to start awarding one annual scholarship for overseas travel in 1911, and Ó Briain wins the first one, using it to visit Germany and study under Kuno Meyer and Rudolf Thurneysen. After three years, he returns home, where he rejoins the Gaelic League and begins teaching French at UCD. He also joins the Irish Volunteers then, the following year, Seán T. O’Kelly convinces him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Ó Briain sees action with the Irish Citizen Army. He comes into conflict with his commander, Michael Mallin, as he wants to pursue a strategy without the Dublin brigade being “cooped up in the city.” However, Mallin overrules him and insists they should focus on taking Dublin Castle. He spends two months in Wandsworth Prison in London and six months in Frongoch internment camp in Wales before being released to discover that he has been fired from his job. However, he quickly obtains a professorship in Romance languages at University College Galway (UCG).

Around this time, Ó Briain joins Sinn Féin, and he stands unsuccessfully for the party in Mid Armagh at the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, taking 5,689 votes. His campaign leads, indirectly, to his arrest and three months in jail in Belfast. In 1920, following his release, he is appointed a judge in the then-illegal republican court system in Galway, and visits both France and Italy to try to source weapons for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In November 1920, he is arrested in the UCG dining room by Black and Tans, and is imprisoned for thirteen months, first in Galway and then in the Curragh camp in County Kildare, thereby missing the conclusion of the Irish War of Independence. By the time he is released, the Anglo-Irish Treaty has been signed. He supports the treaty and takes no further part in militant activity.

In the newly independent Ireland, Ó Briain remains a professor at Galway. He also stands in the 1925 Seanad election, although he is not successful. He is the founding secretary of the Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe theatre, also acting in many of its productions, and spends much time translating works from English and the Romance languages into Irish. He stands to become president of UCG in 1945, but is not elected, and in the 1940s and 1950s is best known for his many appearances on television and radio.

From his retirement in 1959, Ó Briain lives in Dublin. In 1974, the National University of Ireland (NUI) confers an honorary doctorate on him. He dies on August 12, 1974, at St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Cabinteely, County Dublin. His funeral to Glasnevin Cemetery is almost a state occasion, with a huge attendance of public figures, and a military firing party at the graveside, where the oration is given by Micheál Mac Líammóir and a lesson is read by Siobhán McKenna. For days after his death, the newspapers carry tributes to his many-sided career and personality. On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and Art Ó Beoláin write commemorative articles in Feasta.

On September 1, 1921, Ó Briain marries Helen Lawlor, of Dublin, who dies two years before him. The couple’s only child is Eibhlín Ní Bhriain, who is a journalist for The Irish Times and other periodicals.


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Birth of Dermot Weld, Former Jockey & Successful Racehorse Trainer

Dermot K. Weld, former jockey, and one of Ireland’s most successful racehorse trainers, is born on July 29, 1948, in Kildare, County Kildare. He sets the record in 2000 for the most winners trained in Ireland with 2,578. He wins the Irish Flat Training Championship eight times in 1983, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998. As a trainer, he wins the Melbourne Cup in Australia twice, all five of the Irish Classics, the Epsom Derby and Epsom Oaks, the Hong Kong Mile, Derby Italiano, American Derby, and Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Weld is educated at Newbridge College and University College Dublin (UCD), becoming a qualified veterinarian in 1970, at the time, the youngest qualified vet in Ireland. In 2016, he is awarded UCD Alumnus of the Year in Veterinary Medicine.

Weld starts his career as an amateur jockey, obtaining a training licence in 1972. He then takes over the stable at Rosewell House, in The Curragh, from his father, Charlie Weld, who is also a successful racehorse trainer. He goes on to win the Irish Flat Training Championship eight times in 1983, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1998.

Weld sets a new record for the most winners trained in Ireland with 2,578 in August 2000, holding the record until Willie Mullins overtakes it in May 2024. During his training career, he saddles over 4,000 winners (to 2016).

Weld is played by Brendan Gleeson in the feature film The Cup (2011).


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Death of Malachi Martin, Irish American Catholic Priest

Malachi Brendan Martin, also known under the pseudonym of Michael Serafian, Irish-born American Traditionalist Catholic priest, biblical archaeologist, exorcist, palaeographer, professor, and writer on the Catholic Church, dies in New York City on July 27, 1999.

Martin is born on July 23, 1921, in Ballylongford, County Kerry, to a middle-class family in which the children are raised speaking Irish at the dinner table. His parents, Conor and Katherine Fitzmaurice Martin, have five sons and five daughters. Four of the five sons become priests, including his younger brother, Francis Xavier Martin.

Martin attends Belvedere College in Dublin, then studies philosophy for three years at University College Dublin (UCD). On September 6, 1939, he becomes a novice with the Society of Jesus. He teaches for three years, spending four years at Milltown Park, Dublin, and is ordained in August 1954.

Upon completion of his degree course in Dublin, Martin is sent to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where he takes a doctorate in archaeology, Oriental history, and Semitic languages. He starts postgraduate studies at both the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Oxford. He specializes in intertestamentary studies, Jesus in Jewish and Islamic sources, Ancient Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts. He undertakes additional study in rational psychology, experimental psychology, physics, and anthropology.

Martin participates in the research on the Dead Sea Scrolls and publishes 24 articles on Semitic palaeography. He does archaeological research and works extensively on the Byblos syllabary in Byblos, in Tyre, and in the Sinai Peninsula. He assists in his first exorcism while working in Egypt for archaeological research. In 1958, he publishes a work in two volumes, The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Martin’s years in Rome coincide with the beginning of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which is to transform the Catholic Church in a way that the initially liberal Martin begins to find distressing. He becomes friends with Monsignor George Gilmary Higgins and Father John Courtney Murray.

In Rome, Martin becomes a professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, where he teaches Aramaic, Hebrew, palaeography, and Sacred Scripture. He also teaches theology, part-time, at Loyola University Chicago‘s John Felice Rome Center. He works as a translator for the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Ancient Oriental Churches Division of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity under Bea. He becomes acquainted with Jewish leaders, such as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in 1961 and 1962. He accompanies Pope Paul VI on a trip to Jordan in January 1964. He resigned his position at the Pontifical Institute in June 1964.

In 1964, Martin requests a release from his vows and from the Jesuit Order. He receives a provisional release in May 1965 and a dispensation from his vows of poverty and obedience on June 30, 1965. Even if dispensed from his religious vow of chastity, he remains under the obligation of chastity if still an ordained secular priest. He maintains that he remains a priest, saying that he had received a dispensation from Paul VI to that effect.

Martin moves to New York City in 1966, working as a dishwasher, a waiter, and taxi driver, while continuing to write. He co-founds an antiques firm and is active in communications and media for the rest of his life.

In 1967, Martin receives his first Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1970, he publishes the book The Encounter: Religion in Crisis, winning the Choice Book Award of the American Library Association. He then publishes Three Popes and the Cardinal: The Church of Pius, John and Paul in its Encounter with Human History (1972) and Jesus Now (1973). In 1970, he becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen.

In 1969, Martin receives a second Guggenheim Fellowship, allowing him to write his first of four bestsellers, Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Living Americans (1976). In the book, he calls himself an exorcist, claiming he assisted in several exorcisms. According to McManus Darraugh, William Peter Blatty “wrote a tirade against Malachi, saying his 1976 book was a fantasy, and he was just trying to cash in.” Darraugh also says that Martin became “an iconic person in the paranormal world.”

Martin serves as religious editor for the National Review from 1972 to 1978. He is interviewed twice by William F. Buckley, Jr. for Firing Line on PBS. He is an editor for the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Martin is a periodic guest on Art Bell‘s radio program, Coast to Coast AM, between 1996 and 1998. The show continues to play tapes of his interviews on Halloween.

Martin’s The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West is published in 1990. It is followed in 1996 by Windswept House: A Vatican Novel.

The Vatican restores Martin’s faculty to celebrate Mass in 1989, at his request. He is strongly supported by some Traditionalist Catholic sources and severely criticized by other sources, such as the National Catholic Reporter. He serves as a guest commentator for CNN during the live coverage of the visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States in October 1995.

On July 27, 1999, Martin dies in Manhattan of an intracerebral haemorrhage, four days after his 78th birthday. It is caused by a fall in his Manhattan apartment. The documentary Hostage to the Devil claims that Martin says he was pushed from a stool by a demonic force.

Martin’s funeral takes place in St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in West Orange, New Jersey, before burial at Gate of Heaven Cemetery, in Hawthorne, New York.


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Death of Richard Corish, Politician & Trade Unionist

Richard Corish, Irish politician and trade unionist, dies in Wexford, County Wexford, on July 19, 1945. His involvement in the Labour Party for over 25 years and his contribution to the development of Wexford makes him one of the key figures in Wexford’s long history.

Born at 35 William Street in Wexford on September 17, 1886, Corish is the eldest child of carpenter Peter Corish and Mary Murphy. He is educated by the Christian Brothers in the town on George’s Street and leaves school at fourteen years old, which is not unusual at this time.

On September 29, 1913, at 27 years of age, he marries Catherine Bergin, daughter of labourer Daniel Bergin. They have six children, including Brendan.

Corish works as a fitter in the Wexford Engineering foundry the Star Iron Works. It is in this job that he witnesses the poor working conditions that industrial workers have to face all over the country. Many people of Ireland feel that this needs to change and so, in 1909, James Larkin forms the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). Many important figures join the union including P. T. Daly, James Connolly and eventually Corish himself, who becomes a voice for the Wexford workers.

The Wexford lockout from 1911 to 1912 that ensues because of this union is the event that first brings public attention to Corish in his hometown. Wexford employers counter the ITGWU by locking out their employees. On a conciliation committee, Corish represents the workers of the town and becomes a leader of this local union. During the lockout, he is arrested, spending a night in jail, for expressing his anger to a recently employed non-union foundry worker.

When visiting Wexford to support the workers, ITGWU leader James Larkin and trusted members James Connolly and P. T. Daly are put up in the Corish household on William Street.

In February 1912, the dispute is resolved with the introduction of the Irish Foundry Workers’ Union of which Corish is secretary until 1915. His career as a tradesman however is over as he is blacklisted by all employers. This new union is absorbed by the ITGWU two years later. He remains a respected figure in the town, especially by the foundry workers, and continues as secretary in the ITGWU until 1921.

Corish first takes his seat in the Wexford Borough Council in January 1913, where he is given the title of “Alderman.”

In May 1916, Corish is arrested after being suspected of having involvement in the Easter Rising and is imprisoned in Stafford, England until June. He is often targeted because of his republican activism, receiving a life-threatening letter in 1920 regarding the killing of Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers.

Corish is first elected to Wexford County Council in 1920 and later that year is appointed mayor of the town.

Corish is an Irish Labour Party representative. However, as the Labour Party in the southern 26 counties, later the Irish Free State, choose not to contest the 1921 Irish elections, Corish runs as a Sinn Féin candidate and is elected to Dáil Éireann for the Wexford constituency.

Corish supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty and votes in favour of it. He also runs as a member of the Labour Party at the 1922 Irish general election. His involvement in the trade union movement and his clear speech-giving skills displayed during a visit from Michael Collins to Wexford that same year are what give him a fighting chance in the election. He is elected and serves in Dáil Éireann until his death in 1945.

He is a public supporter of the Garda Síochána, expressing his disagreement with the reductions in Garda pay and allowances in 1924 and 1929.

Corish is a member of the governing body of University College Dublin (UCD) as well as the Irish National Foresters, and is its High Chief Ranger in 1942.

Corish is a recipient of the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of Wexford in early 1945 and dies later that year, on July 19, 1945, after serving as mayor and council member for 25 years. During exploratory surgery for stomach pain, the doctors of Wexford County Hospital realise that his condition is much worse than imagined and he dies at the age of 58 shortly thereafter. After appearing in the Dáil only a few days prior, his death is unexpected.

His death causes a by-election to the Dáil which is won by his son, Brendan Corish, who is later a leader of the Labour Party and Tánaiste. He serves as mayor up until his retirement in 1982. Another son, Des Corish, later also becomes mayor of the town. Corish’s granddaughter, Helen Corish, is mayor in 1990.

Corish Park is built in his honour in the early 1950s.


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Birth of John Oxx, Thoroughbred Trainer

John M. Oxx, retired Irish trainer of thoroughbred racehorses, is born on July 14, 1950. By the end of the 2009 season he had trained thirty-five Group One winners over his career, including the winners of eleven Classic races. He is best known as the trainer of Sinndar and Sea The Stars.

Oxx has been widely praised for the care and undemonstrative authority with which he approaches the training and racing of his horses. He is particularly known for being highly selective when choosing when and where his horses will run.

Oxx is the son of John Oxx Sr., who is himself a successful trainer, winning eight Irish classic races. In 1950, his father purchases Currabeg, at the southwestern end of the Curragh in County Kildare, where Oxx Jr. takes over training. He graduates from University College, Dublin, as a veterinary surgeon in 1973, and works as his father’s assistant before taking over the stable in 1979. In that year he has his first win and his first Group win with Orchestra.

Oxx’s first Classic win comes with Eurobird in the Irish St. Leger of 1987. He has further success in the same race with Petite Ile two years later. In 1995, he trains Ridgewood Pearl, bred and owned by Sean and Anne Coughlan, to victories in the Irish 1,000 Guineas, the Coronation Stakes at Ascot Racecourse, the Prix du Moulin de Longchamp, and the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Belmont Park, in the United States, meaning that the filly has six wins in eight races and that she wins Group One races in four different countries in the same season.

The Aga Khan begins to support Oxx’s yard with a number of yearlings after Eurobird’s win in 1987. When he decides to withdraw his racehorses from England following Aliysa’s disqualification in the Epsom Oaks of 1989, he establishes a significant presence in Oxx’s yard. Without a budget of his own to spend on yearlings, Oxx continues to be reliant on horses bred by owners with whom he has an association. In some years, he concedes, “you wouldn’t have anything remotely near Group One standard.”

Many of Oxx’s major race wins have come from Aga Khan-owned horses, beginning with Manntari’s victory in the Vincent O’Brien National Stakes at the Curragh in 1993, and continuing with Timarida’s win in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown Racecourse in 1996, followed by Ebadiyla’s victory in the 1997 Irish Oaks. He also wins that race with Winona the following year. In 2000, he trains the Aga Khan’s brilliant Sinndar to wins in the Epsom Derby, the Irish Derby, and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, making the colt the only horse ever to win that trio of races and at the time one of only three Irish-based horses to ever win the Arc.

The partnership also has successes with Alamshar, who wins the Irish Derby and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot Racecourse; with Azamour, winner of the St. James’s Palace Stakes, the Irish Champion Stakes, the Prince of Wales Stakes and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 2004 and 2005; and with Kastoria, whose 2006 season includes a win in the Irish St. Leger.

Oxx comes to wider public attention when guiding Sea The Stars through a famous 2009 season in which he wins Group One races in England, Ireland and France, his six consecutive triumphs including the 2000 Guineas Stakes, the Epsom Derby and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He is typically understated when assessing the role of the trainer in the career of a great horse like Sea The Stars. “You can’t give them ability they don’t have,” he tells The Independent newspaper. “Really, it’s just a case of not messing it up – not to overtax the horse too soon, or ask it to do stupid things as a two-year-old. If you mind him sufficiently when he’s young, hopefully his ability will blossom.”

In an interview with The Observer, Oxx says of Sea The Stars: “I was always reading about racing and great horses of the past. So when you grow up with the history of racing and the history of breeding, the landmark horses that come along over a century, and more – to train one that’s in that league gives you the greatest satisfaction.”

Oxx serves as chairman of the Irish National Stud from 1985 to 1990. He is chairman of the Irish Racehorse Trainers’ Association from 1986 to 1991 and from 1993 to 1996. He serves on numerous other racing bodies and is chairman of the Racing Academy and Centre of Education. In 2008, he is given the Irish Racehorse Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame award.

Oxx marries Caitriona O’Sullivan in 1974. They have three children.