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Birth of John Bruton, Fine Gael Politician & 10th Taoiseach of Ireland

John Gerard Bruton, Irish Fine Gael politician who serves as Taoiseach from 1994 to 1997 and Leader of Fine Gael from 1990 to 2001, is born to a wealthy, Catholic farming family in Dunboyne, County Meath, on May 18, 1947. He plays a crucial role in advancing the process that leads to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Bruton is educated at Clongowes Wood College and then goes on to study economics at University College Dublin (UCD), where he receives an honours Bachelor of Arts degree and qualifies as a barrister from King’s Inns, but never goes on to practice law. He joins the Fine Gael party in 1965 and is narrowly elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1969 Irish general election, as a Fine Gael TD for Meath. At the age of 22, he is one of the youngest ever members of the Dáil at the time. He serves as a parliamentary secretary in the government of Liam Cosgrave (1973–77).

Following Fine Gael’s defeat at the 1977 Irish general election, the new leader, Garret FitzGerald, appoints Bruton to the front bench as Spokesperson on Agriculture. He is later promoted as Spokesperson for Finance. He plays a prominent role in Fine Gael’s campaign in the 1981 Irish general election, which results in another coalition with the Labour Party, with FitzGerald as Taoiseach. He receives a personal vote in Meath of nearly 23%, and at the age of only 34 is appointed Minister for Finance, the most senior position in the cabinet. In light of overwhelming economic realities, the government abandons its election promises to cut taxes. The government collapses unexpectedly on the night of January 27, 1982, when Bruton’s budget, that was to impose an unpopular value-added tax (VAT) on children’s shoes, is defeated in the Dáil.

The minority Fianna Fáil government which follows only lasts until November 1982, when Fine Gael once again returns to power in a coalition government with the Labour Party. However, when the new government is formed, Bruton is moved from Finance to become Minister for Industry and Energy. After a reconfiguration of government departments in 1983, he becomes Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism. In a cabinet reshuffle in February 1986, he is appointed again as Minister for Finance. Although he is Minister for Finance, he never presents his budget. The Labour Party withdraws from the government due to a disagreement over his budget proposals leading to the collapse of the government and another election.

Following the 1987 Irish general election, Fine Gael suffers a heavy defeat. Garret FitzGerald resigns as leader immediately, and a leadership contest ensues between Alan Dukes, Peter Barry and Bruton himself, with Dukes being the ultimate victor. Dukes’s term as leader is lackluster and unpopular. The party’s disastrous performance in the 1990 Irish presidential election, in which the party finishes in a humiliating and then unprecedented third in a national election, proves to be the final straw for the party and Dukes is forced to resign as leader shortly thereafter. Bruton, who is the deputy leader of Fine Gael at the time, is unopposed in the ensuing leadership election.

Bruton’s election is seen as offering Fine Gael a chance to rebuild under a far more politically experienced leader. However, his perceived right-wing persona and his rural background are used against him by critics and particularly by the media. However, to the surprise of critics and of conservatives, in his first policy initiative he calls for a referendum on a Constitutional amendment permitting the enactment of legislation allowing for divorce in Ireland.

By the 1992 Irish general election, the anti-Fianna Fáil mood in the country produces a major swing to the opposition, but that support goes to the Labour Party, not Bruton’s Fine Gael, which actually loses a further 10 seats. Even then, it initially appears that Fine Gael is in a position to form a government. However, negotiations stall in part from Labour’s refusal to be part of a coalition which would include the libertarian Progressive Democrats, as well as Bruton’s unwillingness to take Democratic Left into a prospective coalition. The Labour Party breaks off talks with Fine Gael and opts to enter a new coalition with Fianna Fáil.

In late 1994, the government of Fianna Fáil’s Albert Reynolds collapses. Bruton is able to persuade Labour to end its coalition with Fianna Fáil and enter a new coalition government with Fine Gael and Democratic Left. He faces charges of hypocrisy for agreeing to enter government with Democratic Left, as Fine Gael campaigned in the 1992 Irish general election on a promise not to enter government with the party. Nevertheless, on December 15, 1994, aged 47, he becomes the then youngest ever Taoiseach. This is the first time in the history of the state that a new government is installed without a general election being held.

Bruton’s politics are markedly different from most Irish leaders. Whereas most leaders had come from or identified with the independence movement Sinn Féin (in its 1917–22 phase), Bruton identifies more with the more moderate Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) tradition that Sinn Féin had eclipsed at the 1918 Irish general election.

Continued developments in the Northern Ireland peace process and Bruton’s attitude to Anglo-Irish relations come to define his tenure as Taoiseach. In February 1995, he launches the Anglo-Irish “Framework Document” with the British prime minister John Major. It foreshadows the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which, among other things, establishes an elected, power-sharing executive authority to be run by these onetime adversaries, ending 30 years of bloodletting that had claimed more than 3,000 lives. However, he takes a strongly critical position on the British Government‘s reluctance to engage with Sinn Féin during the Irish Republican Army‘s 1994–1997 ceasefire. He also establishes a working relationship with Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin; however, both are mutually distrustful of each other.

Bruton presides over a successful Irish Presidency of the European Union in 1996, and helps finalise the Stability and Growth Pact, which establishes macroeconomic parameters for countries participating in the single European currency, the euro. He is the fifth Irish leader to address a joint session of the United States Congress on September 11, 1996. He presides over the first official visit by a member of the British royal family since 1912, by Charles, Prince of Wales.

The coalition remains in force to contest the 1997 Irish general elections, which are indecisive, and Bruton serves as acting taoiseach until the Dáil convenes in late June and elects a Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats government. He retires from Irish politics in 2004 and serves as the European Union Ambassador to the United States (2004–09).

Bruton dies at the age of 76 on February 6, 2024, at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin, following a long bout with cancer. A state funeral is held on February 10 at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Church in Dunboyne.


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Birth of Barry Andrews, Fianna Fáil Politician

Barry Andrews, Fianna Fáil politician who serves as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency, is born in Dublin on May 16, 1967. He previously serves as Minister of State for Children from 2008 to 2011. He is a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency from 2002 to 2011.

Andrews comes from a family with strong political connections. His grandfather, Todd Andrews, fought in the Irish War of Independence and became a founder-member of Fianna Fáil, and his grandmother, Mary Coyle, was a member of Cumann na mBan. His father, David Andrews, served as a TD from 1965 to 2002 and is a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, while his uncle, Niall Andrews, is a former Fianna Fáil TD and MEP and his cousin, Chris Andrews (son of Niall Andrews), has been a Sinn Féin TD since 2020 (having previously served as a Fianna Fáil TD from 2007 to 2011). In April 2018, Andrews is described as “part of Fianna Fáil royalty.”

Andrews is educated at Blackrock College and attends university at University College Dublin (UCD). Before entering political life, he works as a secondary school teacher in Dublin from 1991 until 1997, working in Senior College Ballyfermot, Sutton Park School and Bruce College. While a secondary school teacher, he studies law at King’s Inns and qualifies as a barrister in 1997. He is called to the Bar in 1997 and practices as a barrister until 2003.

Andrews is first elected to public office in the 1999 Irish local elections as a Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Councillor. He is elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2002 Irish general election.

In June 2006, Andrews leads a group of Fianna Fáil backbenchers in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a backbench committee to influence government policy. At the 2007 Irish general election, he retains his seat in Dún Laoghaire with 8,587 votes.

Andrews is appointed Minister of State for Children in May 2008. As Minister, he frames the Government response to the Ryan Report on Institutional Abuse. This includes an Implementation Plan that delivers an additional 200 social workers for the HSE Child and Family Services. In April 2009, he introduces the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Scheme, which provides, for the first time, free universal access to pre-school education. The scheme benefits 65,000 children in 2013.

After the release of the Murphy Report into child abuse in the Dublin diocese in November 2009, Andrews, speaking at a conference in Dublin Castle, is asked about the position of the Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray. He says, “I think it’s everybody’s view that if adverse findings are made against an individual in a commission of inquiry, then it would be amazing that there be no consequences for them.” Bishop Murray subsequently apologises to survivors and resigns from office.

In December 2009, Andrews oversees the introduction of government policy to lower the legal age of consent to sixteen, citing a Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution report which recommends the legal age be reduced to sixteen from the current seventeen. He expresses the view the existing laws are “inappropriate” and out of touch with the modern reality of sexual relations between young people and promises to publish legislation to change the age of consent to sixteen. He notes that Ireland and Malta are “the only countries in Europe with an age of consent of seventeen.” However, the law is not passed by the Oireachtas before the 2011 Irish general election in which Fianna Fáil cedes power to a Fine Gael-Labour coalition.

On January 31, 2011, in the run up to the general election, Andrews is named Health spokesman by the party leader, Micheál Martin. He loses his seat at the general election.

In September 2012, Andrew is appointed Fianna Fáil Director of Elections for the Children’s referendum.

In February 2019, Andrews is selected as the Fianna Fáil candidate for the Dublin constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election. He is elected in May 2019 receiving 14.1% of the 1st preference votes, but as the fourth candidate elected, he does not take his seat until after the UK leaves the European Union on January 31, 2020.

In June 2023, Andrews is the recipient of the Defence, Security and Space Award at The Parliament Magazine‘s annual MEP Awards.

Andrews is a member of the European Parliament Committee on Development, the European Parliament Committee on International Trade, the European Parliament Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, the Delegation to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, the Delegation to the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee and the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with South Africa. His contributions to the International Trade committee include his work on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) where he is a rapporteur.

Andrews is a founder member of the European Parliament’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Alliance. He also founds the Brussels-Belfast Forum with members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Andrews is appointed EU Chief Observer for the 2023 Nigerian Federal and State elections by High Representative Vice President Josep Borrell. A report on the election is subsequently produced highlighting that the election was marred by a lack of transparency, public mistrust in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), violence, and vote buying, stressing the need for comprehensive electoral reforms.

Outside of his political career, Andrews is appointed chief executive of the Irish aid charity GOAL in November 2012, replacing the retiring founder, John O’Shea. In October 2016, he resigns from GOAL after it is revealed that other senior executives of GOAL have been involved in “large-scale fraud,” though there is no suggestion that he himself is involved in the scandal. In October 2017, the new CEO of GOAL announces a deficit of €31.6 million due to the fraud but says that it will survive after “one of the most challenging years” in its 40-year history.

In March 2017, Andrews is appointed as Director-General of the Irish State-supported EU think tank and advocacy body, the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), with the Chairperson of the IIEA, former Leader of the Labour Party, Ruairi Quinn, describing him as having the “political and administrative skills” of value to the IIEA.

Andrews is married and has two sons and a daughter. His brother, David McSavage, is a comedian, and he is a first cousin of former RTÉ television and radio presenter Ryan Tubridy.


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Birth of Evie Hone, Painter & Stained Glass Artist

Eva Sydney Hone RHA, Irish painter and stained glass artist usually known as Evie, is born at Roebuck Grove, County Dublin, on April 22, 1894. She is considered to be an early pioneer of cubism, although her best known works are stained glass. Her most notable pieces are the East Window in the Chapel at Eton College, which depicts the Crucifixion, and My Four Green Fields, which is now in the Government Buildings in Dublin.

Hone is the youngest daughter of Joseph Hone, of the Hone family, and Eva Eleanor (née Robinson), daughter of Sir Henry Robinson and granddaughter of Arthur Annesley, 10th Viscount Valentia. Her mother dies two days after her birth. She is related to artists Nathaniel Hone and Nathaniel Hone the Younger.

Shortly before her twelfth birthday, Hone suffers from polio (infant paralysis), suffering a fall while helping to decorate the Taney parish church for Easter. Her resulting ill health leads to her seeking treatment in Harley Street, Marylebone, Central London. She is educated by a governess, continuing her education in Switzerland, and goes on tours to Spain and Italy before moving to London in 1913. Her three sisters all marry British Army officers, and all are widowed in World War I.

Hone studies at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London and then under Bernard Meninsky at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. She meets Mainie Jellett when both are studying under Walter Sickert at the Westminster Technical Institute. She works under André Lhote and Albert Gleizes in Paris before returning to become influential in the modern movement in Ireland and becoming one of the founders of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. She is considered an early pioneer of Cubism but in the 1930s turns to stained glass, which she studies with Wilhelmina Geddes.

Hone is extremely devout. She spends time in an Anglican Convent in 1925 at Truro in Cornwall and converts to Catholicism in 1937. This possibly influences her decision to begin working in stained glass. Initially, she works as a member of the An Túr Gloine stained glass co-operative before setting up a studio of her own in Rathfarnham.

Hone’s most important works are probably the East Window, depicting the Crucifixion, for the Chapel at Eton College, Windsor (1949–1952) and My Four Green Fields, now located in Government Buildings, Dublin. This latter work, commissioned for the Irish Government’s Pavilion, wins first prize for stained glass in the 1939 New York World’s Fair. It graces CIÉ‘s Head Office in O’Connell Street from 1960 to about 1983. The East Window of Eton College is commissioned following the destruction of the building after a bomb is dropped in 1940 on the school during World War II. She is commissioned to design the East Window in 1949, and the new window is inserted in 1952. This work is featured on an Irish postage stamp in 1969. From December 2005 to June 2006, an exhibition of her work is on display at the National Gallery of Ireland. Saint Mary’s church in Clonsilla also features her stained glass windows.

Despite ill health, Hone continues to produce a huge number of small stained glass panels as well as oils, watercolours, and gouache landscapes. In 1953, she is represented at the Contemporary Irish Art exhibition at Aberystwyth, Wales, and at the Tate gallery in London, receiving as well an honorary LLD from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). In 1954, she is elected an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA).

Unmarried, Hone dies on March 13, 1955, while entering her parish church at Rathfarnham. She is survived by two of her sisters. Over 20,000 people visit a memorial exhibition of her work at University College Dublin (UCD), Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin, in 1958.

(Pictured: Portrait of Evie Hone by Hilda van Stockum)


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Birth of Ciarán Cuffe, Politician & European Parliament Member

Ciarán Cuffe, Irish politician who has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Dublin constituency since July 2019, is born in Shankill, Dublin, on April 3, 1963. He is a member of the Green Party, part of the European Green Party. He previously serves as a Minister of State from 2010 to 2011. He is a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency from 2002 to 2011.

Cuffe is the son of Luan Peter Cuffe and Patricia Sistine Skakel. His father, who trains at Harvard University under Walter Gropius, is an architect who was involved in town planning for Dún Laoghaire and Wicklow before taking over his brother-in-law’s architectural practice. Through his mother, he is a grandson of George Skakel, a founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, and a nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy. His cousins include the children of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy. His granduncle was the Fianna Fáil TD Patrick Little, and his great-grandfather, Philip Francis Little, was the first Premier of Newfoundland in 1854. He is a member of the Dublin Cycling Campaign and has cycled coast-to-coast across the United States.

Cuffe attends the Children’s House Montessori School in Stillorgan, Gonzaga College in Ranelagh, the University of Maine at Orono, University College Dublin (UCD), and the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He has degrees in architecture and urban planning from UCD. He teaches a master’s programme in urban regeneration and development at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Bolton Street. In 2019, he completes a Master of Science in cities at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Cuffe joins the Green Party in 1982, and campaigns with Students Against the Destruction of Dublin (SADD) in the 1980s. He is twice elected to Dublin City Council, in 1991 and 1999, for the South Inner City electoral area. In 1996, he launches a free bikes scheme in which bicycles are placed around Dublin city centre for use by the public.

Cuffe is an unsuccessful candidate for the Dublin Central constituency at the 1997 Irish general election but is elected to the Dáil Éireann at the 2002 Irish general election for the Dún Laoghaire constituency.

In June 2003, Cuffe steps down as the Green Party’s environment spokesperson after it is revealed that he held shares worth $70,000 in a number of oil exploration companies which he had inherited when his late mother had left him $1.3 million in her will. He is re-elected at the 2007 Irish general election.

Following the 2007 election, the Green Party forms a coalition government with two other political parties and a number of independent TDs. Just after the election, on May 28, 2007, Cuffe writes in his blog: “A deal with Fianna Fáil would be a deal with the Devil. We would be spat out after 5 years and decimated as a party.” He loses his seat at the 2011 Irish general election.

On March 23, 2010, as part of a reshuffle, Cuffe is appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, at the Department of Transport and at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, with special responsibility for Horticulture, Sustainable Travel, and Planning and Heritage.

While Cuffe is minister, the Oireachtas enacts the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010 to address land-use planning failures and over-zoning of development land. The legislation reforms the way development plans and local area plans are made and, for the first time in Irish legislation, includes a definition of Anthropogenic Climate Change and required energy use to be taken into account in planning decisions. He publishes the Climate Change Response Bill 2010, and an update of the National Spatial Strategy. He is head of the Irish delegation at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico.

Cuffe promotes healthy eating for children, school gardens and local markets. He publishes bills to address climate change, noise pollution, and heritage protection. In January 2011, he launches a new policy of allowing bicycles on off-peak Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) trains.

Cuffe resigns as Minister of State on January 23, 2011, when the Green Party withdraws from government.

At the 2014 Irish local elections, Cuffe is elected to Dublin City Council for Dublin North Inner City area, on the 13th count. He is appointed chairperson for the Dublin City Council Transportation Committee in 2014. As a member of the Central Area Committee for Dublin City Council, he works to provide a site for the Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire primary school on Dominick Street in 2017. He introduces 30 km/h speed limits to residential and school areas of Dublin and also advocates for a car-free College Green. He calls for an increase in affordable housing in Dublin, specifically for people with different incomes. Speaking on the Strategic Development Zone in the Dublin Docklands, he states, “We have seen a lot of cranes in the Docklands but not a lot of homes. Particularly affordable homes.” He proposes a Motion declaring a Climate Emergency which is approved at a meeting of the Council on May 13, 2019.

Cuffe is selected as the Green Party candidate for the Dublin constituency at the 2019 European Parliament elections. He tops the poll, receiving 63,849 votes and is elected as an MEP on the 13th count, with 17.54% first preference votes. He is also re-elected to Dublin City Council, but due to the prohibition on a dual mandate, this seat is co-opted to fellow Green Party member Janet Horner.

Cuffe is a member of the European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) and is the Coordinator of the Greens-European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA). He is also a member of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), and has written an initiative report, The Cuffe Report, on maximising the Energy Efficiency of the EU building stock (2020/2070). In 2022, he is appointed rapporteur on the directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD).

Cuffe is President of the European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources (EUFORES), a cross-party European parliamentary network gathering members of European, regional and national parliaments of the EU, and works to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.

In June 2023, Cuffe is the recipient of the Energy, Science and Research Award at The Parliament Magazine‘s annual MEP Awards.


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Birth of Josephine McNeill, First Irish Female Diplomat

Josephine McNeill, Irish diplomat, is born on March 31, 1895, in Fermoy, County Cork. She is the first Irish female diplomat appointed to represent Ireland abroad in a ministerial capacity.

McNeill is born Josephine Ahearne, the daughter of shopkeeper and hotelier, James Ahearne, and his wife Ellen Ahearne (née O’Brien). She attends the Loretto Convent, Fermoy, and goes on to graduate from University College Dublin (UCD) with a BA, H.Dip.Ed. in French and German. With this she begins a teaching career, at St. Louis’ Convent, Kiltimagh, at the Ursuline Convent, Thurles, and at Scoil Íde. Scoil Íde, the female counterpart to St. Enda’s School, had been established by her friend, Louise Gavan Duffy. She is fluent in the Irish language and takes an active part in the cultural elements of the Irish independence movement, such as literature and music. She is a member of Cumann na mBan, serving as a member of the executive committee in 1921.

McNeill becomes engaged to Pierce McCan, but he dies of influenza in Gloucester Gaol in March 1919. She marries James McNeill in 1923, while he is serving as Irish High Commissioner in London. Despite her reservations, she becomes a noted hostess, both in London and later in Dublin when her husband becomes the Governor-General of the Irish Free State from 1928 to 1932.

After the death of her husband in 1938, McNeill becomes the honorary secretary of the council of the Friends of the National Collections, as well as serving as chair of the executive committee of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association until 1950. As a member of the Department of External Affairs advisory committee on cultural relations, she writes on economic, social and cultural issues. She represents Ireland at the UNESCO general assembly in Paris in 1949.

McNeill is an active member of Clann na Poblachta from its foundation in 1946. She is appointed the minister to the Netherlands in 1950 by Seán MacBride, making her the first Irish female diplomat to represent the Republic of Ireland abroad in a ministerial capacity. This appointment is not well received by diplomats in the Department of External Affairs. Her reports from The Hague focus on the issues the Netherlands faces with decolonisation. In 1955, she becomes the minister to Sweden, going on to hold the joint appointment to Austria and Switzerland from 1956 to 1960, after which she retires. While serving in Switzerland she puts aside the resentment she feels towards Éamon de Valera based on how he had treated her husband, to sit with him during a convalescence while de Valera recovers from an eye operation.

McNeill is an amateur pianist and collects paintings and porcelains. In 1933, she publishes the Irish language book, Finnsgéalta ó India.

McNeill dies in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, on November 19, 1969. She is buried in Kilbarrack Cemetery. Her papers are held in the UCD Archives.


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Birth of Brendan Gleeson, Actor & Film Director

Brendan Gleeson, Irish actor and film director, is born in Dublin on March 29, 1955. He is the recipient of three Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) Awards, two British Independent Film Awards (BIFA), and a Primetime Emmy Award and has been nominated twice for a BAFTA Award, five times for a Golden Globe Award and once for an Academy Award. In 2020, he is listed at number 18 on The Irish Times list of Ireland’s greatest film actors. He is the father of actors Domhnall Gleeson and Brian Gleeson.

Gleeson is the son of Frank and Pat Gleeson. He has described himself as having been an avid reader as a child. He receives his second-level education at St. Joseph’s CBS in Fairview, Dublin, where he is a member of the school drama group. He receives his Bachelor of Arts at University College Dublin (UCD), majoring in English and Irish. After training as an actor, he works for several years as a secondary school teacher of Irish and English at the now defunct Catholic Belcamp College in north County Dublin. He works simultaneously as an actor while teaching, doing semi-professional and professional productions in Dublin and surrounding areas. He leaves the teaching profession to commit full-time to acting in 1991. In an NPR interview to promote Calvary in 2014, he states he was molested as a child by a Christian Brother in primary school but was in “no way traumatised by the incident.”

As a member of the Dublin-based Passion Machine Theatre company, Gleeson appears in several of the theatre company’s early and highly successful plays such as Brownbread (1987), written by Roddy Doyle and directed by Paul Mercier, Wasters (1985) and Home (1988), written and directed by Paul Mercier. He also writes three plays for Passion Machine: The Birdtable (1987) and Breaking Up (1988), both of which he directs, and Babies and Bathwater (1994) in which he acts. Among his other Dublin theatre work are Patrick Süskind‘s one-man play The Double Bass and John B. Keane‘s The Year of the Hiker.

Gleeson starts his film career at the age of 34. He first comes to prominence in Ireland for his role as Michael Collins in The Treaty, a television film broadcast on RTÉ One, and for which he wins a Jacob’s Award in 1992. He acts in such films as Braveheart, I Went Down, Michael Collins, Gangs of New York, Cold Mountain, 28 Days Later, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Lake Placid, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Mission: Impossible 2, and The Village. He wins critical acclaim for his performance as Irish gangster Martin Cahill in John Boorman‘s 1998 film The General.

In 2003, Gleeson is the voice of Hugh the Miller in an episode of the Channel 4 animated series Wilde Stories. While he portrays Irish statesman Michael Collins in The Treaty, he later portrays Collins’ close collaborator Liam Tobin in the film Michael Collins with Liam Neeson taking the role of Collins. He later goes on to portray Winston Churchill in Into the Storm, winning a Primetime Emmy Award for his performance. He plays Barty Crouch, Jr. impersonating Hogwarts professor Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody in the fourth, and Alastor Moody himself in fifth and seventh Harry Potter films. His son Domhnall plays Bill Weasley in the seventh and eighth films.

Gleeson provides the voice of Abbot Cellach in The Secret of Kells, an animated film co-directed by Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey of Cartoon Saloon, which premieres in February 2009 at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. He stars in the short film Six Shooter in 2006, written and directed by Martin McDonagh, which wins an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. In 2008, he stars in the comedy crime film In Bruges, also written and directed by McDonagh. The film, and his performance, enjoy huge critical acclaim, earning him several award nominations, including his first Golden Globe nomination. In the movie, he plays a mentor-like figure for Colin Farrell‘s hitman. In his review of In Bruges, Roger Ebert describes the elder Gleeson as having a “noble shambles of a face and the heft of a boxer gone to seed.”

In July 2012, Gleeson starts filming The Grand Seduction, with Taylor Kitsch, a remake of Jean-François Pouliot‘s French-Canadian La Grande Séduction (2003) directed by Don McKellar. The film is released in 2013. In 2016, he appears in the video game adaptation Assassin’s Creed and Ben Affleck‘s crime drama Live by Night. In 2017, he finishes Psychic, a short in which he directs and stars. From 2017 to 2019 he stars in the crime series Mr. Mercedes. He receives a Golden Globe Award nomination for his performance as Donald Trump in the Showtime series The Comey Rule (2020). In 2022, he reunites with Martin McDonagh in the tragic comedy The Banshees of Inisherin starring opposite Colin Farrell. For his performance as Colm Doherty, he receives numerous awards nominations, including the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actor. He receives an Emmy Award nomination for Stephen Frears‘s Sundance TV series State of the Union (2022).

Gleeson is a fiddle and mandolin player, with an interest in Irish folklore. He plays the fiddle during his roles in Cold Mountain, Michael Collins, The Grand Seduction, and The Banshees of Inisherin, and also features on Altan‘s 2009 live album. In the Coen brothers‘ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), he sings “The Unfortunate Rake.” He also makes a contribution in 2019 to the album by Irish folk group Dervish with a version of “Rocky Road to Dublin.”

Gleeson has been married to Mary Weldon since 1982. They have four sons: Domhnall, Fergus, Brían, and Rory. Domhnall and Brían are also actors. He speaks fluent Irish and is an advocate of the promotion of the Irish language. He is a fan of the English football club Aston Villa, as is his son Domhnall.


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Death of Kathleen Napoli McKenna, Nationalist Activist & Journalist

Kathleen Napoli McKenna, Irish nationalist activist and journalist closely associated with Arthur Griffith, dies in Rome, Italy, on March 22, 1988.

McKenna is born Kathleen Maria Kenna on September 9, 1897, in Oldcastle, County Meath. Her parents are William, a draper and hardware merchant, and Mary Kenna (née Hanley). She is the eldest child of seven, with three sisters and three brothers. She and her siblings add “Mc” to their surname as teenagers. Her maternal grandfather, a Fenian, miller and land agitator, is a strong influence on her. Agnes O’Farrelly is her paternal great aunt. She attends the Oldcastle Endowed School and goes on to pass the National University of Ireland (NUI) matriculation examination. She attends University College Dublin (UCD) briefly, but the family’s circumstances prevent her from completing her course.

McKenna’s father had been an active member of the Irish National Land League and the Meath Labour Union. He is one of the organisers of a short-lived local newspaper, Sinn Féin – Oldcastle Monthly Review, in 1902. Both her parents are members of Conradh na Gaielge. Arthur Griffith and Brian O’Higgins frequently visit the family home. Denounced by the local parish priest, Fr. Robert Barry, her father’s business goes into decline. The family leaves Oldcastle and moves to Dundalk in August 1915, and to Rugby, Warwickshire, England, in March 1916. In Rugby, her father teaches typing and shorthand, and her mother works in an ammunition factory. She works as a secretary for an engineering firm. Members of the family return to Ireland from 1919 to 1922, and by the time of her father’s death in 1939, he is living back in Oldcastle.

McKenna spends some holidays in Ireland and, during a visit to Dublin in the summer of 1919, she presents herself to the Sinn Féin offices in Harcourt Street. She has a letter of introduction from her father to Griffith, which emphasises her willingness to work for Irish independence. For her holidays, she works in the Sinn Féin press bureau and is employed as one of the first “Dáil girls” of the clandestine government. She is informed that if a planned news bulletin comes through, she will be summoned back to Dublin. In October 1919, she receives that summons and, after a typing test on November 11, she joins the Irish Bulletin under Minister for Publicity, Desmond FitzGerald, and director of publicity, Robert Brennan. She also becomes a member of the Conradh na Gaielge Parnell branch.

The Irish Bulletin is published five times a week, circulating the misdeeds of the British government in Ireland. McKenna edits and mimeographs a summary of “acts of aggression” from British forces in Ireland weekly, compiled by Anna Kelly. Frank Gallagher does most of the writing, edited by FitzGerald, and later Erskine Childers. Though she is sometimes described as the Bulletin‘s editor, she is more akin to an editorial assistant. R. M. Smyllie later recalls that she was in regular contact with the media. She types out each issue on a wax stencil in a typewriter which is used to create mimeograph copies, and then circulated to England. In the beginning, about 30 recipients, mostly London journalists, receive the Bulletin but by October 1920 it has grown to 600, and by July 1921 over 1,200. She also keeps the accounts, takes dictation of statements, and at times works up articles from notes given to her by Griffith or others. She also acts as a confidential messenger, couriering between Dáil departments and Irish Republican Army (IRA) leaders such as Michael Collins. Through this, she meets Moya Llewelyn Davies.

The Bulletin becomes a symbol of the underground government and a target for British forces. This necessitates the frequent moving of the operation from one Dublin hideout to another. She fears that if she were captured, she would break under interrogation. When FitzGerald is arrested, he is asked about “the girl wearing a green tam” in reference to McKenna’s tam-o’-shanter hat which prompts her to change her choice of hat. Despite the capture of a number of the Bulletin staff, as well as the capture of the office files and equipment on March 26, 1921, it never misses an issue.

McKenna’s sister Winifred also works as a secretary to the clandestine government. Her brother, Tadhg (Timothy), is a member of Sinn Féin and in Greenore, County Louth, is involved in trade union affairs. He is detained, beaten, and interned in March 1921. He is later an activist with the Irish Labour Party. Her brother William is a messenger for the Irish government during this period and during the Irish Civil War serves in the Free State Army.

After the truce in 1921, McKenna is assigned to the Dáil cabinet secretarial staff at the Mansion House, where she continues to work in the publicity department. She travels as Griffith’s private secretary to London as part of the Irish delegation to the treaty negotiations in October 1921. She is an admirer of both Griffith and Collins and is a firm supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She works as Griffith’s secretary until just before his death and also does some secretarial work for Collins during the negotiations. One of her sisters is anti-Treaty, and she later recalls that she lost friends due to her support of the treaty.

When the Irish Free State government is established, McKenna becomes a private secretary to a number of Ministers for External Affairs, including FitzGerald, Kevin O’Higgins and W. T. Cosgrave. In 1924, she is a private secretary to the Boundary Commission, as well as one of a pair of secretaries who travels with the Irish delegation to the London Imperial Conference in 1924. From 1927 to 1931 she is James Dolan‘s secretary and parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Before its closure in 1924, she writes a number of articles for the Freeman’s Journal.

McKenna marries Vittorio Napoli in 1931. He is a captain, and later a general, in the Italian royal grenadier guards. They meet when she is on holiday in Italy in 1927. For the first five years of their marriage, they live in the port of Derna in Cyrenaica, Libya, while her husband is stationed there. A son and daughter are born there. From September 1939 to June 1940, the family lives in Albania, but after Italy enters World War II, she and the children move to Viterbo. Her husband is taken prisoner in Greece in September 1943, and is detained in Germany and Poland. He returns to Italy in September 1945. Viterbo had been heavily bombed, and after Allied troops arrive, McKenna works as a translator and gives English language lessons to support her family. Her husband remains in the army, and they remain in Viterbo until 1956, later moving to Rome.

After the war, McKenna writes articles for the Irish Independent and other publications from Ireland, the United States and New Zealand, including The Irish Press, Irish Travel, Standard, Word, and Writer’s Digest. Sometimes she writes under her own name, as well as her pen name Kayn or Kayen MacKay. As the wives of Italian officers do not traditionally work, the money she earns from this is kept for travel and other leisure activities. This money allows her to visit her family in Ireland in 1947 for the first time since 1932. After their retirement, she and her husband visit Ireland regularly, and travel around Italy.

McKenna applies for an Irish military pension in 1950/51 and 1970, receiving references in support of her claim from Gallagher. As she had not served in a military organisation, her claims are rejected. As an Irish War of Independence veteran, she is awarded free travel in 1972, which is later extended to her husband. In her later years, she becomes concerned about the inaccuracies in the history around the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. She gives two talks to Radio Éireann in 1951, speaking about her time with the Irish Bulletin. Copies of these recordings are now held by the Bureau of Military History. During her lifetime, extracts of her memoir are published in the Capuchin Annual and The Irish Times. She drafted and redrafted these memoirs from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. A version edited by her daughter and niece is published in 2014 as A Dáil girl’s revolutionary recollections.

McKenna dies on March 22, 1988, in Rome. She is buried with an Irish flag which she had kept with her. A large collection of her papers is held in the National Library of Ireland (NLI). In 2010, 2011 and 2016, some of her memorabilia is sold in Dublin.


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Death of Charles Donnelly, Poet & Republican Political Activist

Charles Patrick Donnelly, Irish poet, republican and left-wing political activist, is killed on February 27, 1937, fighting on the republican side during the Spanish Civil War.

Donnelly is born in Killybrackey, near Dungannon, County Tyrone, on July 10, 1914, into a family of cattle breeders. His father, Joseph Donnelly, sells his farm in 1917 and the family moves to Dundalk and opens a greengrocer‘s shop. Joseph Donnelly becomes quite prosperous, running his shop, dealing cattle and buying and selling property in the Dundalk area. In addition to Charles, the Donnellys have five other sons and two daughters. His mother, Rose, dies in 1927, when he is 13 years old.

Donnelly receives his early education in the Christian Brothers school in Dundalk. When he is fourteen in 1928, the family moves again, this time to Dublin, where his father purchases a house on Mountjoy Square in the north inner city. He enrolls in O’Connell School on North Frederick Street but is expelled after only a few weeks. He spends the next few months wandering the streets of Dublin during school time before his father discovers what had happened. Also at this time, he meets and is befriended by radical political activists from the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Communist Party of Ireland and the left-Republican group Saor Éire.

Donnelly’s father and aunts get him an apprenticeship with a carpenter, but he gives this up after a year to enroll in University College Dublin (UCD) in 1931, where he studies Logic, English, History and the Irish language. In university he begins writing poetry and prose for student publications but fails his first-year examinations. At this time, he also becomes deeply involved in radical left-wing and republican politics. He drops out of university in 1934, having failed his first-year exams three times and joins the radical group, the Republican Congress. There he befriends veteran republicans Frank Ryan and George Gilmore. He also becomes involved in a romantic relationship with another republican activist, Cora Hughes, Éamon de Valera‘s goddaughter and later partner of George Gilmore. In July 1934, he is arrested and imprisoned for two weeks for his role in picketing a Dublin bakery with other Congress members. After this, his father expells him from the family home and he spends a period sleeping in parks around Dublin.

The Republican Congress splits at its first annual meeting in September 1934, but the 20-year-old Donnelly is elected to the National Executive of the truncated organisation. Thereafter, he writes for the Congress newspaper on political and social questions. In January 1935, he is again arrested for assaulting a Garda at a Congress demonstration and is imprisoned for a month. In February 1935, he leaves Ireland for London. In the British capital he forms the first Republican Congress branch in London and becomes its first chairman. He finds employment variously as a dishwasher in pubs and cafes and as a reporter with an international news agency. While in London he remains a regular contributor to the Republican Congress newspaper and various left-wing publications. Together with two other poets, Leslie Daiken and Ewart Milne, he is one of the founders of a duplicated publication called Irish Front, the London journal of the Republican Congress. Daiken admits that many of the Irish Front editions are written almost entirely by Donnelly.

Eoin McNamee recalls Donnelly as “a frail looking Dublin man with a Tyrone background…he was something of an intellectual and clearly the theorist of the Irish Republican Congress in London at that time. He was well versed in Marxism, wrote for the Congress and Communist press, and frequently appeared on left-wing public platforms.”

In July 1936, on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Donnelly urges the Republican Congress to send fighters to the International Brigades. He himself returns to Dublin with the intention of organising such a force. By the end of 1936, he has gone again to London and joins the Brigades. He reaches Spain on January 7, 1937, and at Albacete, meets up with an Irish contingent, led by Frank Ryan, known as the Connolly Column, who had come to Spain to fight on the Republican side. He and his comrades are attached to the American Lincoln Battalion. On February 15, after receiving only rudimentary military training, the Lincoln Battalion is thrown into the Battle of Jarama, near Madrid. Donnelly reaches the front on February 23, where he is promoted to the rank of field commander. On February 27, his unit is sent on a frontal assault on the Nationalist positions on a hill named Pingarrón. The object of the attack is to take the enemy trenches and ultimately to drive them across the Jarama River. He and his unit are pinned down by machine gun fire all day. In the evening, the Nationalists launch a counterattack.

A Canadian veteran recalls, “We ran for cover, Charlie Donnelly, the commander of an Irish company is crouched behind an olive tree. He has picked up a bunch of olives from the ground and is squeezing them. I hear him say something quietly between a lull in machine gun fire: Even the olives are bleeding.” The line later becomes famous.

A few minutes later, as his unit retreats, Donnelly is caught in a burst of gunfire. He is struck three times, in the right arm, the right side and the head. He collapses and dies instantly. His body lay on the battlefield until it is recovered by fellow Irish Brigadier Peter O’Connor on March 10. He is buried at Jarama in an unmarked grave with several of his comrades.

Written by Donnelly’s brother Joseph, a collection of his work, Charlie Donnelly: the Life and Poems, is published in 1987 by Dedalus Press. On the eve of the 71st anniversary of his death, February 26, 2008, he is commemorated with the unveiling of a plaque at his alma mater, UCD, attended by 150 people. The commemoration, organised jointly by a group of UCD students and the Donnelly family, is hosted by the School of English and also includes a lecture by Gerald Dawe on Donnelly’s life and poetry. In April 2008, the UCD branch of the Labour Party is renamed the Charlie Donnelly Branch in his honour.

Donnelly’s friend Blanaid Salkeld commemorates him in her poem “Casualties,” writing “That Charlie Donnelly small and frail/ And flushed with youth was rendered pale/ But not with fear, in what queer squalor/ Was smashed up his so-ordered valour.” A 1976 documentary about the Civil War by Cathal O’Shannon is entitled Even the Olives are Bleeding.

Donnelly is survived by a brother, Joseph, who manages to get many of his poems published in 1987; only five or six are published during his lifetime. Discussing his work, Colm Tóibín says it “mixed an Audenesque exactitude with a youthful romanticism… his poem “The Tolerance of Crows” belongs in any anthology of modern poetry.” In 1992, Donnelly has work included in Dedalus Irish Poets: An Anthology from Dedalus Press.

In 1992 New Island Books publishes Even the Olives Are Bleeding: The Life and Times of Charles Donnelly by Joseph O’Connor. The book is launched by future Irish President Michael D. Higgins.

Donnelly is commemorated in the Christy Moore song Viva La Quinta Brigada.


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The Founding of Córas na Poblachta

Córas na Poblachta (English: Republican System), a minor Irish republican political party, is founded on February 21, 1940.

The idea for a new party is discussed at a meeting in Dublin on February 21, 1940, attended by 104 former officers of the pro- and anti-Treaty wings of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The inaugural meeting of the new party takes place on March 2, 1940. Simon Donnelly, who had fought in Boland’s Mill under Éamon de Valera in the 1916 Easter Rising, the former leader of the Dublin section of the IRA, and former chief of the Irish Republican Police (IRP), is elected as president of a central committee of fifteen members. Other leaders are Seán Fitzpatrick, another Irish War of Independence veteran; Con Lehane, who had recently left the IRA; Séamus Gibbons; Tom O’Rourke; Seán Dowling, one of Rory O’Connor‘s principal lieutenants in the Irish Civil War; Colonel Roger McCorley, one of the principal IRA leaders in Belfast during the Irish War of Independence who had taken the Irish Free State side in the Irish Civil War; Frank Thornton, one of Michael Collins‘ top intelligence officers; Roger McHugh, a lecturer in English at University College Dublin (UCD) and later professor; Captain Martin Bell and Peter O’Connor.

Also in attendance at the first meeting is Seamus O’Donovan, Director of Chemicals on IRA Headquarters Staff in 1921 and architect of the IRA Sabotage Campaign in England by the IRA in 1939–40. Indeed, O’Donovan proposes several of the basic resolutions. Additionally, the meeting is attended by Eoin O’Duffy and several former leaders of the Irish Christian Front.

Many members of the Irish far-right join Córas na Poblachta including Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, who becomes the leader of the party’s youth wing Aicéin and goes on to found Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, Alexander McCabe, Maurice O’Connor and Reginald Eager from the Irish Friends of Germany, George Griffin, Patrick Moylett, his brother John and Joseph Andrews of the People’s National Party, Dermot Brennan of Saoirse Gaedheal, and Hugh O’Neill and Alexander Carey of Córas Gaedhealach. As a result, the party assumes a pro-German and antisemitic attitude which is frequently expressed in party functions, and Gardaí suspects Córas na Poblachta members of daubing the walls of Trinity College Dublin in antisemitic slogans following the visit of British politician Leslie Hore-Belisha to Ireland in 1941.

Socialist republicans Nora Connolly O’Brien and Helena Molony take an interest in the group. Reflecting divisions within the IRA, a minority of the party’s leaders sympathise with communism rather than fascism.

The main aim of Córas na Poblachta is the formal declaration of a Republic. It also demands that the Irish language be given greater prominence in street names, shop signs, and government documents and bank notes. It proposes to introduce national service in order that male citizens understand their responsibilities. The party’s economic policy is the statutory right to employment and a living wage. It proposes breaking the link with the British pound, the nationalisation of banks and the making of bank officials into civil servants. In the area of education, the party espouses free education for all children over primary age as a right, and university education when feasible. It also calls for the introduction of children’s allowances. In addition, Córas na Poblachta advocates for “the destruction of the Masonic Order in Ireland” and during its founding meeting reporters are told that the party will be ready to take over the government of Ireland “on either a corporate or fascist basis.”

The party has close ties with the Irish nationalist and pro-fascist party Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, whose leader, Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, had led Córas na Poblachta’s youth wing Aicéin until its independence is terminated in 1942. There is talk of a merger, however, while the majority of the party’s executive committee, noted by G2 to be made up of “four ex-Army men, old IRA, ex-Blueshirts and a number of IRA who had been active up until comparatively recently”, desires a combination of Ireland’s extreme nationalist movements, the three most prominent leaders, Simon Donnelly, Sean Dowling and Roger McCorley, oppose one due to the fear that the party will be submerged in a joint organisation. Ó Cuinneagáin is dismissive of Córas na Poblachta’s prospects and discussions between him and the party’s leaders reinforce their fears that Ó Cuinneagáin seeks an outright takeover by Ailtirí na hAiséirghe. Proposals for a merging of the two parties are dropped though they continue to maintain cordial relations and co-operate in the 1943 Irish general election.

The party is not successful and fails to take a seat in a by-election held shortly after the party’s foundation. The party slowly falls apart, and Tim Pat Coogan notes that: “Dissolution occurred because people tended to discuss the party rather than join it.” Importantly, the party is not supported by the hardcore of republican legitimatists, such as Brian O’Higgins, who views the IRA Army Council as the legitimate government of an existing Irish Republic. Indeed, in March 1940, O’Higgins publishes a pamphlet entitled Declare the Republic lambasting the new party as making what he regards as false promises that will be compromised on following the party’s election to the Oireachtas.

Córas na Poblachta fields candidates in the 1943 Irish General Election but none are elected, receiving a total of 3,892 votes between them.

Although a failure, Tim Pat Coogan argues Córas na Poblachta was the “nucleus” of the Clann na Poblachta party which emerges to help take power from Fianna Fáil in 1948.

(Pictured: IRA veteran Simon Donnelly who serves as President of Córas na Poblachta)


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Birth of Desmond “Des” O’Malley, Irish Politician

Desmond Joseph “Des” O’Malley, Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats politician, is born on February 2, 1939, in Limerick, County Limerick.

O’Malley is born into a storied Limerick political family. His maternal grandfather, Denis O’Donovan, is killed during the Irish War of Independence by the Black and Tans, two of his uncles and his father hold the office of Mayor of Limerick, and his uncle Donogh O’Malley is a Minister for Education. He is educated at the Jesuit Crescent College and at University College Dublin (UCD), from which he graduates with a degree in law in 1962.

In 1968, O’Malley enters politics upon the sudden death of his uncle Donogh who, at that the time, is the sitting Minister for Education. He is chosen after Donogh’s widow, Hilda, still in shock at the sudden death of her husband, turns down the opportunity to contest the by-election necessitated by his death.

O’Malley is subsequently elected as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Limerick East constituency in the by-election. Perhaps the first sign of the defiance that would define his career materialises during the 1969 Irish general election when Hilda asks her nephew to step aside and allow her to contest in the Limerick East constituency as the main Fianna Fáil candidate. He refuses and places third in the four-seat constituency, with his aunt, running as an independent, coming in fifth.

Following the general election, O’Malley is appointed Parliamentary Secretary to both Minister for Defence Jim Gibbons and Taoiseach Jack Lynch and serves as Government Chief Whip. In his role as a confidante of Lynch, the political lines within Fianna Fáil that put him on a collision course of over twenty years with Charles Haughey, are drawn. He plays a central role in the Arms Crisis prosecutions of Haughey and Neil Blaney in 1970. After their acquittals, the stage is set within Fianna Fáil for a long-term power struggle that eventually results in O’Malley’s expulsion from the party in 1984.

In the meantime, O’Malley’s next position within Lynch’s government comes when he is made Minister for Justice after Mícheál Ó Móráin is forced to resign due to ill-health. One of the most significant aspects of his legacy transpires during his tenure as Minister for Justice from 1970 to 1973. In response to the ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland, he tries and fails to introduce internment without trial for republicans within the State. He is, however, successful in reintroducing the Offences Against the State Act, which enables convictions for Irish Republican Amy (IRA) membership on the word of a Garda Superintendent, and the Special Criminal Court, a non-jury court presided over by three judges which tries cases of terrorism and serious organised crime.

When Lynch resigns the Fianna Fáil leadership following electoral defeat in 1979, O’Malley and Martin O’Donoghue manage the leadership campaign of George Colley, who subsequently loses to Haughey. Following Haughey’s ascent to leadership, O’Malley retains the industry and commerce ministerial portfolio he had been appointed to following the 1977 Irish general election.

In 1982, after Fianna Fáil loses its majority but stays in government by virtue of a confidence and supply agreement with Sinn Féin – The Workers Party and two independents, O’Malley is appointed Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism, but with the death of Colley and the loss of O’Donoghue’s seat, he becomes increasingly isolated within Fianna Fáil.

After the party whip is removed from him in 1984, amidst inter-party wrangling over the New Ireland Forum, O’Malley is expelled from the party the following year, the final straw being his famous “I stand by the Republic” speech in which he announces his intention to abstain on a vote regarding the liberalisation of the sales of contraceptives, which Fianna Fáil opposes.

O’Malley goes on to establish the Progressive Democrats, joined by Mary Harney (who had also been expelled by Fianna Fáil), and later by Fianna Fáil TDs Bobby Molloy and Pearse Wyse, as well as Fine Gael TD Michael Keating. In the 1987 Irish general election, the Progressive Democrats win fourteen seats, making them the third biggest party in the Dáil. Among those elected are O’Malley, his cousin Patrick O’Malley, Anne Colley, daughter of George Colley, Martin Gibbons, son of Jim Gibbons, Michael McDowell and Martin Cullen.

O’Malley’s animus for Haughey does not stop him from entering coalition with Fianna Fáil after the 1989 Irish general election, with him once again appointed Minister for Industry and Commerce. While in government, he finally witnesses the downfall of Haughey in 1992, when he is forced to resign over the emergence of new evidence concerning his tapping of journalists’ phones in the 1980s. The coalition with Fianna Fáil does not last long under new Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, with the Government collapsing after Reynolds accuses O’Malley of dishonesty during the Beef Tribunal.

O’Malley retires as leader of the Progressive Democrats in 1993, and the party moves into opposition, only to re-enter government with Fianna Fáil in 1997, where it remains upon O’Malley’s retirement from politics in 2002.

While the Progressive Democrats no longer exist, they are generally credited with the breaking up of the Fianna Fáil versus Fine Gael dichotomy of Irish politics that had dominated since the founding of the Free State. Since 1922, Irish governments have tended to be either single-party Fianna Fáil cabinets, be they minority or majority, or Fine Gael-led coalitions, typically involving the Labour Party. A Fine Gael-Labour coalition is in power at the time of the founding of the Progressive Democrats, and a single-party government or clear majority has not been won in Ireland since.

O’Malley dies in Dublin on July 21, 2021, at the age of 82, having been in poor health for some time. He is predeceased by his wife, Pat, and survived by their six children, four daughters including the former TD Fiona O’Malley, and two sons.

Perhaps O’Malley’s greatest legacy is the political reality of Ireland today: the low-tax, pro-business economic policies of the Progressive Democrats have been the dominant ideology in the State since the 1990s. Sinn Féin, the party most affected by his measures as Minister for Justice, no longer vote against the retention of the Offences Against the State Act and Special Criminal Court.

(From: “Desmond O’Malley: 1939-2021,” eolas Magazine, http://www.eolasmagazine.ie, August 2021)