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Death of Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, Revolutionary & Labour Activist

Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, Irish revolutionary and labour activist who takes part in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, dies in Dublin on May 26, 1944.

Ffrench-Mullen is born on December 30, 1880, in Malta, where her father, St. Lawrence ffrench-Mullen, a Royal Navy surgeon, is stationed. She has two brothers, St. Lawrence Patrick Joseph (1890–1891) and Douglas (1893–1943).

Ffrench-Mullen’s interest in politics starts young. Her father is a committed Parnellite and their Dundrum home is a campaign headquarters. She is a radical feminist and republican during her life. Like many others of the time, she regards it as a woman’s right to vote. She joins the suffrage movement, and meets women with a similar worldview and values. The women’s suffrage movement is included in the Movements of Extremists reports of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Ffrench-Mullen goes on to join Inghinidhe na hÉireann, a radical nationalist women’s group founded by Maud Gonne in 1900. The organisation develops into Cumann na mBan in 1913. Suffragist values are central to Cumann na mBan’s goal of standing side-by-side with men in the fight for the Irish Republic. Some members see this as women regaining the rights that had belonged to them in pre-invasion Gaelic civilisation. She is on the socialist wing of the moment, holding to the ideals of universal social equality of the syndicalist James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army (ICA).

During the 1916 Easter Rising, ffrench-Mullen serves as a lieutenant in the Irish Citizen Army. She sees action with the St. Stephen’s Green and Royal College of Surgeons garrison. In St. Stephen’s Green she is in command of the 15 Citizen Army women who set up a medical station and field kitchen. While occupying St. Stephen’s Green, she and her comrades come under sustained heavy fire from the Shelbourne Hotel and buildings on the north side of the Green. After the surrender of the College of Surgeons garrison, ffrench-Mullen is one of the 77 women who had fought in the Rising who are imprisoned, among them her life partner Kathleen Lynn. While in captivity ffrench Mullen is moved three times, spending time in Richmond Barracks, Kilmainham Gaol and Mountjoy Prison. She is released on June 5, 1916.

Ffrench-Mullen meets Kathleen Lynn through Inghinidhe na h-Éireann. In 1915, she moves into Lynn’s home in Belgrave Road, Rathmines, where they live together for thirty years, until ffrench-Mullen’s death in 1944.

Ffrench-Mullen records in her prison diary in 1916 that she can face prison without fear once Lynn (whom she refers to as “the Doctor”) and she are together. Katherine Lynch of the Women’s Studies Centre at University College Dublin (UCD) describes them as partners, calling them part of a network of lesbians living in Dublin—which includes Helena Molony, Louie Bennett and Elizabeth O’Farrell—who meet through the suffrage movement and later become involved with the national and trade union movement. These women are featured, along with Eva Gore-Booth and others, in a 2023 TG4 documentary about “the radical queer women at the very heart of the Irish Revolution”: Croíthe Radacacha (Radical Hearts).

In 1919, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen and Kathleen Lynn establish Saint Ultan’s Children’s Hospital, also known as Teach Ultan, which is a female-run hospital for infants at 37 Charlemont Street, Dublin. The hospital focuses on children’s health and wellbeing, an area that is perceived at the time as women’s concern. In the aftermath of World War I many health problems have arisen including a rise in venereal diseases such as syphilis, carried from soldiers returning home from war. Many of Ireland’s infants of the time suffer from congenital syphilis (inherited disease from mother at birth), and this is a driving factor in the opening of St Ultan’s hospital. Tuberculosis is endemic in Ireland during its time as a British colony. Against steadfast opposition by the State and the Catholic Church, Lynn and ffrench-Mullen establish a vaccination project, vaccinating thousands of impoverished children who would have died of tuberculosis without their vaccines. Their success leads to the foundation of Ireland’s BCG vaccine programme, which has vaccinated all babies since the 1950s.

Ffrench-Mullen dies at the age of 63 in a Dublin nursing home on May 26, 1944. She is interred with her parents as well as her younger brothers (whom she outlives) in the ffrench-Mullen family plot in Glasnevin Cemetery. Her funeral takes place on the same day as the 1944 Irish general election.


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Death of Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist, dies at the age of 94 on November 2, 1950, at Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England. His influence on Western theatre, culture, and politics extends from the 1880s to his death and beyond.

Shaw writes more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, he becomes the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Shaw is born on July 26, 1856, at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class area of Dublin. The Shaw family is of English descent and belong to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Between 1865 and 1871, Shaw attends four schools, all of which he hates. His experiences as a schoolboy leave him disillusioned with formal education. In October 1871 he leaves school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents, where he works hard and quickly rises to become head cashier. During this period, he is known as “George Shaw”; after 1876, he drops the “George” and styles himself “Bernard Shaw.”

Shaw moves to London in 1876, where he struggles to establish himself as a writer and novelist and embarks on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he has become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joins the gradualist Fabian Society and becomes its most prominent pamphleteer. He has been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he seeks to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social, and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist is secured with a series of critical and popular successes that include Major Barbara, The Doctor’s Dilemma, and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Shaw’s expressed views are often contentious. He promotes eugenics and alphabet reform and opposes vaccination and organised religion. He courts unpopularity by denouncing both sides in World War I as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigates British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances have no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist.

The inter-war years see a series of often ambitious plays, which achieve varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 Shaw provides the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he receives an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remains undiminished. By the late 1920s he has largely renounced Fabian gradualism and often writes and speaks favourably of dictatorships of the right and left — he expresses admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life, he makes fewer public statements, but continues to write prolifically until shortly before his death, refusing all state honours including the Order of Merit in 1946.

During his later years, Shaw enjoys tending the gardens at Shaw’s Corner. He dies on November 2, 1950, at the age of 94 of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. His body is cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on November 6, 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of his wife Charlotte, are scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden.

Since Shaw’s death scholarly and critical opinion has varied about his works, but he has regularly been rated as second only to Shakespeare among English-language dramatists. Analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of playwrights. The word “Shavian” has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw’s ideas and his means of expressing them.


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George Bernard Shaw Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, critic and polemicist, wins the Nobel Prize in Literature on November 11, 1925. Born in Dublin on July 26, 1856, Shaw is the only person to receive both a Nobel Prize in Literature and an Oscar (1938), for his work on the film Pygmalion, the adaptation of his play of the same name.

Shaw’s influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extends from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He writes more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw becomes the leading dramatist of his generation, culminating in 1925 with his awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Shaw moves to London in 1876, where he struggles to establish himself as a writer and novelist and embarks on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he has become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joins the gradualist Fabian Society and becomes its most prominent pamphleteer. He has been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man, in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he seeks to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist is secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor’s Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Shaw’s expressed views are often contentious. He promotes eugenics and alphabet reform and opposes vaccination and organised religion. He courts unpopularity by denouncing both sides in World War I as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigates British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances have no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist. The inter-war years see a series of often ambitious plays, which achieve varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provides the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he receives an Academy Award.

Shaw’s appetite for politics and controversy remains undiminished. By the late 1920s he has largely renounced Fabian gradualism and often writes and speaks favourably of dictatorships of the right and left. He expresses admiration for both Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin. In the final decade of his life, he makes fewer public statements, but continues to write prolifically until shortly before his death on November 2, 1950, refusing all state honours including the Order of Merit in 1946.

Since Shaw’s death scholarly and critical opinion has varied about his works, but he has regularly been rated as second only to William Shakespeare among British dramatists. Analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word “Shavian” has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw’s ideas and his means of expressing them.


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Birth of Playwright George Bernard Shaw

george-bernard-shaw

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist, is born on July 26, 1856, at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class area of Dublin. Shaw’s influence on Western theatre, culture, and politics extends from the 1880s to his death and beyond.

Shaw writes more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw becomes the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Shaw moves to London in 1876, where he struggles to establish himself as a writer and novelist and embarks on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he has become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joins the gradualist Fabian Society and becomes its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw has been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he seeks to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social, and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist is secured with a series of critical and popular successes that include Major Barbara, The Doctor’s Dilemma, and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Shaw’s expressed views are often contentious. He promotes eugenics and alphabet reform and opposes vaccination and organised religion. He courts unpopularity by denouncing both sides in World War I as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigates British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances have no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist.

The inter-war years see a series of often ambitious plays, which achieve varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provides the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he receives an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remains undiminished. By the late 1920s he has largely renounced Fabian gradualism and often writes and speaks favourably of dictatorships of the right and left — he expresses admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life, he makes fewer public statements but continues to write prolifically until shortly before his death, refusing all state honours including the Order of Merit in 1946.

During his later years, Shaw enjoys tending the gardens at Shaw’s Corner. He dies on November 2, 1950, at the age of 94 of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. His body is cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on November 6, 1950. His ashes, mixed with those of his wife Charlotte, are scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden.

Since Shaw’s death scholarly and critical opinion has varied about his works, but he has regularly been rated as second only to Shakespeare among English-language dramatists. Analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of playwrights. The word “Shavian” has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw’s ideas and his means of expressing them.