An Aer Lingus aeroplane, the St. Kevin, crashes into Moel Siabod, a 2,860-foot mountain in Wales, during a blinding rainstorm on January 10, 1952, and burns out with the loss of all twenty passengers and a crew of three. It is Aer Lingus’s first fatal crash in fifteen years of service. Tragically the only item to survive intact is a child’s doll, belonging to a four-year-old passenger.
The plane is flying en route from LondonNortholt to Dublin leaving at 5:25 p.m. and is due to land at Collinstown at 8:10 p.m. The last message received is a report to the Nevin Radio Station, south of Anglesey, which says that the plane is flying normally. The plane is piloted by Captain J. R. Keohane, from Whitehall, Dublin, with W. A. Newman, from Dundrum, Dublin, as First Officer and Deirdre Sutton as air hostess.
The crash is believed to have occurred within the next half-hour during a gale. The first news of the disaster comes from two people who telephone Caernarvon police at 7:10 p.m. and report that they had heard the sound of an aircraft overhead, then the sound of a crash and saw a big glow in the sky near the mountains. Police and scores of Royal Air Force (RAF) men and soldiers are involved in the tortuous rescue mission in torrential rain.
When the first rescue party has struggled 1,000 feet up the steep slope of the mountain, they find the smouldering debris embedded in the earth. Most of the passengers had been buried in the bog by the impact. By midnight about 100 helpers are directed to the desolate mountain top and they work by torch light to extricate the bodies from the wreckage and the bog.
The cause of the crash is never established, although it is believed that the atrocious weather conditions may have led to mechanical failure.
On a lonely hillside in Snowdonia, Wales, a simple stone commemorates the victims of Ireland’s first air disaster.
(From: “Night 23 killed on a Welsh hillside,” Independent.ie, January 8, 2012)
Luke Kelly, singer, folk musician and actor, is born into a working-class family in Lattimore Cottages at 1 Sheriff Street, Dublin on November 17, 1940. He is noted as a founding member of the band The Dubliners.
After Dublin Corporation demolished Lattimore Cottages in 1942, the Kellys become the first family to move into the St. Laurence O’Toole flats, where Luke spends the bulk of his childhood, although the family is forced to move by a fire in 1953 and settles in the Whitehall area.
Kelly is interested in music during his teenage years and regularly attends cèilidh with his sister Mona and listens to American vocalists including Fats Domino, Al Jolson, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. He also has an interest in theatre and musicals, being involved with the staging of plays by Dublin’s Marian Arts Society. The first folk club he comes across is in the Bridge Hotel, Newcastle upon Tyne in early 1960. Having already acquired the use of a banjo, he starts memorising songs.
Kelly befriends Sean Mulready in Birmingham and lives in his home for a period. Mulready is a teacher who is forced from his job in Dublin because of his communist beliefs. Mulready’s brother-in-law, Ned Stapleton, teaches Kelly “Rocky Road to Dublin.” During this period he studies literature and politics under the tutelage of Mulready, his wife Mollie, and Marxist classicist George Derwent Thomson.
In 1961 there is a folk music revival or “ballad boom,” as it is later termed, in waiting in Ireland. Kelly returns to Dublin in 1962. A concert John Molloy organises in the Hibernian Hotel leads to his “Ballad Tour of Ireland” with the Ronnie Drew Ballad Group. This tour leads to the Abbey Tavern and the Royal Marine Hotel and then to jam-packed sessions in the Embankment, Tallaght. Ciarán Bourke joins the group, followed later by John Sheahan. They rename themselves The Dubliners at Kelly’s suggestion, as he is reading James Joyce‘s book of short stories, entitled Dubliners, at the time. Kelly is the leading vocalist for the group’s eponymous debut album in 1964, which includes his rendition of “Rocky Road to Dublin.”
In 1964 Kelly leaves the group for nearly two years and is replaced by Bob Lynch and John Sheahan. Kelly goes with Deirdre O’Connell, founder of the Focus Theatre, to whom he marries the following year, back to London and becomes involved in Ewan MacColl‘s “gathering.”
When Bob Lynch leaves The Dubliners, John Sheahan and Kelly rejoin. The ballad boom in Ireland is becoming increasingly commercialised with bar and pub owners building ever larger venues for pay-in performances. Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger on a visit to Dublin express concern to Kelly about his drinking.
Kelly’s health deteriorates in the 1970s. During a concert in the Cork Opera House on June 30, 1980 he collapses on the stage. He had already suffered for some time from migraines and forgetfulness which had been ascribed to his intense schedule, alcohol consumption, and “party lifestyle.” A brain tumor is diagnosed. Although he tours with the Dubliners after enduring an operation, his health deteriorates further. He forgets lyrics, has to take longer breaks in concerts due to weakness and becomes more withdrawn. In the autumn of 1983 he has to leave the stage in Traun, Austria and again in Mannheim, Germany. Shortly after this, he has to cancel the tour of southern Germany and, after a short stay in hospital in Heidelberg, he is flown back to Dublin.
After another operation Kelly spends Christmas with his family but is taken to hospital again in the New Year, where he dies on January 30, 1984. His funeral in Whitehall attracts thousands of mourners from across Ireland. His gravestone in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, bears the inscription: Luke Kelly – Dubliner.
Keaveney’s first sporting interest is in soccer, however, he is later introduced to Gaelic games by his Belfast-born father. He is educated at St. Joseph’s Secondary School in Fairview, Dublin where he favours hurling over Gaelic football.
Keaveney makes his debut on the inter-county scene when he is selected for the Dublin minor and under-21 teams, however, he ends his underage career without success. He makes his senior debut during the 1964-1965 league. Over the course of the following sixteen seasons, he wins three All-Ireland medals, beginning with a lone triumph in 1974, followed by back-to-back championships in 1976 and 1977. He also wins seven Leinster medals, two National Football League medals and is named Footballer of the Year in 1976 and 1977. He plays his last game for Dublin in February 1980.
seamus dubhghaill 