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IRISH EXAMINER | November 22nd, 201712 historyexaminer
It Happened
In Ireland On...
Ronnie McGinn Takes A Look At The Week In Irish History
23 November
1913 Enrolment in the
Citizen Army, organized by the
ITGWU, begins in Croydon
Park in Fairview, Dublin.
About 1,000 attended the pro-
ceedings, which was strictly
private.
1913 The five-week-old
republican hunger strike
ended. Two men, Denis Barry
and Andrew Sullivan, died dur-
ing the protest in which 8,000
men and women participated.
1938 Ireland was to benefit
from the latest gift from Lord
Nuffield, who proposed to
manufacture and provide an
‘iron lung’ for every hospital
and institution within the
British Commonwealth.
1949 A clock, given origi-
nally to Charles Stewart Parnell
by the Irish Nationalist Party in
1889, was presented to the
Minister for Lands, Joseph
Blowick, in Dublin. It had been
sold 50 years ago when the fur-
niture at Avondale was auc-
tioned and would now be
returned to the Parnell
Museum there.
1959 The £800,000
Sydenham by-pass in Belfast
was opened by Lord
Wakehurst, Governor of
Northern Ireland. The by-pass
included a 711-foot long bridge
with 10 spans, making it the
biggest viaduct in the North.
1963 President Kennedy’s
relations grieved for him at the
old family farmhouse in
Wexford, while in Dublin,
politicians and clergy paid trib-
ute to the late President and
mourned his untimely demise.
1971 The RTE Authority
met for 10 hours to consider a
letter from the Minister for
Posts and Telegraphs, Gerry
Collins, about the Seán Mac
Stiofain interview. The situa-
tion was discussed in the Dail
1986 The crew of the
Kowloon Bridge, which got
into difficulty in storm force
winds off the Cork coast, was
rescued by British Air Force
helicopters and brought to
Cork. The ship was left drifting
off the Fastnet Rock.
1989 In Strasbourg, the
European Parliament passed a
resolution calling for an inquiry that they were chosen by James
into the case of the
Birmingham Six, despite British
Conservative arguments that
the six had exhausted all legal
avenues of appeal
1994
People in
Tubbercurry, County Sligo,
protested over the construction
of a MMDS mast that provides
a multi-channel television serv-
ice.
1998 Focus Ireland
launched a campaign to high-
light the plight of the homeless. Authority over the Sean
“It’s unacceptable,” the group
said, “that, in a thriving econo- news. Meanwhile, the trial of
my, there are more people than
ever living on the streets.”
24 November
1914 The annual meeting
of the Irish Association for the
Prevention of Intemperance in
Dublin hears that the number
of cases of drunkenness in
Ireland has fallen from 107,000
in 1876 to just under 60,000.
1922 Erskine Childers was
executed at Portobello
Barracks having been found
guilty of unlawful possession of
a gun. The gun had been pre-
sented to him in 1920 by
Michael Collins for use in
defense of the Irish Republic.
The execution took place while
an appeal was pending.
1933 The President of the
Executive Council, Eamon de
Valera, turned the sod of the
new sugar factory at Tuam,
County Galway, which would
produce 20,000 tons of sugar.
He indicated that the govern-
ment had chosen to decentral-
ize industries.
1940 James Craig, the first
Prime Minister of Northern
Ireland, died unexpectedly and
was succeeded by JM Andrews.
Craig was the longest continu-
ally serving Prime Minister in
Europe.
1952 The Minister for
Defence, Oscar Traynor, pre-
sented framed copies of the
Proclamation to three printers
who had been involved in the
production of the original
work. Michael Molloy recalled
Connolly to do the printing
because they were in Liberty
Hall at the time.
1963 President deValera
left for the funeral of US
President John F Kennedy. He
was accompanied by cadets
who had been invited by
Jacqueline Kennedy to form a
guard of honor at the funeral.
1972 The Minister for
Posts and Telegraphs, Gerry
Collins, dismissed the RTE
MacStiofain interview on radio
MacStiofain on IRA member-
ship continued in the Special
Criminal Court, and RTE
handed over tapes of its radio
interview with him.
1986 A foundation was
launched to try and keep the
Great Blasket Island in Irish
hands, and prevent it falling to ly to be located there for up to
foreign investors.
1993 A protest outside the
Dail accused the government
of reneging on its promises to
the mentally handicapped.
Balloons with tags were
released representing the peo-
ple without proper services.
1997 Irish golfers Padraig
Harrington and Paul
McGinley won the 43rd World
Cup of Golf on Ocean Course
in Carolina in the USA with a
record breaking aggregate of 31
under par.
25 November
1913 The Irish Volunteers
were formed at a meeting
attended by 4,000 men in
Dublin’s Rotunda Rink. Those
attending were from the Gaelic
League, the Ancient Order of
Hibernians, Sinn Fein and
included students from the
National University.
1926 Addressing more
than 400 delegates at Fianna
Fail’s first Ard-Fheis in the
Rotunda, the President and
party leader, Eamon de Valera,
said that he left Sinn Fein
because he feared its objectives
would not be achieved under
its present program.
1937 Following a mass
meeting of Dockers held by the
Irish Seamen’s and Port
Workers’ Union, 1,300 Dublin
Dockers went on strike over
pay negotiations with the
stevedores, which had col-
lapsed.
1948 As the Republic of
Ireland Bill passed through the
Dail, the British Prime
Minister, Clement Attlee, stat-
ed that Britain would not
regard Eire/Republic of Ireland
as a foreign country or its citi- candidates to win even where
zens as foreigners. Winston
Churchill disassociated the
Conservatives from the Labour
decision.
1956 Five Aer Lingus air-
craft landed at Shannon Airport
with 180 Hungarian refugees,
who were to be housed in
Knockalisheen Army Camp,
County Clare. They were like-
three years.
1966 The body of Sean T.
O Ceallaigh, second President
of Ireland, lay in state at the
Pro-Cathedral. He was
involved in the Gaelic revival
and was a founder member of
Sinn Fein and, later, of Fianna
Fail.
1970 Thirteen farming
organisations combined to
build a new farm centre on the
Naas Road, Dublin, which, it
was hoped, would be occupied
by May 1971.
1983 Quinnsworth execu-
tive Don Tidey was kidnapped
from outside his home in
Rathfarnham, County Dublin.
Roadblocks were set up and
gardai searched for a small
group of Provisional IRA men.
1986 Attempts were made
to move the ‘Kowloon Bridge’,
aground on Stags Rock in west
Cork. It was leaking oil, which
had affected surrounding
beaches.
1994
Irish-language
activists in west Belfast were
planning to take the British
government to court over their
refusal to fund Meanscoil
Feirste, the secondary school
on the Falls Road.
1996 Flags at Croke Park
flew at half-mast as the death
of broadcaster and sports com-
mentator Micheal Ó Hehir,
aged 76, was announced. His
remarkable career began at 18
and he broadcast from 1938 to
1985 when illness prevented
him from commentating on his
100th All-Ireland Final.
26 November
1910 Three thousand peo-
ple attended a unionist rally in
Dublin’s Theatre Royal. Royal
standards and Union Jacks
hung from the ceiling while a
banner stated emphatically:
“We will not have Home
Rule.”
1918 Cardinal Logue and
six bishops from the North
asked the Lord Mayor of
Dublin, LJ Neill, to help avert a
split in the national-
ist/republican vote in the forth-
coming general election, a split
that could allow the unionist
they are in a minority.
1932 Former Fianna Fail
TD Domhnall Ua Buachalla
was appointed Governor-
General or Seanascal, succeed-
ing James MacNeill. He was
not expected to take up resi-
dence in the Vice-Regal Lodge
in the Phoenix Park.
1942 The Minister for
Posts and Telegraphs, PJ Little,
envisaged a full Symphony
Orchestra, a radio chorus and
more plays to raise the stan-
dards of Radio Eireann broad-
casts.
1953 Colette O’Reagan of
UCG’s Literary Society became
the first woman to address a
major Trinity College debating
society. Ms O’Reagan,
described as ‘Mr O’Riordan’ on
the program, addressed the
motion “That Hypocrisy is
One of Our National
Characteristics.”
1966 The funeral took
place of former President Sean
T O Ceallaigh. Crowds lined