July
- 13 July 1976: A bite of political satire13 Jul 2009BACK PAGES: DONAL FOLEYS Man Bites Dog column – named after a classic definition of news: dog bites man is not news; man bites dog is – was a satire on the news of the day, finding a lot of targets among the violence, economic travails and industrial unrest of the 1970s. In this column from 1976 he poked fun at the Fine Gael-Labour government of the day.
- July 10th 1963: Fraternising with the Royal Irish Fusiliers in Germany10 Jul 2009BACK PAGES: IN 1963 Donal O’Donovan went to Celle in Germany to watch a British army ceremony for the Royal Irish Fusiliers and revealed a level of fraternisation between the largely Irish regiment and the Irish Army which would have been unlikely a decade later as the Northern “Troubles” polarised opinion.
- Visiting Ireland difficult for Continentals9 Jul 2009July 9th, 1949: WITH TRAVEL to Europe so simple and cheap it is easy to forget that it was not always so. In pre-EU and pre-EEC days there were bureaucratic issues of passports and visas, and getting permission for Continentals to visit Ireland was sometimes more difficult than for Irish people to get visas to go elsewhere. Kees van Hock’s foreign affairs column, The Way of the World , touched upon this:
- Gaelic League disputes assertion it is 'dangerous'8 Jul 2009July 8th, 1918: A PROCLAMATION by the lord lieutenant, Viscount French, in July 1918 declared several organisations to be “dangerous” because they were “a grave menace to and are designed to terrorise the peaceful and law-abiding subjects of His Majesty in Ireland”. The organisations were Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and the Gaelic League: they were not banned outright, but the lord lieutenant had power to prohibit their activities.
- July 7th, 1927: The battling bus companies of 1920s Dublin7 Jul 2009BACK PAGES: NOT ALONE did buses arrive in convoys in Dublin in the 1920s, bus companies did as well. In the days before bus and rail services were nationalised into CIÉ, competition between bus services in Dublin was intense. The issue came up at an official inter-departmental inquiry into the control of road traffic. As part of his evidence to its public hearing, assistant garda commissioner Gen WRE Murphy outlined the bus problems:
- July 6th, 1893: A solemn comedy played out in Clare court6 Jul 2009 THE “LAWLESSNESS” of Co Clare in the early 1890s turned into a political football between unionist and nationalist in the House of Commons after a local judge made clear his exasperation at the refusal of juries to convict people accused of land-related offences. Unionist MPs depicted the situation as the Liberal government’s spinelessness in the face of intimidation, while nationalist MPs maintained there was nothing to be concerned about. The cases that led to the exchanges was reported this day in 1893:
- July 3rd, 1931: Opposition side splits in sports contest3 Jul 2009 EVEN THOUGH they shared the Opposition benches in the Dáil, and Labour was to help put Fianna Fáil into government a year later, relations between the two parties were not too good in 1931, especially when Fianna Fáil claimed to be representing railway workers who faced a cut in pay. The rivalry was music to the ears of the ruling Cumann na nGaedhael party, which enjoyed the following exchanges:
- Analysing last-stage capitalism31 Jul 2009 July 31st, 1956: JOHN STRACHEY was a British Marxist in the 1930s and later a Labour MP who wrote some 16 books on left-wing politics. Donal Nevin, a future general secretary of Ictu and a member of The Irish Times Trust, reviewed one of them in 1956.
- July 30th, 1948: Test case on perennial row over the price of meat30 Jul 2009BACK PAGES: THE PRICE of meat – and whether the farmer or the butcher profited most from it – was a much discussed issue from time to time in the past.
- July 29, 1981 Fairytale royal wedding ticks all the boxes29 Jul 2009BACK PAGES: ON THE eve of the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer in 1981, Maeve Binchy analysed the mood in London:
- Fashion correspondents on feminine perfection28 Jul 2009July 28th, 1930: THE IRISH Times 's fashion correspondents of former years, usually anonymous, were highly opinionated women and did not restrict themselves to fashion. In this report from 1930, the anonymous correspondent described the fashions of the day and offered a few insights into other matters along the way.
- Bodies believed to be victims of IRA 'executions' found2 Jul 2009July 2nd, 1992: DURING THE 25-odd years of the Northern Troubles it was possible to become inured to the near-daily diet of violence and the accompanying propaganda war of claim and counter-claim. There were many violent incidents, though, whose motivations were murky at the time. One of them, from the later stages of the Troubles, resulted in this report in 1992.
- Anti-Treaty IRA burn Protestant orphanages to the ground in Galway27 Jul 2009BACK PAGES July 27th, 1922: IN JULY 1922 the Civil War had begun and violent incidents were reported from all parts of the Free State as its army took control of Dublin and set about taking numerous towns in the west and south from anti-Treaty forces.
- Will summer schools run out of dead writers?24 Jul 2009July 24th, 1990: IF IT’S summer it must be time for that antidote to the Irish weather: the summer school. Robert O’Byrne reflected on what they’re about and how they differ in this article from 1990.
- Defending the Magdalene laundries23 Jul 2009July 23rd, 1901: AT THE turn of the 20th century, the Irish Party at Westminster strongly and successfully opposed moves by the British government to give factory inspectors powers to inspect the Magdalene laundries run by nuns in Ireland.
- Looking for answers to North's sectarian violence22 Jul 2009July 22nd, 1969: THE MAIN news of the day 40 years ago was the moon landing but back home tensions in the North were building up steadily and would erupt in August with the siege of the Bogside and the arrival of British troops on the streets of Derry. The annual Orange marches had added to the sectarian atmosphere and an Orange hall in Dungiven, Co Derry, had been burned. Andrew Hamilton went there to interview an outspoken Catholic priest about what was going on.
- No fags and no food for future princess Fergie21 Jul 2009JULY 21st, 1986: AS ONE of The Irish Times’ journalists in London in the 1980s Maeve Binchy developed considerable expertise at watching royal weddings (more anon) and the media and spin doctors’ shenanigans that surrounded them. She described the fevered final few days before the marriage in July 1986 of Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew (separated 1992: divorced 1996) in this front-page piece.
- Can a writer of bestsellers be an artist?20 Jul 2009July 20th 1940 POET PATRICK Kavanagh was a regular book reviewer for The Irish Times in the 1940s. In this review of bestseller Maurice Walsh’s latest novel, The Hill Is Mine , in 1940 he was in relatively mellow mood as he pondered one of the perennial questions of fiction in his own inimitable way:
- Playing games with Olympic boycott17 Jul 2009July 17th, 1980: BOYCOTTS OF sporting events for political reasons were popular in the 1970s and 1980s, most notably over apartheid in South Africa and mostly affecting rugby.
- Empire attempts to reconcile the irreconcilables16 Jul 2009July 16th, 1880: THE EFFECTS of Ireland on Britain’s 19th century imperial adventures in Afghanistan might not be immediately apparent but formed the basis for a (somewhat convoluted) leader in The Irish Times on this day in 1880. It was commenting on the previous day’s session of the House of Commons where the policy and progress of the Second Anglo-Afghan War was questioned and much time taken up with a prolonged debate on the Irish Compensation for Disturbance Bill which proposed compensation for small tenants unable to pay rents in distressed areas.
- July 15th, 1921: Feasting the eye on lilies and things that really matter15 Jul 2009THE WAR of Independence effectively ended at noon on July 11th, 1921, when the truce came into effect. The feeling of relief, and cautious optimism, is still palpable from the contemporary newspapers as curfews, restrictions on rail and other travel were lifted, and IRA men emerged from the shadows to act as liaison officers with the British army to monitor the agreement. A flavour of the mood is caught by this piece, by C.H.B., on a visit to St Stephen’s Green:
- State's steps to prepare itself for war14 Jul 2009July 14th, 1950: THE POST-second World War period was anything but peaceful. Many feared that it was a matter of when, not if, the cold war turned into a worldwide conflict, and the Korean War that began in June 1950 was seen by some as the first step. Such widely-held expectations lay behind this front page report of exchanges in the Dáil in 1950.
- July 1st, 1972: McLuhan declares end of consumer age1 Jul 2009BACK PAGES: MEDIA GURU Marshall McLuhan was credited with coining the phrase “global village” and identifying the idea that “the medium is the message” in one easily-remembered phrase.
June
- What O'Duffy did when he came home12 Jun 2009BACK PAGES June 12th 1939: GENERAL EOIN O’Duffy was one of the most controversial figures in Irish politics in the 1930s. Having begun as a member of the IRA during the War of Independence, he became a general in the Free State Army and Garda Commissioner before being fired by Fianna Fáil when it came into power in 1932.
- June 11th, 1960: Hollywood comes looking for clouds and gets the sun11 Jun 2009BACK PAGES: HOLLYWOOD CAME to Dublin in 1960 and found itself thwarted by the perversity of the Irish weather.
- Accusations of hypocrisy and suppression in Dáil exchange10 Jun 2009June 10th, 1953: THE FALLOUT from the mother and child controversy in 1951 brought down a government and exposed the relationship between the Catholic Church and the State.
- JUNE 9th 1929: Protestant disquiet at compulsory Irish robustly supported9 Jun 2009THE FREE State’s policy of compulsory Irish in schools and some professions during the 1920s was generally opposed by the Protestant churches. The Presbyterian General Assembly made clear its opposition in 1929, as did the Church of Ireland bishop of Killaloe, Rt Rev HE Patton, who described minister for finance Ernest Blythe as “the great coercionist” for requiring all lawyers to be competent in Irish and promising to use “the jackboot or two” to enforce it.
- Breach of promise case that provided lively newspaper copy8 Jun 2009JUNE 8th, 1911: BREACH OF promise cases, a product of the courtship practices of their time, were regular sources of litigation at one time and usually provided “good copy” for newspapers. One such case, involving a Miss Cahill of Gardiner’s Place, Dublin, and a Mr Kelly of Burgh Quay, was reported in today’s newspaper in 1911. Mr Kelly did not contest the case and the only issue before the jury was the amount of compensation to award her. Her case was put by her barrister:
- The ample wealth of Croker's widow5 Jun 2009JUNE 5th, 1923: RICHARD “BOSS” Croker ran Tammany Hall, the political machine in New York allied to the Democratic Party and synonymous with corruption, at the turn of the 20th century. Born in Ireland, he returned in old age, buying Glencairn in Sandyford, Co Dublin (later the home of the British ambassador), breeding racehorses, and bringing with him his second wife, Bula or Beulah, a Cherokee some 40 years his junior.
- The lot of a private detective not a happy one4 Jun 2009JUNE 4th, 1954 DON’T LET the facts spoil a good story, runs the cynical (and sometimes tempting) old journalistic adage. Don’t spoil the fantasies of fiction with the mundaneness of reality was the theme of this editorial from
- JUNE 30TH, 1915: O'Donovan Rossa's death famous for oratory at grave30 Jun 2009BACK PAGES: THE DEATH of Fenian leader Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in New York in 1915 struck The Irish Times of the day, preoccupied with the first World War, as an interesting item from history. O’Donovan Rossa had been effectively exiled for some 45 years – he was 83 when he died – but remained active in Fenian politics: his main claim to fame subsequently came from the stirring oration by Pádraig Pearse at his graveside in Glasnevin Cemetery a month after his death.
- JUNE 29TH, 1983: FF members got hot under the collar over planning Bill29 Jun 2009PLANS BY the Fine Gael-Labour government in 1983 to change the method of appointing members to An Bord Pleanála sent Fianna Fáil into a tizzy, leading its members to walk out of the Dáil, ostensibly over procedural matters of agreeing the time for the debate on the Bill. According to its critics, however, the real reason was the proposed change in the law, giving the government of the day less say in appointments to the board. They also suspected that Fianna Fáil did not want the Bill passed before the summer recess for some nefarious reason. The Dáil Sketch caught the flavour of proceedings:
- Bishop lifts ban on Saturday night dancing3 Jun 2009JUNE 3rd, 1968: FOR MUCH of the 20th century the Catholic church kept a close eye on dance-halls and what might be going on in them, or, perhaps more importantly, around them.
- An inadvertent victim of Irish censorship during war26 Jun 2009June 26th, 1957 DOROTHY MACARDLE was the author of The Irish Republic , the classic account of the struggle for independence and the Civil War from the anti-Treaty viewpoint, and a strong supporter of Eamon de Valera. She was also a journalist, as well as a novelist and dramatist, and found herself the inadvertent victim of Irish censorship during the second World War over an issue of the ground-breaking British Picture Post photo journalism magazine. In this column in today’s newspaper in 1957 – the month before the then ailing Picture Post closed and a year before her death – she explained how it had come about.
- 25th June 1935: Tireless efforts to muzzle an art expert25 Jun 2009BACK PAGES: DR THOMAS Bodkin was an art collector, art historian and the director of the National Gallery from 1927 to 1935. A nephew of Sir Hugh Lane, whose paintings he tried hard to retrieve for Dublin, he gave up the directorship to take up a similar position in Birmingham in 1935 but visited Dublin shortly afterwards as Honorary Professor of the History of Fine Arts in Trinity College and used the opportunity to say some things he had been prevented from saying previously:
- June 24th, 1920: Pitched battles on the streets of Derry24 Jun 2009IN THE midst of the War of Independence, while the IRA battled with the British army and other forces in the Southern parts of the country, the long-feared civil war between unionists and nationalists seemed in danger of breaking out in northern areas, particularly in Derry. As fighting continued for a sixth day in the city between nationalist and unionists, and also involving the British army, The Irish Times tried to piece together what was happening:
- Why Lord Haw-Haw deserved a peerage23 Jun 2009June 23rd, 1945 IN THE immediate aftermath of the second World War stories about Hitler’s whereabouts were common: in today’s paper in 1945 he was reported to have escaped by submarine from a French port and been spotted in Hamburg.
- June 22, 1961: Ironic that the Rank Organisation was behind Hawkins House22 Jun 2009 THE RANK Organisation announced plans in 1962 to replace the Theatre Royal and the Regal Cinema in Dublin’s Hawkins Street with a 12-storey modern office block which became Hawkins House, one of the ugliest buildings in Dublin. The announcement was made by the company’s deputy chairman John Davis who also said they planned to build a 10-pin bowling alley behind the Gresham Hotel and a 72-room motel outside Cork.
- 'Extraordinary' upsurge in demand for Gaeltacht courses19 Jun 2009June 19th, 1974: A COUPLE OF weeks learning Irish in the Gaeltacht is a rite of passage for many people, never more so than in 1974 when the Irish schools found themselves inundated with applicants. Why this was so was not too clear, as Donal Musgrave discovered for this report:
- June 18th, 1966: Cabinet reshuffle and the future of Lemass18 Jun 2009BACK PAGES: JOHN HEALY opened up the coverage of politics with Backbencher’s weekly Inside Politics column throughout the 1960s. In a style not applied previously to Irish politics, he sometimes used fictional devices to deliver his own mixture of fact and gossip and create the impression of being an insider. One such example was this extract of a supposed chat between taoiseach Seán Lemass, The Boss Man, and himself, BB, while trout fishing on Beltra Lake as speculation about Cabinet re-shuffles and Lemass’s future circulated, writes JOE JOYCE
- June 17th, 1872: Dispatch from besieged Paris fashion world17 Jun 2009MUCH OF The Irish Times in the 19th century was taken up with imperial wars but one would not necessarily expect to find a militaristic tone imbuing a report from Paris on the latest fashions.
- June 16th 1904: Tragedy in New York on Bloomsday16 Jun 2009BACK PAGES: ON THE day that James Joyce picked to immortalise the Dublin of his youth, The Irish Times carried the usual complement of reports about now obscure political controversies, court cases and concern over the funding of the Royal Hibernian Academy. The most dramatic report came from New York where a Sunday school outing turned into disaster: along with so much else, it was swept up into Joyce’s narrative.
- Challenge to Anglo-Irish Agreement15 Jun 2009FROM THE ARCHIVES: HAVING GROWN accustomed to Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness sharing power in the North, it may be difficult to look back at the sense of surprise – not to mention cheek – that greeted the challenge to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement by two unionists in the High Court and Supreme Court in Dublin.
- June 1st, 1899: Epsom Derby was set to be a one-horse race1 Jun 2009BACK PAGES: IN SPITE of increasing competition from richer races, the Derby at Epsom maintained its cachet as the Blue Riband of racing more than a century ago. The event in 1899, with a prize of 6,000 sovereigns, was not expected to provide much excitement.
April
- APRIL 16TH, 1902: Theatre Royal anti-Empire disturbances16 Apr 2009POLITICS APPEAR to have pervaded all aspects of life in 1902, judging by the contents and commentary in The Irish Times of the day. With unionists generally supporting the British government’s policy of “killing Home Rule with kindness” and nationalists determinedly unimpressed by almost everything, events such as the Spring Show and an opera at the Theatre Royal were part of the ongoing political argument.
- APRIL 15TH, 1958: Cruiskeen Lawn: a view on telefission15 Apr 2009THE ANNOUNCEMENT by the Fianna Fáil government in 1958 that it was setting up a commission to look into the provision of a television service for Ireland provoked Myles na Gopaleen (Brian O’Nolan) into a typically scathing, pun-littered, flight of fancy in his inimitable Cruiskeen Lawn column:
- April 14th, 1971 Non-smokers have the right to be fuming14 Apr 2009BACK IN 1971 smokers ruled the world or, at least, had managed to insist on their rights above those of non-smokers. The Irish Times Education Correspondent, John Horgan, took time off from the annual teachers’ conferences to write a cri de coeur (or, perhaps, cri de poumon) in support of the widely overlooked rights of non-smokers.
- April 13th, 1928: The first east-west Atlantic crossing by air13 Apr 2009AFTER CHARLES Lindbergh made the first crossing of the Atlantic by air in 1927, the more difficult east-west crossing was the next aviation frontier. This day’s newspaper in 1928 carried several articles on the flight of the Junkers aircraft, Bremen, which took off from Baldonnel Aerodrome on the latest attempt to fly to America.
- APRIL 10, 1967: Capital idea to limit city's urban sprawl10 Apr 2009BACK PAGES: THE LEAD story in today’s newspaper in 1967 was the publication of the report by a town planner, Prof Myles Wright of Liverpool University, on the future expansion of Dublin. His main recommendation was the creation of four new towns to the west of the existing city and a box-like road system around the city to take account, as an editorial noted, of “the accepted fact that the motor car is becoming everybody’s mode of conveyance”.
- APRIL 9, 1891: Who was Mr Gladstone's Home Rule Bill to satisfy?9 Apr 2009THE ANNUAL meeting of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union was an exuberant event in Dublin in April 1891, scarcely able to believe its luck with the recent split in the Irish Party which had deposed Charles Stewart Parnell after the revelation of his affair with Katharine O’Shea by her husband’s divorce case.
- APRIL 8, 1938: In God's name, don't divide Meath's land8 Apr 2009WHILE HITLER voted in the Austrian plebiscite to sanction the Anschluss (by more than 99 per cent of the votes) and other Nazi leaders made no secret of their aggressive intentions, the Dáil was passing government spending estimates with the following comments on the Land Commission reported in today’s paper in 1938:
- APRIL 7, 1954: Defending this season's debutantes7 Apr 2009WITH THE London “season” about to start, an editorial in The Irish Times reflected on this day in 1954, with a little tongue in cheek, on the mothers and debutante daughters facing “the mannequin parade”:
- APRIL 30TH, 1946: Crowds turn out for Annie's explosive show30 Apr 2009ALMOST A year after it ended in Europe, the fallout from the second World War was still frontpage news. Among them on this day in 1946 were reports of US plans to keep Germany and Japan disarmed, instructions to Americans to eat less to provide more food for the rest of the world, and the evidence of Julius Streicher, the fiercely anti-Semitic founder of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer , at the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, the city he had once ruled.
- April 28th, 1909 : Theft of crown jewels from Dublin Castle28 Apr 2009BACK PAGES: THE THEFT of the Irish crown jewels from Dublin Castle in 1907 gave rise to many conspiracy theories. The jewels (actually the insignia of the Order of St Patrick) disappeared from a safe in the office of Sir Arthur Vicars, the Ulster King of Arms (ie chief herald). Vicars was later fired for not exercising proper care of them, writes JOE JOYCE
- APRIL 27TH, 1967: Everything became a discussion of sex27 Apr 2009BACK PAGES: OLIVER J FLANAGAN, the Fine Gael TD for Laois-Offaly, famously (and risibly) said there was no sex in Ireland before television. What he presumably meant was that there was no public discussions of sex before television, and a TV review by Ken Gray on this day in 1967 shows he might have had a point, as television seemed to turn everything into a discussion of sex, writes JOE JOYCE .
- APRIL 24th, 1916: 'Our foolish young men play at soldiers'24 Apr 2009READERS OF The Irish Times on Easter Monday in 1916, April 24th that year, would have had no inkling of the historical change that was about to get under way at the GPO that morning.
- APRIL 23rd, 1951: Pedestrian pictures at the academy23 Apr 2009THE ROYAL Hibernian Academy’s annual exhibition, which opened today in 1951, was enlivened by the work of some modern British artists “rubbing disdainful shoulders with Connemara landscapes and pretty flower studies”, in the view of The Irish Times critic Tony Gray, who signed himself GHG. They had been invited to exhibit by Louis le Brocquy among others, but Gray found it difficult to reconcile this invitation with the Academy’s attitude to native abstractions which, with few exceptions, were missing from the show. What was there, though, were the works of many artists whose names are familiar from the salesrooms of the recent art market boom.
- APRIL 22, 1931: To know Ireland, go to Punchestown22 Apr 2009PUNCHESTOWN WEEK in 1931 had “Our Lady Correspondent” as busy as, if not busier than, the racing correspondent as she provided a lengthy column of detail about what all the titled ladies – and there were a lot of them – wore at the first day’s racing. The racing correspondent only had to deal with half a page of results, including the Prince of Wales’s Plate which was followed immediately by the Governor-General’s Cup, and the next day’s runners.
- APRIL 21st, 1876: Report paints a grim picture of flax industry21 Apr 2009HEALTH AND safety at work has become the butt of jokes and even derision at times because of the lengths to which it is sometimes taken, but the other extreme is evident from the editorial comment in The Irish Times of today’s date in 1876. Reporting the comments of a surgeon in Cookstown, Co Tyrone about the flax industry there, it paints a horrific picture of the conditions in which people worked in one of the North’s best-known industries.
- APRIL 6, 1912: Colum's letter and psychic phenomena6 Apr 2009THE THEATRE Royal in Dublin re-opened on Easter Saturday, April 6th, 1912, with a production of Kismet: An Arabian Night after being closed for most of Holy Week.
August
- Maintenance case had public in convulsions19 Aug 2009AUGUST 19TH,1905: MUSICAL COMEDIES or comic operas were all the rage on Dublins stages in August 1905, but it is very doubtful if they raised as many laughs as this court case in Lisburn involving an unfortunate couple whose evidence had the audience in a state of high glee in the public gallery, if not rolling in the aisles:
- August 20th, 1982: Bizarre scenes as MacArthur appeared in court20 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: GROTESQUE, UNBELIEVABLE, bizarre, unprecedented were the adjectives used by then taoiseach Charles Haughey (not in that order) as he grappled with the arrest of a murder suspect at the home of his attorney general in 1982. (The order was created by his arch-critic Conor Cruise O’Brien to coin the acronym Gubu as shorthand for the, eh, grotesque etc events that seemed to follow in Haughey’s political wake). The suspect, Malcolm MacArthur’s, second court appearance was described by Maev Kennedy, writes JOE JOYCE
- August 21st, 1951: 'Wild Goose' speaks out on human exports21 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: AN ASSERTION that Ireland was the only country in the world whose population in 1951 was less than it had been at the start of the century prompted The Irish Times to consider why there was such a high emigration rate and low marriage rate .
- August 24th, 1993: The know-all, the fire brigade and saving the ducks on Sunday24 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: Two ducks, nine ducklings and a waterhen trapped in a near empty canal lock at Dublins Lesson Street bridge plus a know-all and some brave firemen provided Donal Dorcey with this “Irishman’s Diary” and an appropriate Sunday morning lesson, writes JOE JOYCE
- Potato famine threat lurked in 20th century25 Aug 2009AUGUST 25TH, 1906: THE THREAT of potato blight and the reality of resulting severe food shortages and even famines was never far away during the 19th century and into the 20th century, as this editorial in The Irish Times from 1906 indicates.
- August 26th, 1861: Banks, transport companies and miners in spotlight26 Aug 2009THE DUBLIN stock market was dominated in the early 1860s by banks (as usual), transport companies (steamships, canals and, especially, railways) and, surprisingly, mining companies. Prices per share were extremely high, as this wrap-up of the dealings from this week in 1861 indicates.
- Catholic society issues booklets on love and marriage27 Aug 2009August 27th, 1975: The womens rights movement was in full flow in the 1970s, and needed to be, as this extract in which Nell McCafferty took apart contemporary Catholic booklets shows:
- Markievicz arrested after the King called a scoundrel14 Aug 2009AUGUST 14TH, 1912: A meeting of socialists, chaired by Countess Markievicz, in Custom House square in Dublin 1911, ended in confusion when police tried to arrest one of the speakers, Emea Moloney, when she described King George V as a “scoundrel”. Both women ended up in court, Moloney charged with provoking a breach of the peace and Markievicz with assaulting a policeman. A magistrate named Macinerney gave the following judgment:
- Motorists go flat out up Craigantlet hill28 Aug 2009AUGUST 28TH, 1933: The Ulster Automobile Club’s annual hill climb competition at Craigantlet, outside Belfast, now has a record of just under 40 seconds for the steep, 1,460-yard, ascent. The speeds these days are more than twice what they were in 1933 when the activities of some of the competitors would probably get them banned today.
- August 13th, 1977 Irish gundogs outnumbered their quarry13 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: THE “GLORIOUS Twelfth” (the August one) is the date on which the grouse shooting season opens each year. George Burrows, who kept a close eye on rural pursuits, offered readers a potted history of grouse in Ireland in today’s paper in 1977, writes JOE JOYCE
- Concern at rash of 'flicks' for children12 Aug 2009AUGUST 12TH, 1944: IN 1944 as the Allied and German armies fought over France, The Irish Times was also concerned about the influence of what an editorial had called “the scum of Hollywood’s cheapest productions” on children, especially on poor children. A reporter was sent to assess the situation:
- August 11th, 1984: Not just the end of democracy but a takeover too11 Aug 2009At any given time in history it is never difficult to find people extolling the past, decrying the present and fearing the future. Twenty-five years ago, the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government raised prices in an eve-of-bank holiday statement and Det Garda Frank Hand was shot dead while escorting a delivery of social welfare payments to a post office in Co Meath. Veteran Fine Gael backbencher and one-time defence minister Oliver J. Flanagan feared the worst:
- August 10th, 1859: A modest proposal to keep the dismal Liffey swamp out of sight10 Aug 2009The stench of the River Liffey was a regular feature of summer in Dublin until comparatively recent times. In its first summer in existence in 1859, The Irish Times described what it was like then and offered a modest proposal to solve the problems:
- Coming of age in the jumping enclosure7 Aug 2009August 7th, 1926: THE DUBLIN Horse Show was a notable date in the ancien regimes annual “season” and its future in the early 1920s was uncertain. In 1926, five years after the War of Independence, its first international military equestrian competition included a British army team which was greeted, like all the other teams, with its national anthem played by the Free State Army’s band. The Irish Times saw the event as a portent of better times:
- Time to start life anew on the Dodder6 Aug 2009AUGUST 6TH, 1956: MYLES NA Gopaleen, whose day job as Brian O’Nolan was in the Custom House headquarters of the Department of Local Government and had a serious drink problem, sailed close to the wind in several respects in this Cruiskeen Lawn column in 1956 in which he took several satirical swipes at Dublin Corporations contemporary plans to house itself in Wood Quay (which it finally did controversially more than 20 years later) and housing in general:
- August 5th, 1936: Duke killed in Limerick car race crash5 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: THE LIMERICK Grand Prix held on the city’s streets on bank holiday Monday in 1936 ended in tragedy when the Bugatti of the 22-year-old Duke of Grafton, John Charles William FitzRoy, burst into flames as it hit a gatepost after rounding a corner. An inquest in Barrington’s Hospital next day included eyewitness evidence:
- August 3rd, 1878: Cousins in court over family dispute3 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: FAMILY DISPUTES have always taken up a considerable proportion of the courts’ time, frequently over wills. This one, heard in Cork from 1878, carried the headline “An Extraordinary Action”, and had its origins in a falling out between Limerick cousins over a breach of promise to marry case: The plaintiff was John Gubbins, of Bruff, Co Limerick, and the defendant was Dr Gubbins of Hospital, in the same county. It was an action to recover the value of a grey mare, a side-saddle, and a galvanic battery, together with the sum of £13, alleged to have been lent by the plaintiff to the defendant.
- 17 August 1921: Legendary figures emerge from the shadows17 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: IN THE weeks after the Truce in 1921 IRA and Sinn Féin leaders who had been on the run began to emerge from the shadows. One of the set pieces was the first meeting of the second Dáil at which an Irish Times Special Correspondent (almost certainly Bertie Smyllie, the future editor) offered pen pictures of the better known ones and came to a perceptive conclusion in what was probably the first Dáil sketch published in the newspaper:
- August 18th, 1880: All quiet on the Dungannon front18 Aug 2009BACK PAGES: A SELF-PERPETUATING cycle of provocation and retaliation has bedevilled the North for decades, if not centuries. This example is from 129 years ago and was part of the preliminaries to a riot in Dungannon in which one man was shot dead and several others were wounded when police opened fire after a nationalist procession had turned into violence with the help of some aggressive Orangemen, writes JOE JOYCE
- August 31st, 1883 Pressure of a quiet August relieved by the penny-a-liner31 Aug 2009THE “SILLY season”, when news dries up because of the absence on holidays of law-makers, law-interpreters and other movers and shakers, is as often noted in the breach as in the reality. When it does come true, for daily news columnists, like the staff of The Irish Times in London who were required to fill (literally) a column every day, the pressure of a quiet August could lead to desperation, as this column from 1883 demonstrates.
September
- September 17th, 1937: Harvest trek led to deaths of 10 young Irishmen17 Sep 2009TRAVELLING TO Scotland to work on the potato harvest was a regular seasonal activity and source of income for many Mayo and Donegal families in the first half of the 20th centu ry.
- Attempts to clear the fog of the Franco-Prussian War of 187021 Sep 2009SEPTEMBER 2 1ST, 1870: Modern war reporting is usually dated from Irish journalist William Russell’s reports for the Times from the Crimean War in the early 1850s, which described for the first time the horrors of combat with the help of the telegraph which greatly speeded up communications. Twenty years later, the Franco-Prussian War dominated the pages of The Irish Times as German forces encircled Paris and eventually starved it into submission in January 1871. Getting a clear picture of what was happening in any war, then as now, was difficult and the newspaper relied on a wide collection of disparate sources, from news agencies to reports in other newspapers, to provide this mosaic of events in France – and, surprisingly, the effects of the war back home.
- Growing shortage of materials causes great hardship22 Sep 2009SEPTEMBER 22ND, 1941: Facing into the third winter of the second World War in 1941, a government minister, Seán MacEntee, warned people to expect greater hardship because of growing shortages of materials that were outside the country’s ability to produce, chiefly oil and coal. The extent of those hardships could be gauged from the existing difficulties catalogued in the same newspaper in a letter from Mary Frances Keating, later a columnist with the paper, listing the conditions of some people in the Portobello and North Frederick Street areas of Dublin.
- 23 September, 1919: A Protestant unity argument against partition23 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: Describing The Irish Times of the past as a Protestant paper was usually shorthand for saying it supported the union, and opposed Home Rule and independence. When it mentioned “the country” it usually meant the United Kingdom, including Ireland, and the government was the British government (pre-independence references to the Irish government meant the Dublin Castle administration). But it was also, doctrinally, a Church of Ireland newspaper, as this editorial from a quiet week during the War of Independence illustrates.
- September 24th 1885: Expulsion of National League alderman criticised24 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: Boycotting was the most potent weapon in the hands of the Land League, and its successor the National League, in the 1880s but it was a controversial one, even occasionally among members of the league itself, particularly in relation to how far it should go. In 1885, the vice-chairman of the Waterford branch of the National League, an Alderman Smith, was expelled for providing food to the family of a land grabber from Co Kilkenny. The Irish Times, which opposed the league and its tactics, commented on the case in this editorial.
- September 25th 1978: Sam returns to Kerry after Dubs collapse25 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: The 1978 All-Ireland Football Final was not a memorable game, except among Kerry supporters as their team began a four-in-a-row title sequence and put a decisive stop to Dublin’s hopes of three titles in a row. It may also have pleased contrarians who like seeing conventional wisdom and the predictions of “experts”, whether sporting or political, overturned, as Donal Foley noted in his front page report from Croke Park.
- September 28th 1989: Revenue's claims about state of the property market disputed28 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: Twenty years ago the property market was beginning to pick up after the doldrums of the 1980s.
- Volunteers divided over response to war1 Sep 2009September 1st 1914. THE START of the first World War in August 1914 exposed deep divisions among nationalists, not least among the Irish Volunteers, who had been formed in response to the foundation and arming of the Ulster Volunteers to oppose Home Rule.
- September 29th, 1960: Appointment of Chichester-Clark to seat is criticised29 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: The stultifying state of the Unionist Party, and politics, in the North was spelled out by an anonymous Northern Correspondent in 1960 as Major James Chichester-Clark – a future prime minister at Stormont in the early years of the Troubles – stepped neatly from the British army into his family’s seat in the local parliament.
- September 2nd, 1967: Cassius Clay overplays the myth that surrounds him2 Sep 2009WRITER JOHN Broderick was not an obvious choice to review a book on boxer Muhammad Ali as he was transforming himself from Cassius Clay into a Black Muslim but he used the platform to offer his own definition of style:
- Political playmakers bowled over by All-Ireland final3 Sep 2009SEPTEMBER 3RD, 1973: Kilkenny lost their All-Ireland hurling crown in 1973 to underdogs Limerick, for whom it was the first victory since 1940. Although the winning margin was decisive, 1-21 to 1-14, it was an exciting game by all accounts, with the sides level on eight occasions until Limerick scored what turned out to be the critical goal. Donal Foley reported on the match, played in steady rain, and the GAA’s wider cultural practices of the time, in this front page piece.
- September 4th 1939: 'Aisy-going' Dubs don't mention war September 4th, 19394 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: On the evening of the day in 1939 that Britain and France declared war on Germany following its invasion of Poland, an Irish Times journalist walked the streets of central Dublin to gauge public reaction and began his report with the story of the boy who cried wolf too often , writes JOE JOYCE
- Warning of ineffectual remedy against cholera7 Sep 2009SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1866: Outbreaks of cholera were common in Dublin in the 19th century due to poverty, overcrowding and, especially, the lack of sanitation. A brief editorial in today’s newspaper in 1866 noted that a meeting of Dublin Corporation to set up a public health committee with newly extended statutory powers had to be abandoned because not enough councillors turned up to form a quorum: it contrasted their lack of interest with the intense interest there would have been had there been a political motion on the agenda. In the same paper, this letter from a doctor also warned against a common but ineffectual remedy against cholera:
- Invasion exercise off the west coast staged by Army in 19259 Sep 2009SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1925: Some 3,000 soldiers of the Free State Army’s Western Command carried out extensive manoeuvres in Co Mayo in September 1925, dividing into a Red army invading the country and a Blue army defending it. An anonymous reporter filed this account of the opening day:
- September 10th, 1952: Plan to get transatlantic air project off the ground10 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: Air travel was taking a major leap forward in the 1950s with the introduction of commercial jets. One possibility was that longer range aircraft would overfly Shannon airport whose main raison detre was as a refuelling stop. To try to keep up with developments, the Fianna Fáil government was considering resurrecting a plan to provide an Aer Lingus transatlantic service, launched six years later.
- September 11th, 1886: A stranger's response to Dublin rowdies11 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: Agrarian violence was common in the 1880s and not always between landlords’ agents and tenants. Today’s paper in 1886 reported a preliminary court hearing in Ferbane, Co Offaly, arising out of a pitched battle between two rival groups of National Land League members which left several men badly injured. And a visiting Irish-American was prompted by his experiences to address this letter to the editor under the heading “Rowdyism in Dublin”, writes JOE JOYCE
- September 14th, 1987: Cancer of 'bungalow blight' infecting every part of the country14 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: Along with widespread emigration, another feature of the 1980s was what became known as “bungalow blight”, a play on the title of a book of simple house designs, Bungalow Bliss, which some blamed for the spread of one-off housing in rural areas. In a series of articles, Environment Correspondent Frank McDonald characterised the development as a cancer which was infecting every part of the country.
- September 15th, 1965: Film festival's exciting cast of characters15 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: The Cork Film Festival was the only one in the country when it began in the mid-1950s. Séamus Kelly, aka Quidnunc, was there in 1965 to write this Irishmans Diary.
- Intrepid 'aeronaut' wows crowd with parachute stunt16 Sep 2009SEPTEMBER 16TH, 1889: Ballooning was a rare sight in the late 19th century and parachuting even rarer, attracting an astonishing (if the reporter’s estimates were right) 25,000 people to Clonturk Park in Drumcondra, Dublin, to see an “aeronaut” do both in 1889. He succeeded, in spite of problems with the pressure of the gas supply from the Dublin Gas Company.
- September 30th, 1968: 'Rocky Road' is worth the trip30 Sep 2009BACK PAGES: Journalist Peter Lennon’s documentary film, The Rocky Road to Dublin , (released on DVD in 2005) portrayed Ireland as a backward, priest-ridden country in 1967 and greatly upset the country’s image of itself when it was first shown at the Cork Film Festival. Filmed by the French nouvelle vague cinematographer Raoul Coutard, largely with the use of a then-rare handheld camera, its commentary pulled few punches. Fergus Linehan reviewed it again when it was subsequently screened for seven weeks in the small International Film Theatre in Dublin.
October
- October 20th, 1871: Trinity College Law School criticised20 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: The prospect of competition from a new university law school in London prompted The Irish Times to pull few punches in its criticism of the less than impressive state of the law school in Trinity College Dublin some 130 years ago.
- October 21st 1961: 'Squire' Friel's tales of agony and ecstasy21 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: Brian Friel wrote a regular column in The Irish Times in the late 1950s and early 1960s in which the central character was one “Brian Friel” who was much put-upon, bemused by and at odds with the world as in this extract from 1961.
- October 22nd, 1959: Dáil resumes to elect new leader of FG22 Oct 2009BACK PAGES : Today’s politicians might envy their forbearers who rarely came back to the Dáil from their summer recess much before the last week of October. The return from holidays in 1959 was marked mainly by the election of a new leader of Fine Gael, James Dillon, who replaced not one but two people, Gen Richard Mulcahy, who was leader of the party, and John A Costello, who was leader of the Opposition. Dillon’s election was going on off-stage as the Dáil resumed, leaving the House in the doldrums, until somebody mentioned what this report describes as that “surefire stirrer of tongues”, the Abbey Theatre, writes
JOE JOYCE
- OCTOBER 23RD, 1913: Deciding fate of children during Lockout23 Oct 2009The 1913 Lockout raised all sorts of subsidiary political and social tensions in Dublin in addition to the no-holds-barred confrontation between James Larkin’s transport union and William Martin Murphy’s employers’ confederation. One flashpoint arose over plans by English trade unionists and well-wishers to bring some children of unemployed workers, who were facing severe hunger, to English homes for the duration of the dispute. As the plan went into action, so did its opponents, as this report, one of several on the day, recorded.
- October 26th, 1979: Northern Catholics dispute findings of survey on united Ireland26 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: A survey by the Economic and Social Research Institute in 1979 ruffled many feathers with its findings that southerners were much more supportive of a united Ireland than Northern Catholics and that the IRA had the support of 21 per cent in the Republic. Only 9 per cent of people in the Republic supported Northern Ireland remaining in the UK while, most controversially, the survey found that 50 per cent of Northern Catholics were in favour of staying in the UK. Conor O’Clery went to Derry to check on Catholic opinion there.
- Conference is final effort to win peace27 Oct 2009OCTOBER 27TH, 1921: What became known as the treaty negotiations (but known at the time to The Irish Times as the Irish Peace Conference) began on October 11th, 1921.
- Parnell demand for inquiry into 10 convictions28 Oct 2009OCTOBER 28TH, 1884: The murder of five members of the Joyce family in Maamtrasna, Co Mayo, in 1882 horrified the country with its brutality and turned into a cause celebre when it became clear that some of the 10 men convicted were innocent.
- October 1st, 1928: Pride and joy of bagging a wild widgeon1 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: The Edwardian era’s passion for hunting, shooting and fishing, especially the first two, can be difficult for many modern urban dwellers to understand. An anonymous writer, signing himself “Derry Quin”, made a good stab at explaining the attractions of duck shooting in in 1928.
- October 2nd, 1907: Farmer argues grazing system is 'national evil'2 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: The hunger for land, which played such a decisive role in Irish history, did not always involve consistent positions, writes JOE JOYCE
- October 5th, 1938: Council rejects increase in water analysis fees by wife of O'Kelly5 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: Seán T O’Kelly, a founder member of Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, was the minister for local government and public health in the 1930s. After his first wife, Mary Kate Ryan, died in 1934, he married her sister Phyllis who ran a laboratory in Dublin’s Dawson Street and found herself at odds with Clare County Council when she tried to quadruple her fees for water analyses. A report of another shot in the battle appeared in today’s paper in 1938.
- Circulation row elicits strong 'Irish Times' response29 Oct 2009OCTOBER 29TH, 1859 when a newcomer arrives on the streets. Proving that some things never change, The Irish Times found itself on the receiving end of denigratory reports about its circulation shortly after its founding in 1859, as this early editorial indicates.
- October 6th, 1900: New approaches to child-rearing called into question6 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: Theories about child-rearing can change with alarming rapidity. In 1900 The Irish Times was sceptical about some of the latest ideas and happy to see them questioned by an “expert”.
- Protest at ESB demolition of Georgian row7 Oct 2009OCTOBER 7TH, 1964: The ESB’s demolition in the 1960s of a row of Georgian houses on Lower Fitzwilliam Street, destroying the longest vista of the periods houses in Dublin, is now widely recognised as among the worst planning decisions made in the city. It was made by Neil Blaney, then Fianna Fáil minister for local government, against the wishes of the city council and a small protest group.
- High living in Dublin's first apartment blocks8 Oct 2009October 8th, 1958: The 1950s was a grim decade in Ireland, with economic stagnation, high emigration and a general sense of isolation, as this article by Caroline Mitchell about the first purpose-built flats in Dublin city that were not social housing.
- October 9th 1943: Wartime effort by Plain People of Ireland October 9th, 19429 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: There wasn’t much in the censored and shrunken newspapers of the second World War years – today’s paper in 1942 had only four pages – to bring a smile to a reader’s lips. So the appearance of Myles na gCopaleen’s Cruiskeen Lawn column from 1940 onwards must have been a ray of sunshine. In this column, he tried out some of the styles he perfected over the years.
- October 12th, 1994: Labour opposed appointment of Whelehan to presidency of the High Court12 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: Fifteen years ago, the first (and only) coalition government between Fianna Fáil and Labour was heading for a break-up over Taoiseach Albert Reynolds’s intention to appoint Attorney General Harry Whelehan to the presidency of the High Court.
- October 13th, 1890: Tunnel mooted to link Antrim with Scotland13 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: Several 19th-century schemes to build a tunnel under the English Channel were killed off by British fears of invasion from France. A plan for a tunnel between Antrim and Scotland, however, received the overwrought enthusiasm of an Irish Times leader writer who saw it as the solution to many political problems.
- October 14th, 1890: Parades mark centenary of pioneering priest's birth14 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: The centenary of the birth of Fr Theobald Mathew, founder of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, was marked by temperance campaigners of all denominations with parades and other events in Dublin and Cork and elsewhere. The centrepiece of the Dublin ceremonies was the inauguration of a statue to Fr Mathew in Sackville Street (O’Connell Street) and attracted an impressive turnout, although some found it thirsty work, as this extract from the lengthy reports of the Dublin event indicates.
- October 15th, 1970: What will become of the children?15 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: A week-long series of articles about Women’s Liberation in The Irish Times in 1970 brought a huge response, a selection of which was published in the Women First page with this introduction:
- October 16th, 1985: On a striking day even the Green closed16 Oct 2009Most of the country’s public services, from airports to schools, were closed by a one-day strike in 1985 as public sector unions protested against the Fine Gael-Labour government’s attempts to curb payments and State spending. The success of the protests was seen as a victory by the unions’ leaderships who had been accused by government ministers of being more militant than their members. Mary Cummins assessed the mood on the streets of Dublin.
- October 19th, 1908 : When Catholics of Swords turned violent against new evangelical congregation19 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: The battle for souls between the Catholic and Protestant churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was every bit as intense as the parallel battles over land and Home Rule. An incident in 1908 in Swords, Co Dublin, illustrated the sensitivities. A local shopkeeper held an evangelical meeting in a house he used as a store; a hostile crowd gathered and threw stones at the building, and held marches and demonstrations for several nights. This report covered one aspect of the aftermath.
- October 30th, 1971: Elasticity is chief characteristic of republican morality, North and South30 Oct 2009BACK PAGES: As taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil during the early days of the Northern Troubles Jack Lynch developed a method of dealing with the many thorny questions and internal divisions that beset him and the party with circumlocutions and vague sentiments. One of the main interpreters of these often convoluted statements was John Healy, especially in his weekly Backbencher column, as in this example on Lynch’s policies on the bans on divorce and birth control.
November
- Storm in Cork killed two children in 191618 Nov 2009NOVEMBER 18TH, 1916: A storm with up to hurricane winds killed two children and caused a lot of damage throughout the southern half of the country in November 1916. Among the worst affected areas were Cork and Waterford, from where these reports were sent.
- November 19th, 1976: Familiar ring to debates on cut-backs in 197619 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: For those with long enough memories, today’s political debates have a strong ring of the less than happy 1970s and 1980s about them, as is shown by this Dáil Sketch by Denis Coghlan about the choices and divisions facing the Fine Gael-Labour government in its final months in power.
- Redmond offers hope on land question November 20th, 190220 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: John Redmond, leader of the reunited Irish Parliamentary Party, returned to Ireland after a fund-raising visit to the US in 1902 to be greeted with a series of formal addresses by supporters, processions and meetings in Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) and Dublin. Part of the address read to him outside the offices of the United Irish League at Sackville Street (O’Connell Street) went as follows:
- November 23rd, 1983: Cross-Border shopping expeditions have a long history23 Nov 2009The ebb and flow of cross-Border shopping (the legal kind, not to mention the smuggling) has usually been dictated by government decisions and taxes and, as at present, by currency fluctuations. It wasn’t the latter that sent hordes of Southerners to Newry for their Christmas shopping in 1983 but increases in VAT and excise duties, as well as the generally higher costs of products in the South, as this report by Brian Donaghy explained, writes
JOE JOYCE .
- November 24th, 1934: Six men jailed over attempt to thwart collection of land annuity24 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: The so-called “Economic War” in the 1930s began when the Fianna Fáil government refused to continue paying land annuities – the repayments due to the British government for lengthy loans given to farmers to buy their land.
- November 25th, 1968: Ugly scenes as loyalist mob disrupts civil rights protest25 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: This incident in Dungannon in the early days of the Northern civil rights campaign might sound like farce now, but it illustrates the atmosphere of intimidation and the questionable role of the police when a handful of students planned a public meeting in the town square – factors that were to fuel the Troubles.
- November 26th, 1912: Home Rule Bill 'a delusion and a cheat'26 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: In 1912 the Home Rule Bill was going through the House of Commons in London, teasing out the details of the proposal which was ultimately passed. Among those details were the taxation powers of the proposed Irish parliament, leading to committee-stage discussions and disputes over how Ireland would fare financially under the arrangements. The Irish Times was totally opposed to the Bill and, in this editorial, it detected (with some exaggeration) the proof of the financial disaster waiting to happen in a contribution by the Irish Party leader, John Redmond, writes JOE JOYCE
- November 27th 1995: 'High Noon' on divorce poll result day27 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: Removing the constitutional ban on divorce took two referendums almost 10 years apart, and was passed by the slenderest of majorities, 9,110 votes of the 1,628,572 valid votes cast, in 1995, writes JOE JOYCE
- Unemployed march in Dublin for jobs and home assistance2 Nov 2009NOVEMBER 2ND, 1932: “Hunger marches” were a regular form of protest in Britain by the autumn of 1932, three years after the Wall Street crash and in the depths of the Great Depression. The more common form of protest in Ireland at the lack of jobs and minimal social assistance was to seek work through local councils and improved welfare from local health boards, as this daily round-up of protests illustrated.
- Hidden tricks spoil treats on Halloween3 Nov 2009NOVEMBER 3RD, 1987: The fears of Halloween are not all associated with ghosts, ghouls and the supernatural, as this column from California by Declan Kiberd in 1987 explained.
- November 5th, 1873: Parisian gossip and political intrigue5 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: The Irish Times kept a close eye on France in the early 1870s as the Franco-Prussian War was followed by the Paris Commune and the political machinations of monarchists, republicans and Bonapartists in the Third Republic, presided over by Marshal Patrice MacMahon, a descendant of Irish Jacobites.
- November 9th, 1918: Relief as deaths from 1918 Spanish flu epidemic began to decline9 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, estimated to have killed more than 50 million worldwide, affected Ireland as everywhere else. In November of that year, as the first World War came to a close, it was hoped that the worst was over, although the flu continued for another two years in some places. Today’s newspaper in that year was mainly preoccupied with the armistice arrangements for the war’s end in two days’ time, but this report showed the effects of the flu in Dublin.
- November 10th, 1969: Girls beware of 'swinging London'10 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: The “swinging London” of the 1960s might have broken moulds but it was not necessarily as revolutionary as it seemed at the time, as this report by London editor Andrew Whittaker for the “Women First” page about a survey of young men’s attitudes indicates:
- November 11th, 1953: TDs rail over 'vulgarity' of plays on Radio Éireann11 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: It is difficult to imagine a time when politicians were not allowed on the country's only radio station, as, apparently, they were not in the early decades of Radio Éireann - before it was detached gradually from total to indirect government control. But they were never behind the door in voicing their opinions on the station, as in this Dáil debate on an estimate of £169,000 for broadcasting in 1953.
- Controversy over religious emblems12 Nov 2009NOVEMBER 12TH, 1892: A special meeting of Dublin city council was called in November 1892 to applaud the controversial decision of the National Education Board to remove restrictions which had prevented the Christian Brothers from receiving state grants for post-primary schools.
- November 13th, 1909; Horror of mob rule manifested in lynching13 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: The horror of mob rule is clear from this Reuters report a century ago about the notorious lynching of two men, one black and one white, in the town of Cairo at the southern tip of Illinois in the US. They were accused of separate and unconnected murders and were murdered by a mob from the town’s then population of some 15,000.
- November 16th, 1923: Minister defends plan to cut old-age pension and teachers' pay16 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: Within months of the end of the costly Civil War in the summer of 1923 the Free State government found itself trying to balance its budget. The new minister for finance, Ernest Blythe, proposed cutting the old-age pension by a shilling (6c) and teachers’ pay by 10 per cent: he defended his plan in this speech to the Dáil, writes JOE JOYCE
- November 17th, 1943: When Dev came out fighting for neutrality17 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: James Dillon, TD for Monaghan and a future leader of Fine Gael, was one of the few public figures to question Ireland’s neutrality during the second World War and support a pro-Allies stand. In the course of a lengthy speech to the Dáil defending neutrality, taoiseach Éamon de Valera took issue with Dillon’s reported views.
- November 30th, 1954: County Manager's Hat could be our equivalent of an OBE30 Nov 2009BACK PAGES: Gripes about politicians’ pay and allowances are nothing new although Myles na Gopaleen’s solution to the problem in 1954 was, as always, imaginative.
December
- December 16th, 1882: Harrowing Maamtrasna executions16 Dec 2009 Newspaper reports of official executions in the 19th century sometimes contained gruesome details as hangings were not always carried out as clinically as they were supposed to be. The hanging of three men in Galway jail for the infamous Maamtrasna murders, including one who was innocent, was relatively straightforward, but its description in the next day’s newspaper was still harrowing.
- December 16th 1965: Elaborate pageantry of new parliament18 Dec 2009 Change was in the air on many fronts in 1965, not least in cross-Border relations, with the first meetings between taoiseach Seán Lemass and the North’s premier, Capt Terence O’Neill, which were followed by a series of other ministerial meetings. Eileen O’Brien reported on the week in Stormont, which included the pomp and ceremony of the official opening of a new parliament before returning to business as usual.
- Optimism still to the fore in 1973 coalition22 Dec 2009DECEMBER 22ND, 1973: The Yom Kippur war in the Middle East in the autumn of 1973 and the subsequent oil crisis did not immediately dent the optimism of the Fine Gael-Labour government formed earlier that year, as is evident from this interview by Henry Kelly with junior minister Frank Cluskey, a future leader of the Labour Party.
- December 23 1924: Bishops oppose proposal to set up library with Carnegie Trust aid23 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: AT A meeting at Tullamore called by the Secretary of the Kings County Technical Instruction Committee (Mr. E. J. Delahunty) with reference to the proposal to establish a county library with the aid of the Carnegie Trust, letters were read from the Most Rev. Dr. [Michael] Fogarty , the Most Rev. Dr. [Joseph] Hoare [Bishop of Ardagh], and the Most Rev. Dr. [Laurence] Gaughran expressing strong disapproval of the project.
- December 24th, 1909: Differences set aside as Christmas spirit prevails24 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: The year 1909 was significant in British history, with the veto by the House of Lords of the Liberal government’s redistributive “people’s budget”, which raised income and land taxes to fund social welfare. It led to two elections in 1910 and to the removal of the House of Lords’ veto, opening the way for the passage of the Home Rule Bill.
- 28 December 1974: Leopardstown punters ignore prophets of doom and gloom28 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: The post-Christmas racing at Leopardstown is a time-honoured way of shedding some of the holiday’s excesses, or perhaps of indulging new ones. This account from the Dublin racecourse, by an anonymous Pro-Quidnunc in An Irishman’s Diary in 1974, reflected some of the major concerns of the times as well as the racing.
- Ringing in 1981 with lament on State's financial mess29 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: December 29th, 1980: SEAN O’LEARY ran two successful general election campaigns for Fine Gael in the early 1980s and was subsequently appointed a senator and later a High Court judge. In comments published in this newspaper posthumously following his death at Christmas 2006, he criticised the Supreme Court for taking “a harsh, populist approach” to people accused of socially unacceptable crimes and failing to vindicate their legal rights. In 1980 he had offered this critique of the then state of the country in a letter to The Irish Times .
- December 1st, 1949: 'Ignoramus' debunks James Joyce as 'filthy-minded poseur' or madman1 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: As minister for external affairs in 1949, Seán MacBride was invited to open a James Joyce exhibition organised by Maria Jolas in Paris. He declined in a stock reply and the Irish ambassador to France did not reply at all to an invitation to attend the exhibition. The display of official attitudes towards Joyce sparked off a correspondence in which this was one of the anonymous letters:
- A new television service, but not without a cost30 Dec 2009BACK PAGES - December 30th 1961: The first Irish television station, TelifÍs Éireann, began broadcasting on New Year’s Eve in 1961 with, as this report in the previous day’s Irish Times said, bad news for those who had been receiving free television for years beforehand, albeit with varying technical quality.
- Crisis reaches breaking point for Parnell2 Dec 2009DECEMBER 2ND 1890: The crisis for Charles Stewart Parnell’s leadership of the Irish Party over his relationship with Katharine O’Shea reached breaking point in 1890 when Liberal leader William Gladstone made it clear that his support for Home Rule was conditional on Parnell’s resignation.
- December 3rd, 1963: Growing concern over foreigners buying land here3 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: The control and ownership of land in Ireland continued to be a major issue into the 1960s – still an age of currency controls, customs checks, and different rules for foreigners and natives – with a growing concern about foreigners buying land in the country, as this report from 1963 indicates.
- December 4th, 1972: Nerves frayed in Dublin after fatal bomb explosions4 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: TWO CAR bombs exploded at Sackville Place, off O’Connell Street, and Liberty Hall in Dublin in early December 1972, killing two bus conductors and hastening through the Dáil a controversial extension to the Offences Against the State Act. Dick Grogan described the mood in the city at the weekend following the Friday night bombings and the passage of the new Act in late-night sittings of the Dáil and Seanad.
- O'Connell's extraordinary hold over affections of the nation7 Dec 2009DECEMBER 7TH, 1874: Some 27 years after his death, Daniel O’Connell’s final year and conviction for sedition was recalled by a fellow barrister (whose identity is not clear from the newspaper) in this piece published in The Irish Times on this day in 1874.
- December 8th, 1930: Brought to book over librarian veto8 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: Letitia Dunbar was a 24-year-old Protestant and Trinity College Dublin graduate when the Local Appointments Commission appointed her to be a librarian in Co Mayo in 1930. A majority on Mayo County Council opposed it, some for reasons evident in this extract from one of the council’s debates on the issue.
- Prophet of unconventionality not spared in editorial9 Dec 2009DECEMBER 9TH, 1904: Given his acerbic commentaries on many of his famous contemporaries and events generally, one would have thought it would have been easy to listen to George Moore. That it was not so is suggested by this leader in The Irish Times about a speech Moore delivered, mainly about art, at the Royal Irish Academy. It was a subject on which he was knowledgeable but his delivery appears to have defeated the reporters present.
- December 10th, 1982: Labour remain adamant on property tax10 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: The youngest and least experienced member of the Labour Party, Dick Spring, found himself leading it on the eve of a general election in November 1982 when he was selected to succeed Michael O’Leary who had resigned from the party after losing a critical vote on coalition at a party conference. The general election gave Fine Gael and Labour enough seats to form a government, and Olivia O’Leary assessed the state of their negotiations ahead of a Labour conference to ratify coalition.
- December 11th, 1920: Newspapers in line of fire during War of Independence11 Dec 2009BACK PAGES: Newspapers were in the line of fire from all sides during the War of Independence as excerpts from these two reports in the same issue of the Weekly Irish Times in December 1920 indicate.
- When the king's marital difficulty became Dev's opportunity14 Dec 2009DECEMBER 14TH, 1936: The abdication of King Edward VIII from the British throne on December 10th, 1936, in order to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson caused all sorts of legal, constitutional and political problems for the Fianna Fáil government.
- Shackleton describes his attempt to reach South Pole15 Dec 2009DECEMBER 15TH, 1909: The Irish-born explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, gave an illustrated public lecture 100 years ago in the National University in Dublin’s Earlsfort Terrace entitled Nearest the South Pole, which accurately described his “almost there” attempt to reach the South Pole earlier that year. Reported in the following day’s newspaper, this is part of what he said.
- Looking back on decade with few highlights31 Dec 2009BACK PAGES - December 31st, 1959: Fifty years ago, in An Irishman’s Diary, Quidnunc, Séamus Kelly, looked back on the year and decade just ending.
May
- 'Sham fight' at visit of the Prince of Wales to Dublin11 May 2009MAY 11th, 1865: EXHIBITIONS OF manufacturing and other achievements of the industrial revolution were much in vogue in the early Victorian era and one such event in Dublin in 1865 brought the Prince of Wales to the city to perform the opening ceremony.
- MAY 8TH, 1941 Tobacco hailed as 'saviour of the Exchequer'8 May 2009THE FIANNA Fáil minister for finance, Sean T O’Kelly, introduced his third budget in 1941, and also his third since the second World War had begun.
- MAY 7th, 1929 Slow news day reveals wonder of Madagascar7 May 2009NOW AND then it happens that there simply isn’t much news – but that never stops the media vacuum cleaner, which simply hoovers up a lower level of facts. Such a day was reflected in today’s paper in 1929: several things were about to happen. The Spring Show was opening the next day; the London Letter was reduced to noting that the queen was about to return a day earlier than planned from Bognor; and the “Irishman’s Diary” was stretched to three columns about nothing much.
- MAY 6TH, 1974: Veil of secrecy on 'torture' case against UK6 May 2009ACCUSATIONS OF torture as state policy was a strong issue in the early 1970s as the Irish government’s formal complaints to the European Commission of Human Rights about the British government’s treatment of internees in the North were heard. The hearings were held in private but indications of the positions being taken by the British emerged in dribs and drabs, as in this report by Renagh Holohan from Stavanger in Norway, where some of the hearings were held in an air force base.
- MAY 5th, 1955: Significant drop in deaths from TB5 May 2009THE DEPARTMENT of Health report for 1953-54, published today in 1955, underlined the huge progress that had been made in reducing deaths from TB over the previous decade, partly as a result of the introduction of the BCG vaccination after the second World War and treatments with antibiotics, but it continued to be a major killer among young people.
- MAY 4TH, 1979: What's-her-name will make Britain great4 May 2009ON THIS day in 1979 Britain had its first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, whose Conservative Party had just won the general election. Olivia O’Leary had spent part of the election day with another woman in London and wrote this report:
- MAY 1st, 1934 'I do definitely indict the shopkeeper'1 May 2009BACK PAGES: POET FR Higgins went into the lion’s den of the Dublin Rotary Club to address its members on the subject of businessmen and poets. According to the report in today’s paper in 1934, he didn’t pull his punches and, of course, his address gives a flavour of the intellectual times.
- May 29th, 1913: Heated debate on 1912 Ulster Covenant29 May 2009BACK PAGES: THE SIGNING of the Ulster Covenant in 1912, committing almost half a million unionists to resist Home Rule raised the political temperature. It also exposed divisions among Protestant unionists, especially on a North-South basis, as was evident from a letter to The Irish Times in May 1913 from the Rev WJ Lindsay of Abbeylara which sparked off a lively debate.
- MAY 28TH, 1962: ESB plan to knock down Georgian houses opposed28 May 2009THE PLAN by the ESB in the early 1960s to knock down 16 Georgian houses on Dublin’s Fitzwilliam Street to create a new headquarters was strongly opposed by preservationists, including the newly re-activated Irish Georgian Society. But their influence was not strong enough to prevent the demolition, partly because of the still prevalent view at the time that Georgian architecture was, like the country mansions of former landlords, a symbol of past oppression.
- Michael Davitt in a league of his own26 May 2009May 26th, 1887: MICHAEL DAVITT, the founder of the Land League, was no hero to The Irish Times of the 1880s and it is no surprise that an anonymous correspondent heard and saw what he wanted to hear and see when he witnessed a return by Davitt to the village of Strade in Co Mayo where he had been born and his family had left for England when he was a child.
- Civil Service in North short on Catholics17 May 2010MAY 17th, 1980: In this Northern Notebook David McKittrick gave a telling account of the religious discrimination practised in the North’s civil service for much of the 20th century.
- May 25th, 1984: Final rattles in era of home milk delivery25 May 2009 THE RATTLE of milk bottles on electric-powered milk floats was once a common early morning sound on suburban streets and something of a cliché in British films of the mid-20th century. Pádraig Yeates recorded another step in the passing of the milkman in this day’s newspaper in 1985.
- May 22nd, 1959: Na Gopaleen's death penalty hang-ups22 May 2009BACKPAGES: RONALD MARWOOD, a 25-year-old scaffolder, was executed in London’s Pentonville prison on May 8th, 1959, for stabbing a policeman.
- May 21st, 1991: Tackling high emigration and 19% jobless rate of 199121 May 2009BACK PAGES: THE UNEMPLOYMENT rate in 1991 was in the region of 19 per cent and emigration was still a regular fact of Irish life. How to deal with Ireland’s seemingly intractable economic problems was a matter of much debate, to which a report commissioned by the Combat Poverty Agency and summarised in this day’s newspaper contributed.
- May 20th, 1911: 725-member AA opposes reduced speed limit in Dublin20 May 2009BACK PAGES: THE SPEED limit for cars in Dublin was exercising city councillors in 1911. They set up an inquiry to reduce it from 20mph to 10mph, a reduction that was strongly opposed by the growing motoring lobby.
- May 19th 1970: Bank strike leaves firms paying price for cash shortage May 19th, 197019 May 2009BACK PAGES: THE PROBLEMS created by the absence of credit are all too familiar today, but what about an absence of actual cash? That was the situation facing many in 1970 during a prolonged strike by the main retail banks, in an era when electronic transfers and foreign banks were not as widespread as today, and ATMs (and competition among banks) did not exist.
- MAY 18TH 1943: Revolution as Radio Éireann lifts crooners ban18 May 2009AMONG THE war news making the front page of The Irish Times today in 1943 were the first reports of what later became known as the “dambusters” raid on Germany’s Ruhr valley.
- MAY 15th 1985: Hopping mad over Border shopping15 May 2009THE DÁIL Sketch has been a staple of The Irish Times for 40-odd years, putting its own sometimes idiosyncratic structure on the sometimes even more idiosyncratic doings of TDs. On this day in 1985, then taoiseach Garret FitzGerald was on his way home from an unusually long, 14-day visit to the US and Alan Dukes, the Fine Gael minister for finance and serious smoker was moving his Finance Bill through the Dáil. This is what Maev Kennedy made of the day’s business.
- May 14th 1932 Pioneer spirit found along the Border14 May 2009BACK PAGES: THE FIRST Fianna Fáil government’s budget, introduced in May 1932, imposed 43 new tariffs on imported goods (as well as tax increases) and was welcomed by supporters for putting an end to the “evils” of free trade and creating jobs in protected Irish industries, writes JOE JOYCE .
- Alert for Army in Cyprus but no casualties13 May 2009BACK PAGES: MAY 13th, 1964: The Irish Army’s first major deployment with the United Nations was in the Congo in 1960, an operation that left 26 soldiers dead including nine who were killed in the Niemba ambush in November that year. Its next major operation was in Cyprus after an outbreak of violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in 1963, which turned out to be a much longer but much less violent mission. In a report from Famagusta on this day in 1964, Tom McCaughren described its move into the port area of the resort.
- Sinn Féin celebrates election results12 May 2009BACK PAGES: MAY 12th, 1917: THE SOUTH Longford by-election in 1917, when Sinn Féin narrowly defeated the Irish Party – by some 37 votes, after a recount – was a significant milestone in the progress from 1916 to Independence. A report two days later, on this day in 1917, gave a snapshot of the reaction around the country to the victory of Sinn Féin’s Joseph McGuinness, illustrating the youth of the party’s supporters and the opposition of the women relatives of those fighting in the first World War:
- Debate on union in Europe is of mature vintage18 May 2010MAY 18th, 1931: A proposal by Germany and Austria to create a customs union in 1931 was vigorously opposed by France, which saw it as a politically motivated attempt by Germany to cement its hold on central Europe.
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