By Aodhán Crealey
MARCH
03/1978
Emmet Dalton (80), soldier and film producer, died. Dalton served with the British Army during the First World War and upon demobilisation in April 1919 joined the IRA and IRB. Described as bearing all the hallmarks of a British officer, including a cultured accent and a toothbrush moustache, he became close friends with Michael Collins and was appointed assistant director of training of the IRA during the War of Independence. After the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1922) he became director of military operations in the National Army and personally supervised the bombardment of the Four Courts, which ushered in the Civil War. Just over a month later he was famously at Collins’s side when the latter lost his life during the ambush at Béal na Bláth. Following a period of ill health, he resigned his commission later that year and afterwards made his living as a salesman. Then in 1958, along with the theatre impresario and film exhibitor Louis Ellman, he established Ardmore Studios on a 37-acre site in Bray, Co. Wicklow, initially concentrating on adopting Abbey Theatre plays as films—such as Walter Macken’s The Other Eden (1959). A number of films by foreign producers were also made there, notably Shake Hands with the Devil (1959), a drama set in the War of Independence and starring James Cagney. Later film-makers used the studio—and Ireland—as just another location for films such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and Excalibur (1981), made whilst the director, John Boorman, was chairman of Ardmore. Dalton died on his birthday and was accorded a military funeral to Glasnevin cemetery, where he was buried, at his own request, near his old friend Michael Collins.
04/1824
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) was founded by Sir William Hillary. To date the organisation has saved over 144,000 lives at sea.
04/1974
Harold Wilson became British prime minister at the head of a minority Labour government.
05/1974
Merlyn Rees succeeded Francis Pym as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
06/1924
The Army Mutiny: Free State army officers delivered an ultimatum to the government demanding the removal of the army council and the suspension of demobilisation.
06/1974
The sixteen-week British miners’ strike came to an end after a 35% pay offer by the new Labour government.
11/1974
Senator Billy Fox (Fine Gael) was killed by the IRA in County Monaghan—the first member of the Oireachtas to be killed since Kevin O’Higgins (1927)
11/1974
Convicted armed robbers Kenneth Littlejohn and his brother Keith, who claimed to be British agents, escaped from Mountjoy prison.
18/1974
Most OPEC nations ended a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan which had led to a major energy crisis in those countries.
19/1824
William Allingham, poet and diarist, best remembered for the children’s poem The Fairies (1850), born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, the son of a bank manager.
20/1964
Brendan Behan (41), playwright and author, notably of Borstal Boy (1958), died from alcoholism.
20/1974
Austin Clarke (77), one of the leading Irish poets of his generation after W.B. Yeats, died.
21/1924
Machine-gun attack on British soldiers vacating Spike Island near Cobh. One soldier was shot dead and eighteen soldiers and five civilians were wounded.
24/1874
Erich Weisz, known as Harry Houdini, escape artist, illusionist and stunt performer, born in Budapest, Hungary.
26/1874
Robert Frost, poet renowned for his realistic depictions of rural life and his grasp of American colloquial speech, born in San Francisco.s
APRIL
15/1840
Thomas Drummond (42), inventor and administrator, died. Drummond, who was under-secretary for Ireland (1835–40) in Lord Melbourne’s government, would be remembered for his dedication to Irish interests. In 1824 he joined the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and during his time there he came into daily contact with ordinary Irish people, particularly small tenant farmers, and learned much about their grievances. Also during that time he was acclaimed both within and outside the scientific world for his invention of the heliostat, an instrument for throwing rays of light in a given direction and thereby facilitating trigonometrical surveys in murky weather. As under-secretary he tackled a range of issues: he remodelled the police force through the Constabulary (Ireland) Act (1836), which encouraged Catholics to join the Irish Constabulary; appointed more Catholics to administrative positions; and converted the despised tithes into a fixed rent that was no longer to be collected by British soldiers, a measure which led to a decrease in rural unrest. Never popular with landlords, he responded to their call for more coercive measures to curb agrarian crime by reminding them that property had its duties as well as its rights and that they generally neglected their tenants. Worn out by his efforts and always in poor health, he expressed his wish to be buried in Ireland, ‘the land of my adoption; I have loved her well and served her faithfully and lost my life in her service’. He was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery and three years later a statue in his honour by John Hogan was unveiled in City Hall, Dublin.
07/1774
Oliver Goldsmith, poet, playwright and novelist, author notably of The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), born in Pallas, Co. Longford, the son of a clergyman.
07/1934
The Republican Congress, a short-lived socialist-republican movement led by Peadar O’Donnell, George Gilmore and Frank Ryan, was founded in Athlone, Co. Westmeath.
08/2014
President Michael D. Higgins paid the first State visit to the United Kingdom by an Irish president. Over four days he addressed both Houses of Parliament and met with members of the Irish community in Britain.
17/1974
After a three-day public hearing, Minister for Local Government James Tully ruled that the new Central Bank building in Dublin’s Dame Street, designed by Sam Stephenson, would have to be reduced in height by 30ft.
17/1984
The 294-day Libyan hostage crisis began when Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was fatally wounded by a burst of machine-gun fire from within the Libyan Embassy in London during a protest by a Libyan opposition group.
18/2019
The journalist Lyra McKee (29) was shot dead by a New IRA gunman who opened fire on PSNI officers monitoring disturbances in Derry’s Creggan area. President Michael D. Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar attended her funeral.
19/1824
Lord Byron (36), poet, died of fever whilst fighting in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire.
20/1954
Michael Manning (25), a carter from Limerick, was hanged in Mountjoy prison for the murder of an elderly nurse. He was the last man to be judicially executed in the Republic of Ireland.
24/1974
The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) announced that Carnsore Point, Co. Wexford, would be the site of its planned nuclear power station.
26/1974
Nineteen Old Masters paintings were stolen from the Blessington, Co. Wicklow, home of Sir Alfred and Lady Beit by a Provisional IRA gang which included Dr Rose Dugdale.