May 2018
This page is under construction.
For editing, adding primary documents, additional details and illustrations.
To view completed years, click for 1917, 1918 (Jan-Apr) and 1918 (May-Dec)
This page is under construction.
For editing, adding primary documents, additional details and illustrations.
To view completed years, click for 1917, 1918 (Jan-Apr) and 1918 (May-Dec)
1878
January
10
Diarmuid Lynch was born in Granig to a 'comfortable tenant farmer', Timothy Lynch whose ancestors farmed the same land for generations. Baptised in the Minane Bridge church on January 13th, his sponsors are recorded as Con Dunlea and Catherine Aherne. Diarmuid wrote many years later:
‘ Baptised ‘Jeremiah Christopher’ I was for nearly 30 years known by one or other of these names…or by the initials ‘J.C.’ and occasionally (in Gaelic circles) as Diarmuid.’
January
10
Diarmuid Lynch was born in Granig to a 'comfortable tenant farmer', Timothy Lynch whose ancestors farmed the same land for generations. Baptised in the Minane Bridge church on January 13th, his sponsors are recorded as Con Dunlea and Catherine Aherne. Diarmuid wrote many years later:
‘ Baptised ‘Jeremiah Christopher’ I was for nearly 30 years known by one or other of these names…or by the initials ‘J.C.’ and occasionally (in Gaelic circles) as Diarmuid.’
July 20, 1878
Hannah Dunlea, a bride for just 17 months and mother of Diarmuid, died of bronchial pneumonia in Granig.
Hannah Dunlea, a bride for just 17 months and mother of Diarmuid, died of bronchial pneumonia in Granig.
Transcription of the Death Certificate.
1878
Deaths registered in the District of Carrigaline in the Union of Kinsale in the County of Cork
No. 21
Date and place of Death: 1878, Twentieth July. Granig
Name and Surname: Hannah Lynch
Sex: Female
Condition: Married
Age last birthday 24 years
Rank, Profession or Occupation Farmer's Wife
Certified cause of Death and Duration of Illness Bronchial Pneumonia. 1 month. Certified
Signature, qualifications and Residence of Informant Margaret O'Sullivan , Cork. (Illegible) Granig.
When Registered Thirty First July, 1878
Signed by the Registrar
1878
Deaths registered in the District of Carrigaline in the Union of Kinsale in the County of Cork
No. 21
Date and place of Death: 1878, Twentieth July. Granig
Name and Surname: Hannah Lynch
Sex: Female
Condition: Married
Age last birthday 24 years
Rank, Profession or Occupation Farmer's Wife
Certified cause of Death and Duration of Illness Bronchial Pneumonia. 1 month. Certified
Signature, qualifications and Residence of Informant Margaret O'Sullivan , Cork. (Illegible) Granig.
When Registered Thirty First July, 1878
Signed by the Registrar
19
At the same time as Diarmuid's birth, Dr. William Carroll of the US based Clann na Gael was in Cork as part of his Irish tour, assessing the state of the country and of the IRB generally. Writing to John Devoy on 19th January: ‘You will be sorry to learn that our dear friend [ the IRB ] is in even worse health than we were informed, for with characterisitic modesty he had not written fully the extent of his sufferings. Indeed nothing but his native vigour of constitution has kept him on foot and at business in even his very irregular and unprofitable way. At last he has consented to follow the advice of his friends and place himself under competent medical direction, and it is to be hoped that the old fire of his eye and vigour of his step will again return…’
O’Brien & Ryan. ‘Devoy’s Postbag’ Vol. 1. Fallon, Dublin 1948. P296
Dr Carroll was in Dublin later in January when the last remaining Fenian soldiers, Colour-Sergeant McCarthy Corporal Chambers and J.P.O’Brien* were released and returned to Dublin. There Parnell met and breakfasted with them after giving an invitation to Dr. Carroll to attend, which was declined. After the breakfast, Sergeant McCarthy collapsed and died on the stairway of the hotel. Parnell later visited Carroll at the Hibernian Hotel ..’..and we went over the political situation. I asked him if he was in favour of the absolute independence for Ireland. He replied that he was and that as soon as the people so declared he would go with them..I then told him that we would be his friends and woukld ask our friends there to support him in all that he did towards that end’
O’Brien & Ryan. ‘Devoy’s Postbag’ Vol. 1. Fallon, Dublin 1948. P298
* McCarthy and Chambers were both Fenian recruiters within the British Army. Chambers was closely associated with Devoy and arrested with him in 1866. John Boyle O’Reilly and Devoy were later jailed in Millbank and Portland with both men. ‘ for 2 years…he and I were chained together whenever we were moved and we generally managed to get another rebel, McCarthy, on the same chain…the English Government at that time thought it was a salutary exhibition to parade the Irish rebels in chains in the streets. I remember one day when we were marched through the streets of London, all abreast on one chain ( we were going from Pentonville to Millbank ) with the crowds staring at us, Chambers made McCarthy laugh so heartily that it brought on a fit of coughing, and we had to halt till the poor fellow got his breath…’
John Boyle O’Reilly. O’Brien & Ryan. ‘Devoy’s Postbag’ Vol. 1. Fallon, Dublin 1948. P303
13
Michael Davitt and other released Fenians received a public reception on arrival at Kingstown. Present were Parnell and other leading Irish MPs.
14
Home Rule conference fails to heal rifts over tactics in the House of Commons.
20
Dublin: huge funeral procession for Charles Heaphy McCarthy, the ex-Fenian prisoner who died on 15 January while breakfasting with Parnell.
23
Prime Minister Disraeli orders the British Fleet to the Dardanelles.
26
Davitt returns home to Mayo to a huge reception, later visiting the US. There he met the leaders of Clan na Gael and was persuaded to remain in America for a lecture tour beginning in Philadelphia where he received $310 of the proceeds.
John Devoy now pledged Parnell the support of Clan na Gael ‘on certain conditions’. The cable was first sent to Kickham with the instructions to pass it to Parnell, which was done without comment. Devoy met with Parnell in December 1878.
31
Turkey agrees to an armistice at Adrianople.
1878
February
In February, O’Donovan Rossa, 47 and alcoholic, began a series of uncharacterisitic eccentric letters to the Irish World newspaper in which he commented strongly on the direction of the Fenian movement, the Skirmishing Fund, individuals and leaders. This led to the resignation of John Devoy as a trustee of the Skirmishing Fund citing ‘ a drunken man bringing us into disgrace by raving in the papers…I don’t propose to fritter my life away in endless squabbles nor do I think it safe to go into serious revoloutionary work with men who can’t keep a secret. Neither will I have my name associated with the childish rigamarole which apears in the Irish World in connection with the Skirmishing Fund every week…’ This resignation was later withdrawn following apologies from O'Donovan Rossa and an appeal from Luby and other colleagues.
This was not be the last clash between ‘the revoloutionary who believed firmly in a secret organisation controlled by strict disicpline and the individualist who insisted on going his own way and found the control of an organisation or party too irksome to endure.’ While O’Donovan Rossa did not ‘have the reputation in Irish American circles of being a drunkard, his sporadic sprees in middle life, his carelessness in money matters, and recklessness in publicising revolutionary plans in the Irish World more than once led to bitter criticism’
O’Brien & Ryan. ‘Devoy’s Postbag’ Vol. 1. Fallon, Dublin 1948. P315-316
1
Thomas McDonagh (poet, critic and revolutionary) born in Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary (executed for his role in the Easter Rising, 1916 )
2
Greece declares war on Turkey
5
Andre Citroen born: automobile pioneer
7
Pope Pius IX died in Rome aged 86.
Pius IX (1792-1878), pope (1846-1878), whose pontificate, the longest in history, encompassed the First Vatican Council, the promulgation of several important dogmas, and the loss of the Papal States. Born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, May 13, 1792, in Senigallia Pius was ordained in 1819, became archbishop of Spoleto in 1827, and was created cardinal in 1840 by Pope Gregory XVI, whom he succeeded. The first years of his pontificate were marked by liberalism and political reforms in the administration of the Papal States; the constitution granted by Pius in 1848 merely satisfied demands for popular representation, however, and did not quell the nationalism rising throughout Italy. The revolution of 1848 caused the pope to flee in exile to Gaeta, in the kingdom of Naples. Two years later, after the newly established Roman Republic had been dissolved by the intervention of France, Pius returned to the Vatican and thereafter devoted himself to opposing all liberalism, both ecclesiastical and political.
Pius affirmed church control of science, education, and culture in the Papal States and adamantly resisted demands for constitutional government and the unification of Italy. He supported Ultramontanism, a doctrine asserting papal authority in the international church. The triumph of this doctrine at the First Vatican Council resulted in the proclamation of the infallibility of the pope. In a bull published in 1854 he proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In 1864 he issued a syllabus condemning 80 errors, among them the belief that the pope should reconcile himself to “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization”. The temporal power of the papacy had already been greatly diminished when, in 1860, the new Italian Kingdom absorbed all the territory of the Papal States except for Rome. It was ended altogether in 1870, when the French troops protecting papal rule were withdrawn and Rome itself became the capital of a united Italy. Pius, refusing to accept the parliamentary act of 1871 defining the relations between the papacy and the Italian government, retired voluntarily to the Vatican. He remained there until his death, on February 7, 1878, regarding himself a prisoner within its confines, as did his successors until the conclusion of the Lateran Treaty in 1929.
8
The British Fleet anchors off Constantinople ( Istanbul ) while Russia threatened to occupy the Turkish capital.
11
1st US bicycle club, Boston Bicycle Club, forms.
The first weekly Weather report published in UK
12
The Lincoln County Cattle war erupted in the Pecos Valley, New Mexico when an English cattleman was killed by the Murphy gang, who ran the locality. One of the witnesses was Henry McCarthy, born in New York in 1859, son of Irish immigrants. In 1876 he killed an army blacksmith and fled New Mexico changing his name to William Bonney en-route. Billy now became the fighting leader of the McSweeney Faction and was involved in several battles with the Murphy Gang, one of which resulted in the killing of Sheriff James Brady and a Deputy. Billy was now nicknamed ‘Billy the Kid’ and figured prominetly in the ongoing Lincoln Country cattle war until 1881 when he was captured and sentenced to hang for the murder of Sheriff Brady. Shooting his way out of jail, he was later trapped and killed in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
14
Daniel Corkery (writer, critic and Irish cultural enthusiast) born in Cork
15
James Lowther appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland.
James Lowther, DL, JP (1 September 1840 – 12 September 1904) was an English Conservative politician and sportsman. Admitted as a barrister of the Inner Temple on 17 October 1864, but never practised law. Lowther first entered Parliament in 1865, as Member of Parliament for York. His maiden speech was made against the Reform Bill introduced in 1866, the failure of which brought down the ministry of Lord Russell. He also vehemently opposed the Reform Act 1867, brought forward by Disraeli and Lord Derby, but was nonetheless appointed by Disraeli Parliamentary Secretary to the Poor Law Board the same year. He was a strong voice in the opposition to Gladstone, particularly to the Irish Land Bill of 1870.
With the return to power of Disraeli in 1874, he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. In 1878, he was further advanced to become Chief Secretary for Ireland and sworn of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and of Ireland. However, he was beset with difficulties during his tenure in the secretaryship. His opposition to the Land Bill was held against him, and he treated with contempt the agitation of the Land League, which would soon break out in the Land War. He went out of office with Disraeli's government in 1880, and lost his seat at York. While Lowther was defeated at a by-election in Cumberland East in February 1881, he successfully capture North Lincolnshire in September of that year. Upon his return to the House of Commons, he became known for his arch-conservatism and protectionism. Upon the abolition of the North Lincolnshire constituency in 1885, he stood for Louth, but was defeated, and again in 1886 in Eskdale. He re-entered the house in 1888 at a by-election for the Isle of Thanet. Despite his uncompromising views, he enjoyed general popularity in the House of Commons, and had an excellent command of parliamentary procedure.
In 1882, his third cousin once removed, Hugh Lowther, succeeded as Earl of Lonsdale and to the Lowther estates, of which James was senior trustee. Lonsdale's habits were extravagant, and James was to have great difficulty in restraining his spending, which would ultimately ruin the estate. James himself inherited Wilton Castle upon his father's death in 1894, and took great interest in managing the estate. He died on 12 September 1904 at Wilton, which he left to his nephew Col. John George Lowther.
19
The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison and for the next 100 years became the most common device for playing recorded sounds.
20: Pope Leo X111 becomes the 256th Pope.
Pope Leo XIII (March 2, 1810--July 20, 1903), born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903, succeeding Pope Pius IX. Reigning until the age of 93, he was the oldest pope, and had the third longest pontificate, behind his antecessor John Paul II. He is known as the "Pope of the Working Man" and "The social Pope". Leo XIII worked to encourage understanding between the Church and the modern world. He firmly re-asserted the scholastic doctrine that science and religion co-exist, and required the study of Thomas Aquinas. Although he had stated that it "is quite unlawful to demand, defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, or speech, of writing or worship, as if these were so many rights given by nature to man," he opened the Vatican Secret Archives to qualified researchers, among whom was the noted historian of the Papacy Ludwig von Pastor. Leo XIII was also the first Pope to come out strongly in favour of the French Republic, upsetting many French monarchists, but his support for democracy did not necessarily imply his acceptance of egalitarianism: "People differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community." (Rerum Novarum, 17. His relations with the Italian state were less progressive; Leo XIII continued the Papacy's self-imposed incarceration in the Vatican stance, and continued to insist that Italian Catholics should not vote in Italian elections or hold elected office. In his first consistory in 1879 he elevated his older brother Giuseppe a cardinal.
Leo XIII was the first Pope of whom a sound recording was made. He was also the first Pope to be filmed on the motion picture camera. He was filmed by its inventor, W. K. Dickson, and blessed the camera afterward. Leo XIII is most famous for his social teaching, in which he argued that both capitalism and communism are flawed. His encyclical Rerum Novarum focused on the rights and duties of capital and labour, and introduced the idea of subsidiarity into Catholic social thought.
In his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus, Leo gave new encouragement to Bible study while warning against rationalist interpretations which deny the inspiration of Scripture: "For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost: and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true." (Providentissimus Deus)
The 1896 bull Apostolicae Curae declared the ordination of deacons, priests, and bishops in Anglican churches (including the Church of England) invalid, while granting recognition to ordinations in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches although they were considered illicit. His 1899 apostolic letter Testem Benevolentiae condemned the heresy called Americanism i.e the endorsement of what were thought to be anti-Catholic principles embraced by the United States: absolute freedom of the press, liberalism, individualism, complete separation of church and state, etc
March
8th: Fremantle, Western Australia: One of the last remaining jailed Fenians, James Kiely was given a ticket of leave. Shortly afterwards he married Mary Anne Roach and went on to father 7 children.
13: Patrick McCartan born in Carrickmore, Co. Tyrone, the son of a local farmer.
Michael Davitt (32) arrived on his first visit to the US in August and began a lecture tour backed by Clan na Gael, the Irish World and the Boston Pilot Newspapers.
Edinburgh: James Connolly left school and got a job with the Edinburgh Evening News, where he worked as a quasi servant — cleaning ink rollers and running errands for adults
The Christian Mission founded in 1865 was reorganized along its present quasi-military lines and was renamed the Salvation Army. Booth was accorded the title of general, and the officers and members of the organization were given military ranks and titles in accordance with their duties. The organization was later organized into territories, each of which had jurisdiction over a specified country or other major geographical area.
24: The UK frigate Eurydice sinks, killing 300.
27: Sir George Gilbert Scott architect died. Designed the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, London.
31: Jack Johnson born in Texas. The first African American to hold a boxing title.
Johnson, Jack (1878-1946), American boxer, the first black heavyweight boxing champion. He was born John Arthur Johnson in Galveston, Texas. Johnson began his professional boxing career in 1899 but racial discrimination prevented him fighting for the world title until 1908 when he easily took the world championship from the Canadian boxer Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia. Many white Americans hated Johnson because of his colour, his arrogance, and his practice of keeping white mistresses, and in 1910 in Reno, Nevada, he was matched against the former champion Jim Jeffries, who had been brought out of retirement to try and defeat him. Johnson won easily. In 1913 Johnson was convicted on dubious evidence of breaking the Mann Act by “transporting” a woman over a state border for “immoral purposes” and sentenced to a year in prison; instead he left for Europe where he defended his title several times. He lost the title to the American boxer Jess Willard in Havenam, Cuba, in 1915, after being knocked out in the 26th round, and returned to the United States where he served his sentence. Jack Johnson fought his last bout in 1927. His life was the subject of the Great White Hope (1968), a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by the American playwright Howard Sackler.
April
A hated landlord in Donegal was Lord Leitrim, the Rt. Hon. William Sydney Clements and son of the former MP for Carrick & Co. Leitrim, Nathaniel Clements. His reputation as a wholesale evictor of peasant farmers on his estates was well deserved. The batchelor Earl, ran his estate of some 3,000 tenants with a firm hand, in addition to being the magistrate for Donegal, Galway and Leitrim. He ‘raged like an evil plague over the people whom a hideous destiny and evil laws left entirely at his mercy. On his estates a comely girl was ordered to come nominally as a domestic servant inside his house. The house became a prison and the service was a service of shame. In due time, the lord of the seraglio sent the distatsteful mistress to America, and to some other helpless girl on his estate the dread choice was offered between entering the harem or exposing her parents and family to evicition, i.e. starvation’
O’Brien & Ryan. ‘Devoy’s Postbag’ Vol. 1. Fallon, Dublin 1948. P227/228
On April 2nd , William Sydney Clements, the 3rd Earl of Leitrim was shot dead in an ambush along with his clerk and cab driver on the shores of Mulroy Bay near Milford, Co. Donegal. Their killers, Neil Shiels and Michael McElwee were never apprehended. At the burial service in Dublin, a howling mob invaded the cemetery, overpowering police, driving back the mourners and attempted to drag the coffin from the hearse. Police moved in as the Earl of Leitrim was buried amidst shouted abuse from the crowd.
May
Prussia: Attempt made to assasinate Bismarck.
Comic opera HMS Pinafore or The Lass that loved a Sailor, premiered in London. Lyrics by William Gilbert and Music by Arthur Sullivan, the operetta was the first to include the chorus asan integral part of the plot. After a quiet start, by August the satire on Victorian class-conciousness was playing to packed houses.
10: Gustav Stresemann, politician and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 born (+ 1929)
Stresemann, Gustav (1878-1929), German statesman, who, more than any other, stabilized the country in the inter-war years and gave it respectability in the international community. Stresemann was born on May 10, 1878, in Berlin and educated at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig. He entered the Reichstag (parliament) as its youngest deputy in 1907 and through World War I supported German imperialist policies. After Germany's defeat and the abolition of the monarchy, Stresemann accommodated himself to a republican form of government, but strenuously opposed the Treaty of Versailles. As leader of the German People's party, which he had founded in 1918, he became chancellor in a short-lived coalition cabinet in 1923, shortly after the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. He immediately abandoned the policy of passive resistance in the district, and as foreign minister (1923-1929) in successive coalitions he reoriented Germany's foreign relations. Stressing reconciliation with the Allies, he effected the evacuation of the Ruhr in 1924, signed the Locarno Treaties in 1925, and the following year secured evacuation by the Allies of the first Rhineland zone and the admission of Germany to the League of Nations. For his work he was awarded the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with his French counterpart, Aristide Briand. He signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war, in 1928, and had just accepted the Young Plan for reparation payments when he died in Berlin, on October 3, 1929.
13: Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart (7th Marquis Londonderry; unionist politician) born.
26: John Gregg, Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross since 1862 died. A noted evangelical, his main claim to fame was the commissioning of the building of St Finbarre’s Cathederal in Cork.
June
Prussia – another attempt was made to assasinate Bismarck.
3: Sinéad de Valera (née Flanagan; teacher and writer and future wife of Eamon de Valera) born in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin.
13: – Congress of Berlin met.
Berlin, Congress of, assembly of representatives of Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, France, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire that met in Berlin from June 13 to July 13, 1878, to revise the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, which had concluded the Russo-Turkish War in March 1878. After winning the war, Russia by this treaty had imposed extremely severe terms on the Ottoman Turks. Other European powers, notably Austria-Hungary and Great Britain, were alarmed at the growth of the power of Russia and of the independent states created in the Balkans by the treaty; concerned for their own interests in the Middle East, they insisted that the treaty be modified. Count Gyula Andrássy, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, invited the European powers concerned to meet in Berlin. Prince Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the German Empire, presided over the congress.
At the congress the Treaty of San Stefano was replaced by the Treaty of Berlin which contained conditions much less favourable to Russia. The new treaty reaffirmed the principle that the status of the Ottoman Empire was to be decided by the powers jointly and not unilaterally by any one of them. It also reaffirmed the principle of nationalism for the Balkan peoples. Serbia and Montenegro were given independence from Turkish rule, although the territory granted them by the Treaty of San Stefano was considerably reduced. Bulgaria was divided into three parts, two of which were placed under the Turks. Romania gained its independence from the Turks, but Russia acquired the region of Bessarabia (now the republic of Moldova) from Romania, for which Romania was compensated with the Dobruja (now Dobrogea, divided between Bulgaria and Romania), a former Turkish region. Russia also received the territories of Batum (now Bat'umi, Georgia), Kars (now in Turkey), and Ardahan (now in Turkey). The two Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were mandated to Austria-Hungary. Cyprus was placed under temporary occupation by Great Britain.
As a result of the Treaty of Berlin, the Turks lost most of their European territory, Russian influence was reduced in the Middle East, and the power of Austria-Hungary and Great Britain was increased. The Balkan countries and Russia were dissatisfied with what they had obtained by the treaty. The subsequent tensions that arose in the Balkans and the Middle East were among the causes of World War I. The claim of the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli that the congress had achieved “peace with honour” thus proved unfounded.
27: The Shaw-Leferve Commission Report recommended that tenants should be afforded greater facilities to buy their holdings.
July
At the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, the Treaty of Berlin, signed on July 13, 1878, provided for an autonomous principality of Bulgaria. The remaining Bulgarian province, called Eastern Rumelia, was placed under the control of the Ottoman Turks. The Treaty of Berlin makes Serbia completely independent.
24: Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany, Irish author, writer & soldier born.
August
8: The Public Health (Ireland) Act came into force, governing for the first time water supply, disposal of sewage, public hygiene and intorduced legislation to deal with sale of patogenic foodstuffs.
16: The Intermediate Education (Ireland ) Act established a board for secondary education in Ireland.
17: Oliver St John Gogarty (surgeon, wit and writer) born in Dublin.
Gogarty, Oliver St John (1878-1957), Irish poet and man-of-letters. Gogarty was born in Dublin and was educated at Stoneyhurst, at Oxford, for one term, and then at medical school in Dublin, where he qualified as a surgeon, and subsequently practised. Famous for his wit, and for being the model for “stately, plump” Buck Mulligan in the James Joyce novel Ulysses, he became a Senator of the Irish Free State in 1922. The following year his house was burned down, and he escaped an assassination attempt by Republicans by jumping into the River Liffey. He moved to the United States in 1939. An antimodernist, his poetry was mainly epigrammatic, but his memoirs As I Was Going Down Sackville Street (1937), and It Isn't That Time Of Year At All (1954), still entertain. He published three novels, and his Collected Poems appeared in 1950.
September
16: Davitt starts his US tour at the Concert Hall in Philadelphia.
Parnell was quickly establishing a reputation for himself. At an address in Tralee, he stated ‘nothing short of a revoloution would bring about a change in the Land Laws’. When he stressed the need for the establishment of a tribunal for fixing rents and then urged the creation of a peasant propriatary, someone shouted that it would take an earthquake to settle the land question. Parnell’s reply was striaght to the point: ‘Then we must have an earthquake’.
Charles Callan Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom-1866-1922’. Devin-Adair, New York 1957. P54
30: Judge William Keogh, one time member of the Indpendent Irish Party ( 1850-52) and Judge that handed majority of Fenian sentences, comitted suicide aged 61.
October
13: In New York, John Devoy was beginning to abandon the orthodox Fenian view that Fenians should remain aloof from the constitutional struggle and put all their efforts into preparing for an eventual insurrection in Ireland. He reasoned that both were possible. Strongly influenced by the Irish World proprietor, Patrick Ford, Devoy began to advocate a revolutionary approach – ownership of land by the people that worked the land.
Devoy along with Michael Davitt speaking at the New Park Theatre in Brooklyn, proposed a solution to the Irish Question, ultimately to become know as “The New Departure”:
“ ..I think the only true solution of the land question is the abolition of landlordism. The land of Ireland belongs to the people of Ireland. I believe in Irish independence, but I don’t think it would be worthwhile to free Ireland if the landlord system was left standing….the substitution of a system by which no one would stand between the State and the tiller of the soil – a soloution which an Irish Republic alone could effect”
This “New Departure” as Devoy termed it, was simply to create an alliance between Fenians and Irish representatives in Westminster on the basis of a programme that would commit the MPs to a radical stance. The movement was to soon include not only Fenians and parlimentarians, but tenant farmers, priests, the Irish in Ireland and overseas and all working towards a political revolution. Butt’s conservative and somewhat imperialistic plans for federal home rule were to be dropped by Irish MP’s to demand instead full Irish self-government with Irish MP’s withdrawing from parliament to set up an Irish parliament in Dublin. Parnell’s involvement with the New Departure won the sympathy and active support of the nation as a whole, combined with the wider platform for his ideas. Devoy hoped that when the time for insurrection arrived, the Irish parliamentarians would secede from Westminster and form an Irish Parliament in Dublin. Secession was nothing new, Charles Gavan Duffy advocated this action in 1848.
19: Prussia: Two earlier attempts to assasinate Bismarck resulted in the introduction of strong anti-socialist laws with draconian punishments and rigourous enforcement. Socialist activity went underground. Prussia by now was becoming a world industrial power, quickly passing France and rivaling Britain. Militarily, the state was strong.
24: John Devoy sent a telegram to James O’Connor and Charles J Kickham, seeking an abandonment of Butt’s federal demand and it's replacement by a general declaration in favour of self-Government and agitation for peasant ownership. The telegram was published the next day in New York and in Dublin on November 11th. While it was rejected by Kickham, it signalled the start of manouevers leading to the ‘New Departure’.
Archbishop of Dublin and first Irish Cardinal (1866), Paul Cullen died aged 75.
26: The Mayo Tenants Defence Association was founded by J.J.Louden and James Daly. ‘The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland.’
27: John Devoy’s article ‘An Irish New Departure’ signalling a policy of co-operation between the republican movement, constitutionalists and the agrarian movement was published by the New York Herald.
Agricultural Depression
In the late 1870’s, Ireland was experiencing an agricultural depression, unseen since the Famine some thirty years earlier.
“In 1878, the essential potato yield was very poor*. Then came the dread denouement “It is impossible for the imagination to devise a worse combination of weather conditions that befell the Irish in 1879”. The mean temperature of every month from January to September was far below the average; the rainfall in June and July was 100 percent above that of the preceding ten years; in July and August there was no summer heat. The estimated value of all crops in Ireland, which stood at £36.6 million in 1876, fell to £22.7 million in 1879.
George Dangerfield. “The Damnable Question - a study in Anglo-Irish Relations” ( Constable, London. 1977) p.17.
* ( 1876: Produced 4 million tons worth £12.5 million. In 1879 the yield was 1 million tons worth £3.5 million. )
Elsewhere in Europe the years had been dreadful too. The growth of American agriculture and improved shipping facilities meant some dangerous rivals had appeared. Cheap American wheat and chilled/frozen meats from New Zealand and Australia flooded local markets and dealt agriculture a blow from which it did not recover until well into the next century.
In Ireland, the impact of American wheat & Antipodean meats was severe, reduced crop yields coincided with the general fall in prices, resulting in reports from parts of the country that starvation was as bad as it had been in famine years. To make matters worse, the customary exodus of Irish farm labour to England ceased, as England had little work to offer. Large tracts of arable land went out of cultivation, farmers were unable to pay rents and combined evictions and emigration resulted in large scale depopulation.
Low prices in Ireland meant a return of starvation, eviction, emigration, depopulation & despair. Rents and debts to shopkeepers remained unpaid. Under the circumstances, violence and “agrian outrages” increased. A state of emergency arose and conditions were ripe once again for revolution. Many landlords were unable to help their tenants, as many were absentee, in financial difficulties or bankrupt due to the agricultural recession. The brunt of the suffering and misery fell on the tenant farmers and labourers and were in need of an organisation to protect their limited interests.
November
3: Parnell on his first visit to Connaught, addressed a meeting of the Ballinasloe Tenants Defence Association
Some elements within the old guard IRB were not won over to Davitt & Devoy’s concept of the New Departure.
Kickham stating in an unsigned editorial appearing in the Irishman: ‘A Nationalist must of necessity cease to be a nationalist when he enters the House of Commons …we hold to the conviction…that the English Parliament is no place for an Irish patriot..’
Liz Curtis ‘The Cause of Ireland – from the United Irishmen to Partition’. Beyond the Pale, Belfast 1994. p92
O’Leary agreed, suggesting the Irish take Hungary’s lead and refuse to elect members to any Parliament except an Irish Parliament and failing that, that MPs be elected not to take their seats. O’Leary also felt that the obstructionist policy was ‘the very worst’ course.
Other opinions included that of the veteran Mayo Fenian, Matthew Harris who argued that ‘while peaceable means alone would not free any country, it was foolish to ignore those two powerful agents of public opinion, the press and the platform. As for Parliament, ‘is it not better to utilise it than leave it as it is at the present, a powerful weapon in the hands of our enemies?’
Liz Curtis ‘The Cause of Ireland – from the United Irishmen to Partition’. Beyond the Pale, Belfast 1994. p92
Yet another opinion was that of O’Donovan Rossa, who advocated a policy of ‘skirmishing’ based on the military practice of sending out small advance parties of select troops to launch surprise attacks.
7: Margaret Cousins (née Gillespie; suffragist, India's first female magistrate) born in Boyle, Co. Roscommon.
27: (Sir) William Orpen (painter) born in Stillorgan, Co. Dublin.
December
12: Davitt sailed for Ireland and a planned January meeting with the leaders of the I.R.B. in Paris. Some difference of opinion surfaced early with the leaders of the IRB showing little sympathy for land reform in Ireland and withheld the old Fenian doctrine that armed insurrection be made when England became involved in a major war. Charles Kickham, now aged and infirm, had little to do with the proposed alliance between parliamentarians and revolutionaries. However in discussion with Charles Stewart Parnell, they achieved some success and began the powerful combination between two very different kinds of agitation - parliamentary obstruction and agrarian disturbance. Davitt and Devoy were using the drive against landlordism as a steppingstone to the goal of national independence. Davitt arrived in Queenstown on 23 December.
While the Registrar General issued warnings that famine was imminent in parts of the country, little was done. Lord Lifford and Lord Kenmare denied their tenants were in any distress and did nothing to help them. The Dublin Evening Mail carried a letter from Mitchell Henry to the Lord Lieutenant on conditions in the West of Ireland:
‘The condition of the West is daily becoming worse. The people have neither food nor clothes, no credit to buy them, nor work to earn them. Pale, thin and bloodless, silent and without a smile, their condition is absoloutley without hope’
Quoted in Charles Callan Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom-1866-1922’. Devin-Adair, New York 1957. P34
In Germany, a Manneheim enginneer named Karl Benz began working on his first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. Complete with ignition and differential gears, the water cooled car was sold to Emile Roger of Paris who opened a Benz franchise in the city.
Benz, Karl (1844-1929), German mechanical engineer, born in Karlsruhe. He was a pioneer in the motor industry. In 1878 he developed a two-cycle internal-combustion engine and later a light four-cycle engine. He invented the differential drive and other automotive accessories. In 1885 he built a three-wheeled vehicle with an internal-combustion engine. This vehicle was patented and driven through the streets of Munich in 1886. Benz shared with the German Gottlieb Daimler the credit for building the first car.
Disraeli's most spectacular triumph in external affairs came in 1878 as British plenipotentiary to the Congress of Berlin, which redrew the boundaries of south-eastern Europe after the defeat of Turkey in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. During the war, Disraeli had been concerned with preventing Russia from gaining strategic advantages in the Mediterranean Sea and had sent the British fleet to the Dardanelles in February 1878. At the Congress of Berlin, by brilliant diplomatic manoeuvres, he deprived Russia of many of the advantages of victory, and returned to England claiming to have won “peace with honour”. The Queen offered to reward him with a dukedom, which he refused.
18: Joseph O'Neill (novelist and civil servant) born in Tuam, Co. Galway.
The Four Courts (the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of King's Bench, the Chancery and the Exchequer) are merged to form the Supreme Court, comprising the High Court and the Court of Appeal
The two branches of Irish Methodism (Primitive Methodists and those who split from the Church of Ireland in 1816) are reunited
Bram Stoker becomes the manager of Sir Henry Irving, actor
Lansdowne Road hosts its first rugby union international
Buenos Aires now has an Irish population of 25,000
Deaths
December 14 - The Grand Duchess of Hesse and the Rhine, née Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, second daughter of Queen Victoria