January 1909
In 1909, an international law was agreed upon that differentiated between "contraband" and "non-contraband" shipping. "Contraband," defined as weapons and other materials used in military manufacturing, could be controlled and blockaded during a war. "Non-contraband" cargoes like food, cloth, and raw goods could not be regulated through a blockade; countries could still import and trade these items. This regulation was a response by continental Europe against England, which had the most powerful navy and could strangle the economy of any continental nation with a blockade of the sea.
Australia – the new capital of Australia was established in Canberra and made a federal district.
Sam Smith: First Mate of the Catalpa who had refused to let the water police board the vessel, was granted his shipmaster’s paper shortly after his return to New Bedford in August 1876. Married Amy Chase in 1883 and hunted whales until his death at age 63 in 1909.
1
The first old age pensions (5/ ) were paid out to those aged 70 and over. Granted were 596,038 in England, 21,956 in Wales, 64,769 in Scotland and 170,365 in Ireland.
London: Astronmers report they may have sighted another planet beyond Neptune.
The Irish Bishops came out strongly against making Irish an essential subject for matriculation in the new Univeristy.
4
James Larkin founded the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in Dublin. Sean O’Casey described the event ‘In a room in a tenement in Townsend Street, with a candle in a bottle for a torch, and a billycan of tea, with a few buns for a banquet, the Church millitant here on earth , called the the Irish Transport and General Workers Union was founded’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p24
Some of the most active members, grouped around Larkin, broke away and on January 4th 1909 founded the Irish Transport Workers Union. The union, whose name was to be enlarged to ITGWU, began in humble surroundings. Its first office was a bare room in a tenement in Townsend Street, Dublin. Its assets were "a couple of chairs, a table, two empty bottles and a candle". Many of the founding members came from the infant socialist movement. Among their influences was syndicalism. This was the idea that all workers, regardless of trade, should be in 'one big union' which would use whatever methods were necessary to win in their battles with the bosses, The syndicalists held that the interests of workers and bosses were absolutely opposed and their end goal was a general strike to throw out the bosses and establish socialism. This was only one of the influences present and it was not clearly defined but it can claim much of the credit for popularising the notion of the 'sympathetic strike'. A man who was to play a significant role in the union was James Connolly. At the time the ITGWU was set up he was in America where, along with fellow-Irishman Patrick Quinlan, he formed a branch of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World in Newark, New Jersey. Shortly after he became secretary of the IWW Building and Constructional Workers Industrial Union in the area.
Conrad (of Austria) writes Moltke asking what Germany would do if Austria attacked Serbia and Russians intervened over Bosnia
9: Ernst Henry Shackleton with a party of 4 men reached a point 100 miles from the South Pole. They had to turn back when calculating their food suply would not allow them to reach the pole and return.
10: Dublin streets were tarred for the first time.
11: France – 4 murderers are publicly guillitoned in Bethune.
Arthur Griffith attempted an electoral alliance with the Irish Parliamentary Party MP William O’Brien. This proved to be the final act for many in the Republican movement.
John Devoy’s remaining sister, died in Dublin.
12: Austria-Hungary persuaded the Ottoman Empire to accept the annexation of Bosnia & Hertzogovina in return for payment. Serbia on the other hand now began to rattle the sabres but was very much cast in the role of David against Goliath. Military preparations were made by both sides but how to keep the other European powers out of the local conflict?
15: Italy – 20,000 die in a massive earthquake in Messina, Sicily.
21: Moltke writes Conrad, replying if Russia mobilizes, Germany will as well, using Bosnia as justification
23: London – the new 7,000 mile telegraphic link is hailed as ‘a great achivement’
February 1909
1: New York: The Gaelic American reported on a lecture at Public School 86 titled ‘Ireland, historic and picturesque’ by Miss Lucia Grieve…. Where she stated that ‘it was proviential that the Irish were subject to England, whose rule was just and lieneitn and afforded a shining example to such countries as France, Spain and Germany in the treatment of subject races. The Irish International Exhibition was next considered. It was, she said, painful to those who had the progress of humanity at heart to observe that more than half the native exhibits were exhibits of whiskey. No country could be prosperous or contented when whiskey entered so largely into the lives and industries of the people. At this stage, a gentleman in the audience protested against the tone of the lecture. The lecturer said the interupter was not an Irishman, as no Irishman would interupt a lady. He retorted that his interuption was justified as she had no knowledge of her subject, and besides ignorance, that she displayed bigotry, spite and race prejudice…a large proportion of the audience jumped up and left the hall. While she was familiar with all the time worn calumnies of the Irish race, she displayed a lamentable ignorance of Irish history –political, social, industrial and economic. The day of the maligner of the Irish race has come to an end…’
P5 Gaelic American February 13, 1909 Lynch Family Archives.
3: South Africa: The Union of South Africa was completed. Both Afrikaner and British were equal citizens – but non-whites had no rights.
8: France comes to an agreement with Germany on Morrocco. Germany allows France to exert a protectorate over the country in return for economic concessions. Meanwhile the Spanish were taking over their latest prize from the Algeciras Conference in 1906, the northern coastline of Morocco. However the Rif tribesmen were to make it an expensive move for the Spaniards.
9:A meeting of the United Irish League in Dublin illustrates the divisions that exist among nationalists over land and language issues.
H.M.S. Dreadnaught launched
21: Russia reconised the indpendent kingdom of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire had little choice but to accept another of it’s
territories had left.
26: French Ambassador to Russia tells Russian Government that the Bosnian situation should not be any of Russia or France's concern
Roger Casement sends a subsidy from South America, through P.S.O’Hegarty for Sinn Fein newspapers and asks Hobson to act for him as owner of 80 shares in the Irish Nation newspaper, along with suggestions for making the newspaper more lively.
March 1909
A Home Office produced report on drunkeness in Ireland reported that during police observation of 22 public houses throughout the country over a 24 day period, 28,000 children had been taken into licensed premises by their parents or other relatives. An average of 53 children per pub per day.
Tom and Kathleen Clark rented another shop at 75A Great Britain Street ( Parnell St )
4: California – a new bill segregating Japanese schoolchildren passed. Washington warns California that such action is not in the nation’s interests.
5: London – MP’s are told that daylight savings time would check peoples ‘physical deteoriation’.
12: London - British Navy bill accepted after "Navy Scare"
15: London – first American style ‘Department Store’ opens in London as Selfridges begins trading.
21: London – ‘Controlled panic swept the Commons today at the revelation that Germany may soon overtake Britain in naval might’.
Germany warned Russia to abandon support for Serbia and accept the Austrian-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Hertzogovina, strongly indicating that both Empires would be willing to fight the Russian bear if necessary. Russia was not militarily ready to take on the combined might and so backed down, forcing Serbia to do the same.
24: John Millington Synge, poet and dramatist ( Playboy of the Western World ) dies aged 37.
A little aside… Strange as it may seem, Adolf Hitler’s half-brother Alois, was working at this time as a waiter in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. He had been sent there by a London employment agency. His humble situation did not suit his vanity, however, and while off duty he posed as a wealthy hotelier on a European tour to study the industry in France, Belgium and the British Isles. While admiring the horses at the 1909 Dublin Horse show, Alois struck up an idle conversation with two locals, William Dowling and his neighbour, Mr Tynan. Soon William's daughter, seventeen year old Bridget, took an interest. She was immediately fascinated by the handsome foreigner. 'Everything he said was so new and interesting that even his broken English seemed charming'. Later, Alois and Bridget met in the National Gallery, Dublin. Soon they were talking about getting married. Bridget's parents were so totally against the relationship that the couple eventually eloped and married in London on 3 June 1910. William Dowling threatened to appeal to the police and to have Alois arrested for kidnapping, but his wife dissuaded him from doing so. Peace was finally made about a year later when William Dowling went to Liverpool to be present at the baptism of his first grandchild, William Patrick Hitler. In later years, Bridget attempted to cash in on her connection with the German Fuehrer by writing a book. She wrote ‘My Brother-in-Law Adolf’ in the United States shortly after herself and her son settled there in 1939. She never managed to get it published, however. The 225 page typescript is undated and unfinished. At present it is in the manuscript department of the New York Public Library. It became widely available for the first time in 1979 when an edited version was published by Gerald Duckworth and Co Ltd. The most sensational part of the book deals with an alleged visit to Britain made by Adolf Hitler. Bridget claims that during the period November 1912 to April 1913 Adolf resided at her flat in Liverpool with herself, Alois and William Patrick. Adolf was draft dodging at the time. He was avoiding compulsory service in the Austrian army. This is the main reason, she says, why he afterwards maintained silence about his English trip, it 'would not have made good publicity for the German prophet'. Much of his time was spent in the company of Bridget: 'he would often come and sit in my cosy little kitchen playing with my two-year old baby, while I was preparing our meals. I thought he felt very much at home then. Usually he wouldn't say much, but just sit, from time to time telling me of the different dishes his mother used to make.' William Patrick spent most of the 1930s in Germany. He worked for most of this period in the Reichskreditbank. Later he worked in the Opel car factory and then became a car salesman. He was disappointed that his Uncle Adolf would not use his influence to pull him into an important position. William Patrick seems to have changed his views about the Fuhrer. Two years later he was earning his living in the United States by lecturing about 'My Uncle Adolf'. His lectures were probably similar in tone to the article he wrote for Look magazine in January 1939 entitled 'Why I Hate my Uncle'. William Patrick served in the US Navy during the World War II and was honourably discharged at the end of hostilities. He worked for a while in an American hospital and then changed his name and went into total obscurity. The historian John Toland was able to confirm that he was still alive in 1977.
31: Serbia accepted the Austria-Hungary annexation of Bosnia-Hertzogovina.
Roger Casement continued to subsidise the Clonghaneely Gaelic College with £80 per annum, £50 for Arthur Griffith’s newspaper Sinn Fein as well as supporting his sister and brother Tom in a financial crisis.
April 1909
The Clones, Co. Monaghan Board of Guardians recomended that all batchelors over 35 should be taxed: ‘ they have no right to live in single blissfulness, while the whole country is teeming with bright, lonely, marriageable girls..’
The Liberal’s Land Bill introduced to amend the financial provisions of the 1903 Land Act received strong opposition from William O’Brien, MP for Cork City in the Irish Parliamentary Party. Receiving little support from within his party, he resigned and his Cork seat became vacant. George Crosbie was selected to succeed O’Brien with Redmond visiting the constiuency to lend his support. However Maurice Healy won the seat with a narrow margin. This led to the Irish Parliamentary Party refusing to accept him as a member, complicated further by a general strike in Cork.
13: Constantinople: Sultan Abdulhamid and those around him in the palace blamed the disasters that befell the empire on the new constitutional regime and attempted a counter-revolution in April 1909. Parliament was dissolved and many members arrested.
21: Rome – Pope Pius X issues an encyclical ‘Communium rerum’ condemning modernism.
Armenia: Despite the new regime in Constaninople, the killings continued with over 30,000 Armenians massacred by local Muslims and a brutal supression of an uprising in Albania. Meanwhile the Turkish army based on Macedonia and dominated by Young Turks were marching back to Istanbul.
26: Constaninople: The army returned to the capital, defeated the counter-revolution, and dethroned the sultan. Subsequent Ottoman sultans reigned but did not rule. Sultan Abdul Hamid II resigned and suceeded by his brother Mehmed V but was merely a puppet figure in the hands of the Young Turks.
29: Lloyd George introduces the ‘People’s Budget’ involving extra taxes on spirits and tobacco.
May 1909
15: British actor, James Mason born ( d. 27.7.84 )
22: US: White fireman on Georgia Railroad strike at employment of blacks.
23 : George Bernard Shaw’s ‘The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet’ was refused a theatrical licence by the British Lord Chamberlain in London.
30: US jazz clarinet player, Benny Goodman born. (d.13.6.86 )
31: Edward DuBois, a black who had obtained a Ph.D in history from Harvard in 1895, founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’ giving blacks a voice that could at least make itself be heard, even if it could not change the stolid and stony hearted racism of the times.
June 1909
4: Morrocco – The Sultan forbids the Jews of Fez from viewing his new palace. All offenders were to be shot.
19: US – A world disarmament conference proposed by the US industrialist and philantropist, Andrew Carnegie.
Dublin: Rev Michael O’Hickey Professor of Irish in Maynooth was dismissed by the trustees for publishing a series of letters nad articles in favour of inclusion for Irish as an essential subject for the University currciculum.
22: Evictions in Ireland continued with one in Castletownberehaven, Co. Cork. A force of 250 RIC succeded in removing Richard Walsh from his home on instructions of the landlord Pierce Mahony. The house was retaken by friends of Walsh, with trees felled and barricades errected to prevent the police taking the house. An extra 250 RIC were called in, barricades removed and the attack was made with those inside pouring tar, hot water and lime on those below. entry was made to the house and 15 men inside arrested. Walsh’s elderly mother, who remained in the house was allowed stay. That night, the house was re-occupied again by Walsh and friends, walls secured and more barricades errected. A subscription was raised to help the family.
P3 Gaelic American July10, 1909 Lynch Family Archives.
24: Ireland – St John’s Eve Bonfires: Fires lit throughout Ireland were an ancient custom which existed long before the arrivial of Christianity, a form of religion practicsed by sun worshipers and brought to Ireland about 1,700 BC.
July 1909
1: Countess Markievicz as President of Cumman na mBan writing in Bean na hEireann on women’s sufferage said : ‘The first step on the road to freedom is to realise ourselves as Irishwomen – not as Irish or merely as women, but as Irishwomen doubly ensalaved and with a double battle to fight’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p24
4: Connecticut: Captain Merriman of the British schooner King Josiah offended the local reisdents of Stamford by raising the Union Jack on his ship on Independence Day. Complaints were made to the police and Chief of Police Brennan boarded the vessel and ordered the captain to lower the flag.
P4 Gaelic American July10, 1909 Lynch Family Archives.
10: The Gaelic American listed it’s Irish stockists of the newspaper as:
Thomas J Clarke, 55 Amiens Street, Miss H Clarke, 177 Great Britain St, Miss M O’Meagher 9 Tara Street and James Whelan, 17 Upper Ormond Quay.
14: Berlin – Bulow resigns as Chancellor. Replacing him was the career bureaucrat, Theobald Von Bethman Hollweg who would hold power until 1917.
15: Paris – Dr Alexis Carrel demonstrated organ transplants carried out on animals.
18: Soviet statesman, Andrei Gromyko born. (d. 2.7.89 )
25: Louis Bleriot became the first person to fly across the Channel, winning the £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail for his
43 minute flight over 31 miles at an average 40 mph.
31: Germany – Count Von Zeppelin makes a 220 mile flight at 21mph in his new airship.
Crete: Peace keeping forces in Crete withdrew and the island joined with Greece.
August 1909
Arthur Griffith’s weekly newspaper, Sinn Fein became a daily. Griffith was convinced that until there was a daily newspaper to promote the Sinn Fein doctrine, there could be no progress in persuading the population that the Irish Party in Westminster woud never achieve Home Rule.
Hobson, with the assistance of Countess Markevicitz re-established the Fianna with many members graduating into a special circle of the Dublin I.R.B in 1912.
The Grievances from Ireland – Parliamentary Edition Vol V, No.55 was published by the Imperial Protestant Federation, London in an effort to highlight Irish Nationalist metholds of intimidation, involvement of the clergy in United Irish League meetings, the United Irish Society of America, various shooting outrages, cattle driving, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and examples of boycotting.
Lynch Family Archives. Folder 1 – 1890-1914
1: Countess Markievicz while president of Cumman na mBan also wrote a gardening feature in Bean na hEireann and included this handy tip: ‘A good nationalist should look upon slugs in a garden much in the way as she looks upon the English in Ireland, and only regret that she cannot crush the Nation’s enemies as she can the gardens, with one tread of her dainty foot’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p24
11: Berlin- von Herringen becomes German Minister of War (till 7 Jun 1913)
Diarmuid Lynch was shown a £50 money order ( $250 ) sent by a mutual contact in New York, Pat Cooney to Anthony Mackey, a cabinet maker newly returned from the city and setting up business in the Dublin. ( values in 2003: aproximately €15,000. ). While intended as a capital venture loan, none was paid back and would be the subject of some correspondence with Diarmuid Lynch, 41 years later in June 1950.
“…Anthony appealed to me, when I was imbued with the spirit that everyone should remian in Ireland who could. I sent him $250.00 - £50.In his answer to me he said he showed you the money order at that time. You were in Dublin waiting to make the supreme sacrifice.
Lynch Family Archives – Folder 50 – 00001 & others.
15: London: Higher prices were blamed for a 33% increase in wife desertions in Great Britain.
16: London: Tory leader, Arthur Balfour tells MP’s that giving equal rights to South Africa’s blacks would ‘threaten white civilisation.’
The Fianna Eireann scout movement founded by Constance Markiewicz and Bulmer Hobson. Becomes an induction school for the IRB.
25: Shaw’s premiere of ‘The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet’ took place in the Abbey Theatre, without cuts and without protests but while still under the Censor’s ban.
September 1909
7: London: Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Times claims Germay is rapidly preparing for war with Great Britain.
9: Boston: Professor Lovell claimed there is oxygen on Mars.
28: London – the House of Commons was told that Suffragettes recently arrested were being force fed.
30: University College Dublin took over the old Royal University building in Earlsfort Terrace in addition to Cardinal Newman’s Catholic University on Stephen’s Green and the Catholic Scholl of Medicine in Cecilia Street.
October 1909
2: Berlin – Orville Wright set a record flight at a height of 1,600 feet.
25: The Engineering and Scientific Association of Ireland announced that while flying through the air was ‘not yet, an accomplished fact, it would soon do so. However, flying woud never be of any practical use.’
26: Austria – a tax on batchelors proposed as the country struggles with deficit caused by the annexation of Bosnia and Hertzegovina.
30: Five days after the Enginnering and Scientific Association made their pronouncement on the future of flying, another Irishman, Moore Brabazon proved them wrong, earning £1,000 as the Daily Mail prize for flying a one mile circular flight over the Thames.
The Birrell Land Act ( promoted by the Chief Secretary, Augustine Birrell ) introduced the idea of compulsory land purchase and conferred power on the Land Commission and Congested Districts Board to force landlords to sell. This represented the final Act in the series since 1870.
Mark Tierney summarises the Land Question from 1870-1909 as..
“ This a series of Land Acts from 1870 to 1909, brought about a change in the ownership of land in rural Ireland. It meant in practice an end to landlordism and the creation of a peasant proprietorship, By the beginning of World War 1, the Irish land question was satisfactorily solved. Although the farmers had to pay annuities to the English Government, they had achieved their independence and could look forward to brighter days ahead. There were considerable economic and social repercussions in the changeover from landlord ownership to tenant ownership. It gave the farmers a definite interest in maintaining the peace, so that they could get on with the job of working their land. On the other hand it also proved to some of the physical force people that “outrage” had paid off, and that only by persistent use of force that any tangible results could be attained. Ultimately, the settling of the land question marked the appearance of a conservative bourgeois society in Ireland, which was such a marked feature of the first quarter of the twentieth century.”
As to matters of self-government, Asquith was now Prime Minister, with the Liberals holding majority in the House of Commons, the Conservatives held the House of Lords. Thus the Lords consistently used the power of veto. Bonar Law denounced the ‘People’s budget’ introduced by Lloyd George in 1909 calling it ‘pure, unadulterated socialism’ a view shared by the leader of the Unionists, Walter Hume Long.
Griffith’s ‘Sinn Fein Daily’ was by now in serious financial difficulties and the option of sourcing American investment was discussed. Both Michael O’Rahilly ( The O’Rahilly ) and William Bulfin volunteered to travel to New York in November and approach some potential investors. Devoy and Clan na Gael were not approached in advance.
November 1909
4: The ‘People’s Budget’ is passed on it’s third reading in the House of Commons.
7: US – a report shows that a third of the nation’s wealth was now tied up in Wall Street.
8: US Actor, Katherine Hepburn born. ( d. 2003 )
Daniel F. McCarthy ( - 1909 ) Originally from Kenmare, he, along with John Walsh was one of the independent IRB rescuers from Cork that teamed up with the main Catalpa Rescue team for the rescue of the Fremantle Fenian prisoners in 1876. He later settled in the US, ‘lived a long and eventful life in Chicago, an active member of the Catholic Order of Foresters. Died November 8th 1909. Buried in Calvary Cemetery, Chicago.’
14: US: President Taft settled a logn simmering row between the US Army and Navy as to the best site for a new naval base to defend the US from a Japanese attack. He ruled in favour of Pearl Harbour in Hawaii which pleased no end the Army who argued that the Navy’s choice of Subic Bay in the Phillipines was not defendable. Taft’s reasoning was more towards defending US interests in the Panama Canal than any possible threat from Japan.
The Vote and After: What are the Women Doing?
from The Irish Times 16 November 1909
Talk of women's rights has ceased with the franchise which was now to remedy women's wrongs. But women who took such a big part in the movement to obtain the vote have for the most part retired from the scene, and are in blissful ignorance that their work had only begun when they were put on the register. They suffered imprisonment and social ostracism in order to have a voice in the affairs of the country, but now they have a right to be heard they are inarticulate - I mean the majority.
Of the minority, whose main hobby still seems to be the disfigurement of walls with wild threats, I am not speaking. They still live in that dark period when women were denied the vote. Now they have got it they seem still to prefer militant to constitutional means for to remedy their grievances.
And some of these were going to lead women like the Israelites of old into the Promised Land directly they got the vote. If their leadership, or lack of it, persists, then women can look for more than forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
30: The Lords rejected the Lloyd George ’People’s Budget’ – the first monetary bill rejected by the Lords in 200 years. Asquith was now determined to curtail the power of the House of Lords, to remove their absolute veto on legislation.
Bulmer Hobson and the Countess Markievicz founded the Fianna Eireann or Irish Boy Scouts as an ancillary branch of Sinn Fein. Based originally on Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts founded in 1907, their idea was to form youth clubs where classes in Irish language and history could be held and sporting activities, route marching and drilling. These were to be the future members of the I.R.B, two facing a firing squad after the Rising and many becoming leaders afterwards.
In London, Michael Collins was sworn into the IRB by his fellow Post Office worker, Sam Maguire. Collins would later become the IRB Treasurer for London and South of England. His revolutionary appenticeship has begun.
December 1909
3: London – The Irish Land Act ( Birrel’s Act ) gives the Congested District Board powers of compulsory purchase with increased finance available for tenant purchase.
5: The O’Rahilly and Bulfin arrived in New York. However, there was no success in sourcing investors for the Sinn Fein Daily.
10: London – Asquith in London’s Albert Hall committed the Liberal Party again to Irish Home Rule and abolition of the Lord’s veto at the centre of the Liberal election campaign.
‘The soloution of the Irish problem can be found only in one way, by a policy which, while explicitly safeguarding the supremacy and indefectible authority of the Imperial Parliament, will set up in Irelan a system of full self-Government in regard to purely Irish affairs.’
11: The 2147 mile Cairo to the cape railway line completed at the Sudan-Congo border.
12: Detroit – Henry Ford makes his classic statement ‘Any colour you like as long as it’s black’
17: Leopold II of Belgium died and suceeded by his nephew, reigning as Albert I until 1934.
20: The Volta, Ireland’s first cinema opens in Mary Street, Dublin. It’s manager? James Joyce.
21: Anybody remember Dr. Frederick Cook? This New York doctor and explorer claimed to be the first man to reach the North Pole but was publicly rejected and no doubt disgraced when a committee awarded the title to Commander Robert E, Peary.
31: Marconi won the Nobel Prize along with K.F.Braun for Physics
The Secretary of the I.R.B Supreme Council, after fund-raising in the United States, misapropriated the cash.
Ireland’s first aircraft was testflown in the teeth of a force 9 gale on 31 December 1909 by the 25 year old Harry Ferguson, from Hillsborough Co. Down. It was also the first aircraft to have a tricycle undercarriage, the design commonplace among jet aircraft today. The aircraft flew 130 meters at 4 meters high. Harry later invented hydraulically controlled farm machinery and founded the Ferguson Tractor Company in 1949 ( later merging with the Canadian Massey Company in 1953, becoming Massey-Ferguson in 1958 and operating under that name until 1987 when it was renamed the Variety Corporation. )
Hits of 1909 included; “Moonstruck”, “I wonder who’s kissing her now” and “Has anybody here seen Kelly?”.
In 1909, an international law was agreed upon that differentiated between "contraband" and "non-contraband" shipping. "Contraband," defined as weapons and other materials used in military manufacturing, could be controlled and blockaded during a war. "Non-contraband" cargoes like food, cloth, and raw goods could not be regulated through a blockade; countries could still import and trade these items. This regulation was a response by continental Europe against England, which had the most powerful navy and could strangle the economy of any continental nation with a blockade of the sea.
Australia – the new capital of Australia was established in Canberra and made a federal district.
Sam Smith: First Mate of the Catalpa who had refused to let the water police board the vessel, was granted his shipmaster’s paper shortly after his return to New Bedford in August 1876. Married Amy Chase in 1883 and hunted whales until his death at age 63 in 1909.
1
The first old age pensions (5/ ) were paid out to those aged 70 and over. Granted were 596,038 in England, 21,956 in Wales, 64,769 in Scotland and 170,365 in Ireland.
London: Astronmers report they may have sighted another planet beyond Neptune.
The Irish Bishops came out strongly against making Irish an essential subject for matriculation in the new Univeristy.
4
James Larkin founded the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in Dublin. Sean O’Casey described the event ‘In a room in a tenement in Townsend Street, with a candle in a bottle for a torch, and a billycan of tea, with a few buns for a banquet, the Church millitant here on earth , called the the Irish Transport and General Workers Union was founded’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p24
Some of the most active members, grouped around Larkin, broke away and on January 4th 1909 founded the Irish Transport Workers Union. The union, whose name was to be enlarged to ITGWU, began in humble surroundings. Its first office was a bare room in a tenement in Townsend Street, Dublin. Its assets were "a couple of chairs, a table, two empty bottles and a candle". Many of the founding members came from the infant socialist movement. Among their influences was syndicalism. This was the idea that all workers, regardless of trade, should be in 'one big union' which would use whatever methods were necessary to win in their battles with the bosses, The syndicalists held that the interests of workers and bosses were absolutely opposed and their end goal was a general strike to throw out the bosses and establish socialism. This was only one of the influences present and it was not clearly defined but it can claim much of the credit for popularising the notion of the 'sympathetic strike'. A man who was to play a significant role in the union was James Connolly. At the time the ITGWU was set up he was in America where, along with fellow-Irishman Patrick Quinlan, he formed a branch of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World in Newark, New Jersey. Shortly after he became secretary of the IWW Building and Constructional Workers Industrial Union in the area.
Conrad (of Austria) writes Moltke asking what Germany would do if Austria attacked Serbia and Russians intervened over Bosnia
9: Ernst Henry Shackleton with a party of 4 men reached a point 100 miles from the South Pole. They had to turn back when calculating their food suply would not allow them to reach the pole and return.
10: Dublin streets were tarred for the first time.
11: France – 4 murderers are publicly guillitoned in Bethune.
Arthur Griffith attempted an electoral alliance with the Irish Parliamentary Party MP William O’Brien. This proved to be the final act for many in the Republican movement.
John Devoy’s remaining sister, died in Dublin.
12: Austria-Hungary persuaded the Ottoman Empire to accept the annexation of Bosnia & Hertzogovina in return for payment. Serbia on the other hand now began to rattle the sabres but was very much cast in the role of David against Goliath. Military preparations were made by both sides but how to keep the other European powers out of the local conflict?
15: Italy – 20,000 die in a massive earthquake in Messina, Sicily.
21: Moltke writes Conrad, replying if Russia mobilizes, Germany will as well, using Bosnia as justification
23: London – the new 7,000 mile telegraphic link is hailed as ‘a great achivement’
February 1909
1: New York: The Gaelic American reported on a lecture at Public School 86 titled ‘Ireland, historic and picturesque’ by Miss Lucia Grieve…. Where she stated that ‘it was proviential that the Irish were subject to England, whose rule was just and lieneitn and afforded a shining example to such countries as France, Spain and Germany in the treatment of subject races. The Irish International Exhibition was next considered. It was, she said, painful to those who had the progress of humanity at heart to observe that more than half the native exhibits were exhibits of whiskey. No country could be prosperous or contented when whiskey entered so largely into the lives and industries of the people. At this stage, a gentleman in the audience protested against the tone of the lecture. The lecturer said the interupter was not an Irishman, as no Irishman would interupt a lady. He retorted that his interuption was justified as she had no knowledge of her subject, and besides ignorance, that she displayed bigotry, spite and race prejudice…a large proportion of the audience jumped up and left the hall. While she was familiar with all the time worn calumnies of the Irish race, she displayed a lamentable ignorance of Irish history –political, social, industrial and economic. The day of the maligner of the Irish race has come to an end…’
P5 Gaelic American February 13, 1909 Lynch Family Archives.
3: South Africa: The Union of South Africa was completed. Both Afrikaner and British were equal citizens – but non-whites had no rights.
8: France comes to an agreement with Germany on Morrocco. Germany allows France to exert a protectorate over the country in return for economic concessions. Meanwhile the Spanish were taking over their latest prize from the Algeciras Conference in 1906, the northern coastline of Morocco. However the Rif tribesmen were to make it an expensive move for the Spaniards.
9:A meeting of the United Irish League in Dublin illustrates the divisions that exist among nationalists over land and language issues.
H.M.S. Dreadnaught launched
21: Russia reconised the indpendent kingdom of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire had little choice but to accept another of it’s
territories had left.
26: French Ambassador to Russia tells Russian Government that the Bosnian situation should not be any of Russia or France's concern
Roger Casement sends a subsidy from South America, through P.S.O’Hegarty for Sinn Fein newspapers and asks Hobson to act for him as owner of 80 shares in the Irish Nation newspaper, along with suggestions for making the newspaper more lively.
March 1909
A Home Office produced report on drunkeness in Ireland reported that during police observation of 22 public houses throughout the country over a 24 day period, 28,000 children had been taken into licensed premises by their parents or other relatives. An average of 53 children per pub per day.
Tom and Kathleen Clark rented another shop at 75A Great Britain Street ( Parnell St )
4: California – a new bill segregating Japanese schoolchildren passed. Washington warns California that such action is not in the nation’s interests.
5: London – MP’s are told that daylight savings time would check peoples ‘physical deteoriation’.
12: London - British Navy bill accepted after "Navy Scare"
15: London – first American style ‘Department Store’ opens in London as Selfridges begins trading.
21: London – ‘Controlled panic swept the Commons today at the revelation that Germany may soon overtake Britain in naval might’.
Germany warned Russia to abandon support for Serbia and accept the Austrian-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia-Hertzogovina, strongly indicating that both Empires would be willing to fight the Russian bear if necessary. Russia was not militarily ready to take on the combined might and so backed down, forcing Serbia to do the same.
24: John Millington Synge, poet and dramatist ( Playboy of the Western World ) dies aged 37.
A little aside… Strange as it may seem, Adolf Hitler’s half-brother Alois, was working at this time as a waiter in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. He had been sent there by a London employment agency. His humble situation did not suit his vanity, however, and while off duty he posed as a wealthy hotelier on a European tour to study the industry in France, Belgium and the British Isles. While admiring the horses at the 1909 Dublin Horse show, Alois struck up an idle conversation with two locals, William Dowling and his neighbour, Mr Tynan. Soon William's daughter, seventeen year old Bridget, took an interest. She was immediately fascinated by the handsome foreigner. 'Everything he said was so new and interesting that even his broken English seemed charming'. Later, Alois and Bridget met in the National Gallery, Dublin. Soon they were talking about getting married. Bridget's parents were so totally against the relationship that the couple eventually eloped and married in London on 3 June 1910. William Dowling threatened to appeal to the police and to have Alois arrested for kidnapping, but his wife dissuaded him from doing so. Peace was finally made about a year later when William Dowling went to Liverpool to be present at the baptism of his first grandchild, William Patrick Hitler. In later years, Bridget attempted to cash in on her connection with the German Fuehrer by writing a book. She wrote ‘My Brother-in-Law Adolf’ in the United States shortly after herself and her son settled there in 1939. She never managed to get it published, however. The 225 page typescript is undated and unfinished. At present it is in the manuscript department of the New York Public Library. It became widely available for the first time in 1979 when an edited version was published by Gerald Duckworth and Co Ltd. The most sensational part of the book deals with an alleged visit to Britain made by Adolf Hitler. Bridget claims that during the period November 1912 to April 1913 Adolf resided at her flat in Liverpool with herself, Alois and William Patrick. Adolf was draft dodging at the time. He was avoiding compulsory service in the Austrian army. This is the main reason, she says, why he afterwards maintained silence about his English trip, it 'would not have made good publicity for the German prophet'. Much of his time was spent in the company of Bridget: 'he would often come and sit in my cosy little kitchen playing with my two-year old baby, while I was preparing our meals. I thought he felt very much at home then. Usually he wouldn't say much, but just sit, from time to time telling me of the different dishes his mother used to make.' William Patrick spent most of the 1930s in Germany. He worked for most of this period in the Reichskreditbank. Later he worked in the Opel car factory and then became a car salesman. He was disappointed that his Uncle Adolf would not use his influence to pull him into an important position. William Patrick seems to have changed his views about the Fuhrer. Two years later he was earning his living in the United States by lecturing about 'My Uncle Adolf'. His lectures were probably similar in tone to the article he wrote for Look magazine in January 1939 entitled 'Why I Hate my Uncle'. William Patrick served in the US Navy during the World War II and was honourably discharged at the end of hostilities. He worked for a while in an American hospital and then changed his name and went into total obscurity. The historian John Toland was able to confirm that he was still alive in 1977.
31: Serbia accepted the Austria-Hungary annexation of Bosnia-Hertzogovina.
Roger Casement continued to subsidise the Clonghaneely Gaelic College with £80 per annum, £50 for Arthur Griffith’s newspaper Sinn Fein as well as supporting his sister and brother Tom in a financial crisis.
April 1909
The Clones, Co. Monaghan Board of Guardians recomended that all batchelors over 35 should be taxed: ‘ they have no right to live in single blissfulness, while the whole country is teeming with bright, lonely, marriageable girls..’
The Liberal’s Land Bill introduced to amend the financial provisions of the 1903 Land Act received strong opposition from William O’Brien, MP for Cork City in the Irish Parliamentary Party. Receiving little support from within his party, he resigned and his Cork seat became vacant. George Crosbie was selected to succeed O’Brien with Redmond visiting the constiuency to lend his support. However Maurice Healy won the seat with a narrow margin. This led to the Irish Parliamentary Party refusing to accept him as a member, complicated further by a general strike in Cork.
13: Constantinople: Sultan Abdulhamid and those around him in the palace blamed the disasters that befell the empire on the new constitutional regime and attempted a counter-revolution in April 1909. Parliament was dissolved and many members arrested.
21: Rome – Pope Pius X issues an encyclical ‘Communium rerum’ condemning modernism.
Armenia: Despite the new regime in Constaninople, the killings continued with over 30,000 Armenians massacred by local Muslims and a brutal supression of an uprising in Albania. Meanwhile the Turkish army based on Macedonia and dominated by Young Turks were marching back to Istanbul.
26: Constaninople: The army returned to the capital, defeated the counter-revolution, and dethroned the sultan. Subsequent Ottoman sultans reigned but did not rule. Sultan Abdul Hamid II resigned and suceeded by his brother Mehmed V but was merely a puppet figure in the hands of the Young Turks.
29: Lloyd George introduces the ‘People’s Budget’ involving extra taxes on spirits and tobacco.
May 1909
15: British actor, James Mason born ( d. 27.7.84 )
22: US: White fireman on Georgia Railroad strike at employment of blacks.
23 : George Bernard Shaw’s ‘The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet’ was refused a theatrical licence by the British Lord Chamberlain in London.
30: US jazz clarinet player, Benny Goodman born. (d.13.6.86 )
31: Edward DuBois, a black who had obtained a Ph.D in history from Harvard in 1895, founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’ giving blacks a voice that could at least make itself be heard, even if it could not change the stolid and stony hearted racism of the times.
June 1909
- US: World’s Fair opens in Seattle.
4: Morrocco – The Sultan forbids the Jews of Fez from viewing his new palace. All offenders were to be shot.
19: US – A world disarmament conference proposed by the US industrialist and philantropist, Andrew Carnegie.
Dublin: Rev Michael O’Hickey Professor of Irish in Maynooth was dismissed by the trustees for publishing a series of letters nad articles in favour of inclusion for Irish as an essential subject for the University currciculum.
22: Evictions in Ireland continued with one in Castletownberehaven, Co. Cork. A force of 250 RIC succeded in removing Richard Walsh from his home on instructions of the landlord Pierce Mahony. The house was retaken by friends of Walsh, with trees felled and barricades errected to prevent the police taking the house. An extra 250 RIC were called in, barricades removed and the attack was made with those inside pouring tar, hot water and lime on those below. entry was made to the house and 15 men inside arrested. Walsh’s elderly mother, who remained in the house was allowed stay. That night, the house was re-occupied again by Walsh and friends, walls secured and more barricades errected. A subscription was raised to help the family.
P3 Gaelic American July10, 1909 Lynch Family Archives.
24: Ireland – St John’s Eve Bonfires: Fires lit throughout Ireland were an ancient custom which existed long before the arrivial of Christianity, a form of religion practicsed by sun worshipers and brought to Ireland about 1,700 BC.
July 1909
1: Countess Markievicz as President of Cumman na mBan writing in Bean na hEireann on women’s sufferage said : ‘The first step on the road to freedom is to realise ourselves as Irishwomen – not as Irish or merely as women, but as Irishwomen doubly ensalaved and with a double battle to fight’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p24
4: Connecticut: Captain Merriman of the British schooner King Josiah offended the local reisdents of Stamford by raising the Union Jack on his ship on Independence Day. Complaints were made to the police and Chief of Police Brennan boarded the vessel and ordered the captain to lower the flag.
P4 Gaelic American July10, 1909 Lynch Family Archives.
10: The Gaelic American listed it’s Irish stockists of the newspaper as:
Thomas J Clarke, 55 Amiens Street, Miss H Clarke, 177 Great Britain St, Miss M O’Meagher 9 Tara Street and James Whelan, 17 Upper Ormond Quay.
14: Berlin – Bulow resigns as Chancellor. Replacing him was the career bureaucrat, Theobald Von Bethman Hollweg who would hold power until 1917.
15: Paris – Dr Alexis Carrel demonstrated organ transplants carried out on animals.
18: Soviet statesman, Andrei Gromyko born. (d. 2.7.89 )
25: Louis Bleriot became the first person to fly across the Channel, winning the £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail for his
43 minute flight over 31 miles at an average 40 mph.
31: Germany – Count Von Zeppelin makes a 220 mile flight at 21mph in his new airship.
Crete: Peace keeping forces in Crete withdrew and the island joined with Greece.
August 1909
Arthur Griffith’s weekly newspaper, Sinn Fein became a daily. Griffith was convinced that until there was a daily newspaper to promote the Sinn Fein doctrine, there could be no progress in persuading the population that the Irish Party in Westminster woud never achieve Home Rule.
Hobson, with the assistance of Countess Markevicitz re-established the Fianna with many members graduating into a special circle of the Dublin I.R.B in 1912.
The Grievances from Ireland – Parliamentary Edition Vol V, No.55 was published by the Imperial Protestant Federation, London in an effort to highlight Irish Nationalist metholds of intimidation, involvement of the clergy in United Irish League meetings, the United Irish Society of America, various shooting outrages, cattle driving, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and examples of boycotting.
Lynch Family Archives. Folder 1 – 1890-1914
1: Countess Markievicz while president of Cumman na mBan also wrote a gardening feature in Bean na hEireann and included this handy tip: ‘A good nationalist should look upon slugs in a garden much in the way as she looks upon the English in Ireland, and only regret that she cannot crush the Nation’s enemies as she can the gardens, with one tread of her dainty foot’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p24
11: Berlin- von Herringen becomes German Minister of War (till 7 Jun 1913)
Diarmuid Lynch was shown a £50 money order ( $250 ) sent by a mutual contact in New York, Pat Cooney to Anthony Mackey, a cabinet maker newly returned from the city and setting up business in the Dublin. ( values in 2003: aproximately €15,000. ). While intended as a capital venture loan, none was paid back and would be the subject of some correspondence with Diarmuid Lynch, 41 years later in June 1950.
“…Anthony appealed to me, when I was imbued with the spirit that everyone should remian in Ireland who could. I sent him $250.00 - £50.In his answer to me he said he showed you the money order at that time. You were in Dublin waiting to make the supreme sacrifice.
Lynch Family Archives – Folder 50 – 00001 & others.
15: London: Higher prices were blamed for a 33% increase in wife desertions in Great Britain.
16: London: Tory leader, Arthur Balfour tells MP’s that giving equal rights to South Africa’s blacks would ‘threaten white civilisation.’
The Fianna Eireann scout movement founded by Constance Markiewicz and Bulmer Hobson. Becomes an induction school for the IRB.
25: Shaw’s premiere of ‘The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet’ took place in the Abbey Theatre, without cuts and without protests but while still under the Censor’s ban.
September 1909
7: London: Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Times claims Germay is rapidly preparing for war with Great Britain.
9: Boston: Professor Lovell claimed there is oxygen on Mars.
28: London – the House of Commons was told that Suffragettes recently arrested were being force fed.
30: University College Dublin took over the old Royal University building in Earlsfort Terrace in addition to Cardinal Newman’s Catholic University on Stephen’s Green and the Catholic Scholl of Medicine in Cecilia Street.
October 1909
2: Berlin – Orville Wright set a record flight at a height of 1,600 feet.
25: The Engineering and Scientific Association of Ireland announced that while flying through the air was ‘not yet, an accomplished fact, it would soon do so. However, flying woud never be of any practical use.’
26: Austria – a tax on batchelors proposed as the country struggles with deficit caused by the annexation of Bosnia and Hertzegovina.
30: Five days after the Enginnering and Scientific Association made their pronouncement on the future of flying, another Irishman, Moore Brabazon proved them wrong, earning £1,000 as the Daily Mail prize for flying a one mile circular flight over the Thames.
The Birrell Land Act ( promoted by the Chief Secretary, Augustine Birrell ) introduced the idea of compulsory land purchase and conferred power on the Land Commission and Congested Districts Board to force landlords to sell. This represented the final Act in the series since 1870.
Mark Tierney summarises the Land Question from 1870-1909 as..
“ This a series of Land Acts from 1870 to 1909, brought about a change in the ownership of land in rural Ireland. It meant in practice an end to landlordism and the creation of a peasant proprietorship, By the beginning of World War 1, the Irish land question was satisfactorily solved. Although the farmers had to pay annuities to the English Government, they had achieved their independence and could look forward to brighter days ahead. There were considerable economic and social repercussions in the changeover from landlord ownership to tenant ownership. It gave the farmers a definite interest in maintaining the peace, so that they could get on with the job of working their land. On the other hand it also proved to some of the physical force people that “outrage” had paid off, and that only by persistent use of force that any tangible results could be attained. Ultimately, the settling of the land question marked the appearance of a conservative bourgeois society in Ireland, which was such a marked feature of the first quarter of the twentieth century.”
As to matters of self-government, Asquith was now Prime Minister, with the Liberals holding majority in the House of Commons, the Conservatives held the House of Lords. Thus the Lords consistently used the power of veto. Bonar Law denounced the ‘People’s budget’ introduced by Lloyd George in 1909 calling it ‘pure, unadulterated socialism’ a view shared by the leader of the Unionists, Walter Hume Long.
Griffith’s ‘Sinn Fein Daily’ was by now in serious financial difficulties and the option of sourcing American investment was discussed. Both Michael O’Rahilly ( The O’Rahilly ) and William Bulfin volunteered to travel to New York in November and approach some potential investors. Devoy and Clan na Gael were not approached in advance.
November 1909
4: The ‘People’s Budget’ is passed on it’s third reading in the House of Commons.
7: US – a report shows that a third of the nation’s wealth was now tied up in Wall Street.
8: US Actor, Katherine Hepburn born. ( d. 2003 )
Daniel F. McCarthy ( - 1909 ) Originally from Kenmare, he, along with John Walsh was one of the independent IRB rescuers from Cork that teamed up with the main Catalpa Rescue team for the rescue of the Fremantle Fenian prisoners in 1876. He later settled in the US, ‘lived a long and eventful life in Chicago, an active member of the Catholic Order of Foresters. Died November 8th 1909. Buried in Calvary Cemetery, Chicago.’
14: US: President Taft settled a logn simmering row between the US Army and Navy as to the best site for a new naval base to defend the US from a Japanese attack. He ruled in favour of Pearl Harbour in Hawaii which pleased no end the Army who argued that the Navy’s choice of Subic Bay in the Phillipines was not defendable. Taft’s reasoning was more towards defending US interests in the Panama Canal than any possible threat from Japan.
The Vote and After: What are the Women Doing?
from The Irish Times 16 November 1909
Talk of women's rights has ceased with the franchise which was now to remedy women's wrongs. But women who took such a big part in the movement to obtain the vote have for the most part retired from the scene, and are in blissful ignorance that their work had only begun when they were put on the register. They suffered imprisonment and social ostracism in order to have a voice in the affairs of the country, but now they have a right to be heard they are inarticulate - I mean the majority.
Of the minority, whose main hobby still seems to be the disfigurement of walls with wild threats, I am not speaking. They still live in that dark period when women were denied the vote. Now they have got it they seem still to prefer militant to constitutional means for to remedy their grievances.
And some of these were going to lead women like the Israelites of old into the Promised Land directly they got the vote. If their leadership, or lack of it, persists, then women can look for more than forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
30: The Lords rejected the Lloyd George ’People’s Budget’ – the first monetary bill rejected by the Lords in 200 years. Asquith was now determined to curtail the power of the House of Lords, to remove their absolute veto on legislation.
Bulmer Hobson and the Countess Markievicz founded the Fianna Eireann or Irish Boy Scouts as an ancillary branch of Sinn Fein. Based originally on Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts founded in 1907, their idea was to form youth clubs where classes in Irish language and history could be held and sporting activities, route marching and drilling. These were to be the future members of the I.R.B, two facing a firing squad after the Rising and many becoming leaders afterwards.
In London, Michael Collins was sworn into the IRB by his fellow Post Office worker, Sam Maguire. Collins would later become the IRB Treasurer for London and South of England. His revolutionary appenticeship has begun.
December 1909
3: London – The Irish Land Act ( Birrel’s Act ) gives the Congested District Board powers of compulsory purchase with increased finance available for tenant purchase.
5: The O’Rahilly and Bulfin arrived in New York. However, there was no success in sourcing investors for the Sinn Fein Daily.
10: London – Asquith in London’s Albert Hall committed the Liberal Party again to Irish Home Rule and abolition of the Lord’s veto at the centre of the Liberal election campaign.
‘The soloution of the Irish problem can be found only in one way, by a policy which, while explicitly safeguarding the supremacy and indefectible authority of the Imperial Parliament, will set up in Irelan a system of full self-Government in regard to purely Irish affairs.’
11: The 2147 mile Cairo to the cape railway line completed at the Sudan-Congo border.
12: Detroit – Henry Ford makes his classic statement ‘Any colour you like as long as it’s black’
17: Leopold II of Belgium died and suceeded by his nephew, reigning as Albert I until 1934.
20: The Volta, Ireland’s first cinema opens in Mary Street, Dublin. It’s manager? James Joyce.
21: Anybody remember Dr. Frederick Cook? This New York doctor and explorer claimed to be the first man to reach the North Pole but was publicly rejected and no doubt disgraced when a committee awarded the title to Commander Robert E, Peary.
31: Marconi won the Nobel Prize along with K.F.Braun for Physics
The Secretary of the I.R.B Supreme Council, after fund-raising in the United States, misapropriated the cash.
Ireland’s first aircraft was testflown in the teeth of a force 9 gale on 31 December 1909 by the 25 year old Harry Ferguson, from Hillsborough Co. Down. It was also the first aircraft to have a tricycle undercarriage, the design commonplace among jet aircraft today. The aircraft flew 130 meters at 4 meters high. Harry later invented hydraulically controlled farm machinery and founded the Ferguson Tractor Company in 1949 ( later merging with the Canadian Massey Company in 1953, becoming Massey-Ferguson in 1958 and operating under that name until 1987 when it was renamed the Variety Corporation. )
Hits of 1909 included; “Moonstruck”, “I wonder who’s kissing her now” and “Has anybody here seen Kelly?”.