He graduated from UCD in 1968 with a 'Bachelor of Arts' degree in economics and politics, ignorant of the fact that trying to tax children's shoes and clothing would upset people to the extent that, in 1982, a Leinster House administration fell as a result of trying to do just that.
Incidentally, Mr Bruton instructed the then secretary of the State Department of Finance (a Mr Maurice O'Connell) to 'consult' with the British Treasury in Westminster as to the best manner of introducing such a tax ; something, we believe, to do with people of a small stature in England buying children's shoes and clothes for themselves because adult sizes were taxed and those purchasers were avoiding paying same by buying children's sizes!
Anyway - Mr Bruton was first elected to Leinster House as a Fine Gael member in 1969, when he was 22 years of age, and retired from Leinster House politics (with a pension of £2,875 a week for the rest of his life!) in 2004.
During those years he held a number of high-salaried positions within this corrupt State - Parliamentary Secretary to the State Minister for Education and Parliamentary Secretary to the State Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1973 to 1977, State Minister for Industry and Energy from 1982 to 1983, State Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism from 1983 to 1986, State Minister for Finance from 1981 to 1982 (and 1986 to 1987), State Minister for the Public Service from January 1987 to March 1987, Deputy Leader of the Fine Gael party from 1987 to 1990, Leinster House 'Leader of the Opposition' from 1990 to 1994 (and 1997 to 2001) and State 'Taoiseach' from 1994 to 1997.
I don't think we've left anything out from the above CV but, if we have, it will only prove that Mr Bruton should be entitled to an even bigger State pension!
Since retiring from Leinster House he has been earning a crust (!) as, among other things, the 'Ambassador of the European Union to the United States' (for five years), vice-president of the (centre-right) 'European People's Party' (EPP) and he joined the Board of 'The Institute of International and European Affairs' in November 2016. Sure he barely has the time to collect his pension each week, never mind spend it...
Indeed, the cringeometer buzzed so much because of Mr Bruton's lap-dog activities during his 'happy day' that even well-known journalist Mary Holland couldn't help but comment -
'...several hundred people, presumably middle-class and moderate, chose not to attend the British embassy's party in the prince's honour. Others declined the invitation to dine at Dublin Castle. Their reasons for doing so must have varied but such decisions underline the fact that relations between Britain and Ireland are not yet entirely normal...the North stands as the main obstacle to that normality...a visit by a royal prince or princess may help to improve the atmosphere but it will not change the hard reality of the political problems that still have to be solved...
I am not concerned, well not primarily, with how John Bruton chose to conduct himself publicly during the Prince of Wales's visit. Any Irish leader who is described as "embarrassingly effusive" by the London Times and inspires a leader in the Guardian urging him to get a grip on his "extravagantly nonsensical attitudes" to the royal guest must - mustn't he? - learn from his mistakes...
The North stands as the main obstacle to that normality...a visit by a royal prince or princess may help to improve the atmosphere but it will not change the hard reality of the political problems that still have to be solved...'
In St. Andrew's Resource Centre (in Dublin) one elderly man, having listened to local old age pensioners enthusiastically singing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!', said to me: "They've brought him to the very street where Patrick and Willie Pearse were born and they haven't even told him. It breaks my heart...' (From here.)
Finally, in the issue of 'The Sunday Times' propaganda sheet, dated 17th April 2016, in the 'You Say' column of their 'Culture' magazine, a John Bruton had a letter published in which he 'tut-tutted' television programme makers for their carelessness in how they present British Army etiquette in their work -
- but that couldn't possibly be the 'John Bruton' we know who, as a proud Irishman, would never offer 'jolly hockeysticks' to the British 'royal' family or its military, surely.
Could it...?
'MEETINGS URGE 'NO CO-OPERATION.' '
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, July, 1954.
On Monday 14th June last, Limerick Corporation passed unanimously a resolution calling on the (Dublin) government not to co-operate with the British authorities in their investigations concerning the Armagh raid, and added that there should be no attempt to co-operate with the North of Ireland police in identifying those responsible.
The 'Westmeath County Committee of Agriculture' unanimously voted "...that we congratulate the fifteen brave men who successfully raided Gough Barracks, Armagh, and we call on the Taoiseach not to assist in any investigation in connection with the affair.."
A meeting of the 'Anti-Partition Association', the 'Old IRA' and other bodies in Dundalk on Sunday 13th June last passed an emergency resolution urging "...that there should be no political co-operation between the Dublin and Belfast governments or between the police and military forces of the two areas.."
('1169' comment - some of the descriptions used by the organisations quoted above ie 'police...old IRA...governments..' is inaccurate, but the sentiment expressed cannot be faulted!)
(END of 'Meetings Urge 'No Co-Operation' ' : NEXT - 'Sinn Féin Northern Election Fund', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (18TH MAY) 106 YEARS AGO : 'DAILY EXPRESS' REPORT ON AN UNLUCKY BRITISH ARMY SERGEANT MAJOR.
Patrick Brosnan was born in 1865 in Dunmanway, in County Cork and, at 21 years of age, he joined the RIC ('Service Number 51727').
When he was 29 years of age he was promoted to the rank of 'acting sergeant' and, at 31, he took over the sergeants job. When he was 43 years of age he took the office of 'head constable', a position he held until he 'retired on pension' in 1911, at 46 years of age.
He believed he had more to offer to the British 'war effort' and signed-up in Armagh with the 3rd Battalion of the 'Royal Irish Fusiliers' regiment of the British Army as a musketry instructor, with the entry rank of sergeant major ('Service Number 15231'), and was stationed in Finner Camp in Buncrana, in County Donegal, even though he was then living in Dublin (in BA family quarters, in Dublin Castle) with his wife, Lucy (35), a Leitrim woman (nee Glynn, an RIC mans daughter), and their 7 children. They had been married for about 13 years.
The Rising began on the 24th and, whereas it's beyond dispute that Patrick Brosnan died on the 25th April, there are two versions of how that happened : one source claims that, on realising that British 'rule' in Ireland was being challenged by armed 'dissidents', he offered his services to the British Army Castle Garrison to fight off the rebels and, on the 25th April, he went onto the street outside the army enclosure to see for himself what was happening.
While out on the street he saw an armed republican setting his rifle sights on a British Army soldier stationed inside the Dublin Castle compound and sergeant major Brosnan disarmed him and took his rifle. A BA soldier saw an armed man, in civilian clothes (Patrick Brosnan was 'on leave', and therefore not wearing his RIF army uniform) and the soldier presumed that the armed man was one of the 'dissidents' and shot him in the chest.
A different version states that when he went outside the British Army garrison he saw a teenage boy pick up a rifle from beside the body of a dead rebel on nearby Palace Street and he took that rifle from the boy. A man then attempted to take the weapon from Brosnan and a fist-fight ensued between the two men.
Brosnan got knocked to the ground, letting go of the rifle, and the other man aimed at him and pulled the trigger ; the shot missed, Brosnan got back up on his feet and again grappled with the man for possession of the rifle.
He eventually took the rifle from the man and ran towards Dublin Castle with the weapon. A British Army soldier inside Dublin Castle saw an armed man, in civilian clothes, running at his position and shot him dead.
It wouldn't be fair to say that the man should have minded his own business, as 'defence of the empire' was the 'business' he had involved himself in, but he was 'on leave' and should have stayed with his family. Things might have worked out better for him (and his wife and children) had he done so.
Instead, as circumstances had it, he was shot dead, by accident, by one of his own.
'DIVIDED LOYALTIES...'
Ulster loyalism displayed its most belligerent face this year as violence at Belfast's Holy Cross School made international headlines.
But away from the spotlight, working-class Protestant communities are themselves divided, dispirited and slipping into crisis.
By Niall Stanage.
From 'Magill' magazine, Annual 2002. Republicans have fired shots at Protestants three times in recent weeks during eruptions of trouble at so-called 'interface areas'. Police officers (sic), mindful of political sensitivities, have refused to say whether responsibility lies with the IRA or a dissident group.
In early September, 16-year-old Thomas McDonald, a Protestant, was knocked down by a motorist while riding his bicycle on the Whitewell Road. The driver of the car is then alleged to have stopped and reversed over him. A 32-year-old Catholic woman has been charged with his murder. Thomas McDonald is not the only Protestant to have been killed in North Belfast in the recent past. Who, outside his own community, now remembers the fate which befell taxi driver Trevor Kell last December?
Lured to a house in a loyalist area, he was shot through the head by members of the IRA apparently acting without the organisation's approval...
(MORE LATER.)
'BARNES AND MacCORMACK REMEMBERED IN CORK.'
The annual commemoration in honour of Peter Barnes and James MacCormack, who gave their lives for the Republic in Birmingham, in England, on Ash Wednesday morning, 1940, was held in the Thomas Ashe Hall in Cork on Monday night, 7th February last.
The commemoration was held under the auspices of the Cork Comhairle Ceanntair of Sinn Féin, and buglers of Fianna Éireann sounded the Last Post and Reveille. The commemorative address was given by D. Mac Cionnaith, Cathaoirleach Comhairle Ceanntair Chorcaighe, who read the Proclamation of 1939 and, for the benefit of the large numbers now coming into the Republican Movement, briefly sketched the history of the Movement from 1919 to 1940.
Liam Earley (MacCurtain Cumann), in proposing a vote of thanks to the lecturer, answered some of the misleading statements now beimade against the Republican Movement and Seamus O'Regan (MacCurtain Cumann), a comrade-in-arms of Barnes and MacCormack, seconded the vote of thanks.
Domnall O'Cathain (Brian Dillon Cumann), who presided, appealed for the continued support of 'An Cumann Cabhrach' and, in conclusion, the Cork Volunteer Band played the National Anthem.
(END of 'Barnes and MacCormack Remembered In Cork' ; NEXT - 'Join Sinn Féin', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (18TH MAY) IN...
...1915 :
Edwin John Benbow was born in Dublin in 1886 and, as a young adult, he pursued a 'military career' and 'served the Empire' as a member of the 1st Battalion of 'The Irish Guards'.
On the 18th May, 1915, his grouping took part in the 'Battle of Festubert' and he lost his life there.
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...1918 :
By pure coincidence (!), those 'arrested' were opposed to the British military and political presence in Ireland and were also campaigning against conscription in Ireland into the British war machine.
Among the people seized by the British was Éamon de Valera, who was seized at his home in Greystones in County Wicklow and taken to Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) RIC Barracks, and Constance Markievicz, Darrell Figgis, Denis McCullough, Seán McEntee, Arthur Griffith, William Cosgrave MP, Joseph McGuinness MP, Dr Richard Hayes and Seán Milroy - all republican organisers and leadership figures.
The decision to use a so-called 'German Plot' to imprison the opposition was made by John Denton Pinkstone French, the then British 'Lord Lieutenant' in Ireland ('Viscount French'), and his colleague, the 'Chief Secretary', Edward Shortt, both of whom claimed to have discovered "that a seditious element had been engaging in treasonable communication with Germany..."
Both of them, and others, were looking in the wrong direction...
======================================
...1920 :
On the 11th November, 1919, Dáil Éireann (the legitimate institution, not to be confused with the Leinster House political structure), in Harcourt Street, in Dublin, was raided by British forces and, basically, anything of interest to them was taken.
Included in their swag was paperwork which including headed notepaper and, at a press conference held by Sinn Féin in Dublin, on the 18th May 1920, Arthur Griffith displayed threatening letters, on Dáil notepaper, which were received that week by members of the Dáil.
Westminster and its serfs in Dublin Castle had again left their 'calling cards'.
======================================
...1920 :
At 31 years of age he joined the RIC (on the 18th May 1920 - 'Service Number 129109') and, on the 6th July 1920, he was found dead in his room in the barracks where he was stationed.
An inquest stated that he lost his life due to 'temporary insanity' ; more than likely the poor man was suffering from PTSD, as were many of his colleagues, but that illness was not recognised and/or acknowledged at the time.
He is buried in Grangegorman Cemetery in Dublin.
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...1921 :
A note stating 'Convicted Spy – Traitors Beware' was found pinned to his body but it later transpired that the deed had been carried out by the RIC, who attempted to make it look like an IRA killing.
Inquiries made by the local parish priest confirmed that to be the case, and he condemned the Crown Forces as "murderers".
Also, an IRA Officer in Dunmore, Thomas Mannion (pictured), stated that the IRA were not involved in the shooting of Thomas McKeever and their information was that he was indeed shot dead by the RIC.
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...1921 :
An RIC Sergeant, Francis J. Butler (56) ('Service Number 59260'), a Roscommon man, had made a name for himself in Newport, County Mayo, as 'a thug in uniform', and local people knew to avoid him if they could, as he was fond of throwing his weight around.
He was leaving the barracks on the evening of the 18th May, 1921, when a shot rang out and the RIC man fell to the ground, wounded ; two men from the IRA West Mayo Brigade Flying Column, Jim Moran and Jim Browne, had set up a sniper position some distance away from the barracks and their shot found its target.
Sergeant Butler died from his wound in Castlebar Infirmary Hospital the following day and, on that same day, the homes and businesses of Michael Kilroy and his brother, John, were burnt down in retaliation by the Crown Forces.
======================================
...1921 :
A member of the 'Blue Banner' Lodge of the 'Orange Order', George Walker (19), of 29 Eight Street in Belfast, was taking part in an 'Orange Order' parade on Beverly Street in that city on the 18th May 1921 when 'a disturbance' broke out and he was shot.
His wound was treated in the Royal Victoria Hospital and he was discharged, but he died later from pleurisy and pneumonia.
The 'Orange Order disturbance' spilled-over onto the Newtonards Road and the Short Strand and a 29-year-old former British Army soldier, John Smyth, was shot. He died shortly afterwards.
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...1921 :
Six members of the IRA West Waterford Active Service Unit were captured by British Forces near Kilrossanty, in County Waterford, on the 18th May, 1921, and were sentenced to five years penal servitude. Their Officer Commanding, George Lennon, avoided capture and escaped from the scene.
======================================
...1921 :
Peadar O'Donnell instructed the Officers Commanding of the Letterkenny Company of the IRA, Hugh McGrath and Anthony Dawson, to create a diversion in Letterkenny to allow himself and the Flying Column to escape from the area and re-group and, on the 18th May, 1921, the plan was put into action.
On that date, at about 11pm, an RIC foot-patrol in Letterkenny was ambushed by the IRA and a 'Constable' (of 3-months standing), Albert Edward Carter (19) ('Service Number 78015'), from Kildare, was shot in the throat and died, and his Sergeant, Charles Maguire, was wounded twice in the hip and also on the calf of one of his legs.
While that IRA operation was taking place, the RIC barracks on Lower Main Street was also attacked.
British Forces, comprising the RIC, the British Army and the Black and Tans took to the now almost-deserted streets looking for revenge and two local men, Anthony Coyle and Simon Doherty, were injured and McCarry's Hotel, where the Sinn Féin Courts operated from, was shot up and a grenade thrown through the window.
'The Derry Journal' newspaper (20th May 1921) reported that '...there were heavy and continuous fusillades, which continued for several hours, and two civilians were wounded by rifle bullets, Anthony Coyle in the wrist and leg, and Simon Doherty in the foot...'
Peadar O'Donnell and his men were successful in vacating the area.
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...1922 :
On the 18th May, 1922, two men on their way to work - Samuel McPeake (50) and James Donaghy (46) - were on board a tram on the Crumlin Road in Belfast and blessed themselves as they were passing the Holy Cross Chapel. Two armed loyalists on board noticed that they had blessed themselves, thus identifying them as Catholics. The loyalists approached the two men and shot them dead, and left the tram.
On the same day, Thomas McCaffrey, a (Catholic) passenger on a tram which was passing along on Mountcollyer Avenue, in Belfast, was shot dead by a loyalist gunman.
Also on the 18th, 20-year-old Hugh McDonald, from Saul Street in the Short Strand in Belfast, was travelling home on a tram when it was stopped by a group of armed loyalists on the 'Queen's Bridge' over the river Lagan, leading into the loyalist-dominated east of the city.
The armed men got on the tram and asked if there were any "Fenians" on board ; Hugh McDonald panicked and tried to get off. The loyalists ran after him, pinning him down in Memel Street and beat him to death. ======================================
...1922 :
The operation was led by Roger McCorley (pictured) and Seamus Woods (both of whom were later to abandon republicanism in favour of Free Stateism) and, during the attack, an RIC member, John Collins, was killed (by IRA Captain Joe Murray) and a USC operative named McKeown was wounded.
A number of IRA Volunteers were wounded and, while the armoured cars remained beyond their reach, some enemy weaponry was seized and put to proper use.
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...1922 :
A USC member, George Johnson, died on the 18th May 1922 (listed elsewhere as the 19th) after he was either thrown from or fell off a Crossley Tender truck he was travelling on. The incident/accident occurred on the Keady to Newtownbutler Road in County Armagh. One report at the time stated that he died after the truck crashed and, if so, we hope that the truck was a write-off, too.
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...1922 :
"My own view is that to win a war of this sort you must be ruthless...Oliver Cromwell, or the Germans, would have settled it in a very short time...it never bothered me how many houses were burned. I regarded all civilians as Shinners.."
Major Bernard Law Montgomery, the Right Honourable 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC, DL, died in his sleep on the 24th March, 1976, aged 88, in his country home in the south of England.
Himself and Cromwell are probably still comparing notes.
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...1949 :
But seriously ; it would take a great person to transform the State Labour Party into a socialist entity rather than the capitalist political 'mudguard-for-whoever-will-have-us'-party it is today, and birthday-boy Pat "isn't-that-what-you-do" Rabbitte wasn't it.
No one could do that, truth be told, because unprincipled political mud-guards-for-hire for FF, FG, Greens etc are ten-a-penny in Leinster House.
He left State politics in 2016 and is currently a member of the 'Council of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)' and is also the Chairperson of Tusla (appointed by Dr Katherine Zappone!) but certainly won't be stuck for a few bob.
Anyway - here's a tribute (!) we wrote about Mr Rabbitte a few years ago and we wouldn't change a word of it today...
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...1984 :
Two RUC members were killed when the IRA exploded a land mine as their armoured patrol car travelled near Camlough, in County Armagh, on the 18th May 1984 and, on the same date, two British Army soldiers were killed (and another died later as a result of his injuries) after the IRA planted a booby trap bomb under their car in Enniskillen, in County Fermanagh.
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...2001 :
Seán Mac Stíofáin [pictured] (John Edward Drayton Stephenson) died on the 18th May, 2001, in Our Lady's Hospital in Navan, County Meath, after a long illness, at the age of 73.
He was a controversial figure within the Republican Movement, and served as an IRA commander, a founding member of the Provisional IRA and its first Chief of Staff (from 1969 to 1972). Shortly after leaving that position, he was sidelined within the Movement and finally parted ways with Sinn Féin in 1982 in a dispute over political differences.
'Despite his controversial career in the IRA, many of his former comrades (and rivals) paid tribute to him after his death. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who attended the funeral, issued a glowing tribute, referring to Mac Stíofáin as an "outstanding IRA leader during a crucial period in Irish history" and as the "man for the job" as first Provisional IRA chief of staff.
Ita Ní Chionnaigh, of Conradh na Gaeilge, whose flag draped the coffin, lambasted Mac Stíofáin's "character assassination" by the "gutter press" and praised him as a man who had been "interested in the rights of men and women and people anywhere in the world who were oppressed, including Irish speakers in Ireland, who are also oppressed"...' (From here.)
He is buried in St Mary's Cemetery, Navan.
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SHE'S NOT 21 ANYMORE, BUT TRY TELLIN' HER THAT...!
One of the Girl Gang had a BIG birthday on Tuesday 10th last (her actual birth date, but we celebrated/commiserated two days beforehand and two days afterwards, as ya do..!) - we booked an upstairs function room in a pub in the Dublin 12 area and ended up 'owning' the downstairs bar and lounge as well.
We had a DJ in the function room and there was a ballad session in the downstairs lounge at the same time. Guaranteed enjoyable chaos as, at first, we raced from the sound of the 80's upstairs to the downstairs ballad session and, as the night/morning went on, we stumbled from one to the other!
There was about seventy of us, which increased to about one-hundred as the night went on and dwindled to about fifty in the wee small hours. The venue we were in served an early morning breakfast and about thirty of us availed of the service, washed down with a couple of pots of good, strong tae!
Anyway - we're back after our absence last Wednesday and, apart from such BIG birthdays, probable 'staycations' and a mad holiday in New York (which we're talking about..!), we ain't goin' nowhere!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading.
Sharon and the team.
