Prelude to the Easter Rising of 1916

Prelude to the Easter Rising of 1916
The Signatories of the Proclamation

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Martin Neilan

Martin Neilan was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) for the Galway constituency at the 1936 by-election caused by the death of Patrick Hogan of Fine Gael. He did not contest the 1937 general election. He was subsequently appointed to the Agricultural Wages Board by then Minister for Agriculture James Ryan.

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Eamon Corbett

Eamon Corbett (died 21 August 1945) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) for the Galway constituency at the 1935 by-election caused by the death of Martin McDonogh of Fine Gael. He lost his seat at the 1937 general election. He was re-elected for the Galway West constituency at the 1943 general election. He did not contest the 1944 general election.

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Cecil Patrick Lavery

Cecil Patrick Lavery (6 October 1894 – 31 December 1973) was an Irish lawyer, Fine Gael Party politician and judge. He was elected as a TD and then as a Senator, and served as Attorney General before being appointed as a Supreme Court judge.

Cecil Lavery was educated at Castleknock College, Dublin and later UCD where he became one of the first auditors of the UCD Law Society. In 1927 appointed to set up a "Memorial Committee" by W.T. Cosgrave, president of the Irish Free State Executive Council in order to advance the process of the Irish National War Memorial Gardens where an impasse situation had evolved.

Lavery was elected to Dáil Éireann on his first attempt, at a by-election held on 17 June 1935 in the Dublin County constituency, after the death of Fine Gael TD Batt O'Connor. He was returned to the 9th Dáil at the 1937 general election, but the following year at the 1938 general election, he lost his seat to his Fine Gael running-mate Patrick Belton, Snr..

He did not stand for election again until 1948, when he was elected to the 6th Seanad Éireann on the Cultural and Educational Panel, and was appointed as Attorney General by Taoiseach John A. Costello.

Costello made 2 controversial decisions on Lavery's appointment; reversing the practice of many years he decided that Lavery could continue in private practice and that such fees as were paid to him as Attorney General should count as part of his income rather than be paid into the Exchequer. Costello justified both decisions on the ground that Lavery was one of the Bar's top earners and had taken a considerable pay cut as Attorney General.

As Attorney General, he advised on several difficult issues, notably devaluation of the currency and fishing rights in Lough Foyle which were claimed by both Governments, North and South.

He left the Seanad, on 21 April 1950, when he was appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court, where he served till his retirement in 1966. He was offered the Presidency of the High Court but withdrew his name, apparently after the Department of Justice raised a question about his qualifications.

In 1961, on the retirement of Conor Maguire, Costello lobbied hard for Lavery to be appointed Chief Justice, calling him with perhaps some exaggeration " the outstanding Irish legal figure of the last half-century". He later lobbied, also unsuccessfully, for Lavery to be appointed a judge of the International Court of Justice ( apparently the only time an Irish candidate was even considered).

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Robert James Rowlette

Robert James Rowlette (1873 – 13 October 1944) was an Irish medical doctor and an independent Teachta Dála (TD) in the Irish Free State. He was later a member of Seanad Éireann.

Rowlette attended Sligo School and Trinity College, Dublin, from which he received his M.D. in 1899. He was, at various times, president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and of the Royal Irish Academy of Medicine and the editor of the Journal of the Irish Medical Organisation.

As well as holding several hospital appointments (including Mercer's Hospital) and consultancies, he was King's Professor of Materia Medica and Pharmacy in the University of Dublin and Professor in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

During the First World War he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on his discharge. He was mentioned in dispatches while serving in France.

He had a long involvement in long distance athletics, both as a competitor in his younger years and later in the administration of the Irish Amateur Athletics Association and, after 1922, the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland.

He was Honorary Physician to the British Olympic team at the 1920 Summer Olympics (Antwerp) and to the Irish teams at the 1924 Summer Olympics (Paris) and 1928 Summer Olympics (Amsterdam), the first two occasions on which an independent Irish team competed.

Rowlette was elected to the 8th Dáil as one of the three TDs for the Dublin University constituency in a by-election on 13 October 1933, following the death of sitting TD Professor Sir James Craig.

In 1937, the University constituencies were transferred to Seanad Éireann, and Rowlette was then elected for three successive terms, to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Seanads.

He failed to gain re-election to the Seanad in 1944, finishing as the runner-up by a margin of 5 votes out of a total valid poll of 2,297.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Patrick Kehoe

Patrick Kehoe was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician and farmer. He was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) for the Wexford constituency at the 1933 general election. He did not contest the 1937 general election. In the 1938 Seanad election, he was elected to the 2nd Seanad on the Agricultural Panel. He lost his seat at the 1948 Seanad election.

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Bridget Mary Redmond

Bridget Mary Redmond (née Mallick; 1905 – 3 May 1952) was an Irish Cumann na nGaedheal and Fine Gael politician. She was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Cumann na nGaedheal Teachta Dála (TD) for the Waterford constituency at the 1933 general election. Her husband William Redmond represented the same constituency until his death in 1932. She was re-elected at every subsequent election until her death in 1952. Her father-in-law was John Redmond, the Irish nationalist politician and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Martin Ryan

Martin Ryan (31 January 1900 – 22 July 1943) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician and Teachta Dála (TD). He was first elected at the 1933 general election for the Tipperary constituency. He was re-elected at the 1937, 1938 and 1943 general elections. He died while still in office in 1943.

His widow Mary Ryan was elected at the 1944 general election for the same constituency.

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Richard Curran

Richard Curran


Richard Curran (18 November 1879 – 27 January 1961) was an Irish politician and farmer. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1933 general election as a National Centre Party Teachta Dála (TD) for the Tipperary constituency. He became a Fine Gael TD on 8 September 1933 when Cumann na nGaedheal and the National Centre Party, along with the Army Comrades Association merged to form the new party of Fine Gael. He lost his seat at the 1937 general election but was elected as a Fine Gael TD at the 1938 general election. He was not elected at the 1943 general election.

Members of the Eighth Dáil - Frank MacDermot

Frank C. J. MacDermot (25 November 1886 – 24 June 1975) was an Irish barrister and politician.

MacDermot was born in Dublin, the seventh and youngest son of Hugh Hyacinth O'Rorke MacDermot, Prince of Coolavin. He was educated at Downside School and the University of Oxford and qualified as a barrister. He was commissioned into the Army Service Corps during World War I and ended the war as a Major. He later emigrated to the United States and became a banker in New York City from 1919–27. He returned to Ireland in the late 1920s and stood unsuccessfully as an Independent Republican candidate for Belfast West in the 1929 United Kingdom general election. An Anglophile he was elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1932 Irish general election as an Independent Teachta Dála (TD) for Roscommon. He founded the National Centre Party that year with James Dillon and became the party’s leader.

He was a persistent critic of Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera. He criticised the abolition of the oath of allegiance, the abolition of the Free State Seanad Éireann, the abolition of the Governor-General and the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland in 1937 arguing each time that these actions would copper-fasten partition and arguing of the need for rapprochement with the government of Northern Ireland and the wider Unionist Community. He continually stated that partition could only be addressed when Dublin-London relationships were normalised. He was widely regarded as one of the best speakers in the Dáil.

In 1933 he led the National Centre Party to merge with Cumann na nGaedheal and the Blueshirts to form Fine Gael and MacDermot became a Vice-President of the party. He did not seek re-election in 1937 but surprisingly joined Fianna Fáil that year. He had had personal differences with his Fine Gael colleagues on issues such as the degree of emphasis to be given to Ireland's membership of the Commonwealth. De Valera appointed him to the re-established Seanad as a Senator in 1938. He remained in the Seanad until 1943. During World War II, he was a critic of Irish neutrality throughout his time in the upper house, arguing that Ireland should be fighting with the allies. He subsequently became the U.S. and Paris correspondent for The Irish Times newspaper.