Members of the Twelfth Dáil - John Ormonde

John Ormonde (15 September 1905 – 25 June 1981) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at a by-election in 1947 as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) for Waterford. In 1957, he joined the cabinet of Éamon de Valera as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

He served in government until 1959 and retired from the Dáil in 1965 when he lost his seat in the general election. He was elected to the Labour Panel at the 1965 election to the 11th Seanad.

Members of the Twelfth Dáil - Patrick Kinane

Patrick Kinane (3 July 1892 – 15 July 1957) was an Irish politician of the Clann na Poblachta party, who was twice elected to Dáil Éireann.

Originally a farmer, he was first elected to the 12th Dáil at a by-election on 29 October 1947 in the Tipperary constituency, following the death of the sitting Clann na Talmhan Teachta Dála (TD), William O'Donnell. Clann na Poblachta party leader Sean MacBride, who was elected on the same day in a by-election in the Dublin County constituency.

Kinane was re-elected in the 1948 general election for the new Tipperary North constituency, but lost his seat in the 1951 general election.

Members of the Twelfth Dáil - Seán MacBride

Seán MacBride

Seán MacBride (26 January 1904 – 15 January 1988) was an Irish government minister and prominent international politician as well as a Chief of Staff of the IRA.

Rising from a domestic Irish political career, he founded or participated in many international as well as non-governmental organizations of the early 20th century, including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and Amnesty International. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974, the Lenin Peace Prize for 1975–76, and the UNESCO Silver Medal for Service in 1980.

MacBride was born in Paris in 1904, the son of Major John MacBride and Maud Gonne. His first language was French and he remained in Paris until after his father's execution after the Easter Rising of 1916. He was sent to school at Mount St. Benedict's, Gorey, County Wexford in Ireland. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1919 when aged 15, and was an active member during the Irish War of Independence. He opposed the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and was imprisoned by the Irish Free State during the Civil War.

He was imprisoned several times. On his release in 1924, he studied law at University College Dublin and resumed his IRA activities. He worked for Éamon de Valera for a short time as his personal secretary; early in 1925 they travelled to Rome together to meet various dignitaries.

On MacBride's twenty-first birthday, in January 1925, he married Kid Bulfin, a stylish woman four years older, who shared his political views. He worked as a journalist in Paris and London before returning to Dublin in 1927, when he became Director of Intelligence of the IRA. In 1927, Kevin O'Higgins was assassinated near his home in Booterstown, County Dublin. There was a huge round-up of IRA members, including MacBride, who was charged with the murder. However, he could prove that he was on his way back to Ireland at the time; he was able to call Bryan Cooper, whom he met on the boat, as a witness. However, he was still charged with being a subversive and interned in Mountjoy Prison.

Towards the end of the 1920s, some members of the IRA started pushing for a left-wing agenda, after most supporters had left to join Fianna Fáil. After the IRA Army Council voted down the idea, MacBride launched a new movement, Saor Éire ("An Organisation of Workers and Working Farmers") in Dublin in 1931. Although it was a non-military organisation, Saor Éire was declared unlawful, along with the IRA, Cumann na mBan and nine other bodies, while MacBride became public enemy number one of the State security services.

In 1936, the Chief of staff of the IRA, Moss Twomey was sent to prison for three years, and MacBride became chief of staff, at a time when the movement was in a state of disarray, with several factions and personalities conflicting. Tom Barry was appointed chief of staff to head up a military operation against the British, which MacBride did not agree with. He was called to the bar in 1937.

He resigned from the IRA when the Constitution of Ireland was enacted later that year. As a barrister, he frequently defended IRA political prisoners. He was unsuccessful in stopping the 1944 execution of Charlie Kerins who was convicted of killing Garda Detective Dennis O'Brien in 1942. In 1946, during the inquest into the death of Seán McCaughey, MacBride embarrassed the authorities by forcing them to admit that the conditions in Portlaoise prison were inhumane.

In 1946, MacBride founded the republican/socialist party Clann na Poblachta. He hoped it would replace Fianna Fáil as Ireland's major political party. In October 1947, he won a seat in Dáil Éireann at a by-election in the Dublin County constituency. On the same day, Patrick Kinane also won the Tipperary by-election for Clann na Poblachta.

However, at the 1948 general election, Clann na Poblachta won only ten seats. The party joined with Fine Gael, Labour Party, National Labour Party, Clann na Talmhan and independents to form the First Inter-Party Government with Fine Gael TD John A. Costello as Taoiseach. Richard Mulcahy was the leader of Fine Gael, but MacBride and many other Irish Republicans had never forgiven Mulcahy for his role in carrying out 77 executions under the government of the Irish Free State in the 1920s during the Irish Civil War. In order to gain the support of Clann na Poblachta, Mulcahy stepped aside in favour of Costello. Two Clann na Poblachta TDs joined the cabinet; MacBride became Minister for External Affairs, while Noel Browne became Minister for Health.

MacBride was Minister of External Affairs when the Council of Europe was drafting the European Convention on Human Rights. He served as President of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from 1949 to 1950 and is credited with being a key force in securing the acceptance of this convention, which was finally signed in Rome on 4 November 1950. In 1950, he was president of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Council of Europe, and he was vice-president of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in 1948–51. He was responsible for Ireland not joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

He was instrumental in the implementation of the Repeal of the External Relations Act and the Declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1949. On Easter Monday, 18 April 1949, the state left the Commonwealth of Nations and became known as the Republic of Ireland.

In 1951, MacBride controversially ordered Noel Browne to resign as a minister over the Mother and Child Scheme after it was attacked by the Irish Catholic hierarchy and the Irish medical establishment. Whatever the merits of the scheme, or of Dr. Browne, MacBride concluded in a Cabinet memorandum:

"Even if, as Catholics, we were prepared to take the responsibility of disregarding [the Hierarchy's] views, which I do not think we can do, it would be politically impossible to do so . . . We are dealing with the considered views of the leaders of the Catholic Church to which the vast majority of our people belong; these views cannot be ignored."

In 1951, Clann na Poblachta was reduced to two seats after the general election. MacBride kept his seat and was re-elected again in 1954. Opposing the internment of IRA suspects during the Border Campaign (1956–62), he contested both the 1957 and 1961 general elections but failed to be elected both times. He then retired from politics and continued practising as a barrister. He expressed an interest in running as an independent candidate for the 1983 Irish presidential election, but he did not receive sufficient backing and ultimately did not contest.

MacBride was a founding member of Amnesty International and served as its International Chairman. He was Secretary-General of the International Committee of Jurists from 1963 to 1971.

Following this, he was also elected Chair (1968–1974) and later President (1974–1985) of the International Peace Bureau in Geneva. He was Vice-President of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC, later OECD) and President of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

He drafted the constitution of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU); and also the first constitution of Ghana (the first UK African colony to achieve independence) which lasted for nine years until the coup of 1966.

Some of MacBride's appointments to the United Nations System included:

• Assistant Secretary-General
• President of the General Assembly
• High Commissioner for Refugees
• High Commissioner for Human Rights
• High Commissioner for Namibia
• President of UNESCO's International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems, which produced the controversial 1980 MacBride Report.

 Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, MacBride worked tirelessly for human rights worldwide. He took an Irish case to the European Court of Human Rights after hundreds of suspected IRA members were interned without trial in the Republic of Ireland in 1958. He was among a group of lawyers who founded JUSTICE – the UK-based human rights and law reform organisation – initially to monitor the show trials after the 1956 Budapest uprising, but which later became the UK section of the International Commission of Jurists. He was active in a number of international organisations concerned with human rights, among them the Prisoners of Conscience Appeal Fund (trustee).

In 1973, he was elected by the General Assembly to the post of High Commissioner for Namibia, with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General. The actions of his father John MacBride in leading the Irish Transvaal Brigade (known as MacBride's Brigade) for the Boers against the British Army, in the Boer War, gave Seán MacBride a unique access to South Africa's apartheid government. In 1977, he was appointed president of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, set up by UNESCO. In 1980, he was appointed Chairman of UNESCO.

MacBride's work was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1974) as a man who "mobilised the conscience of the world in the fight against injustice". He later received the Lenin Peace Prize (1975–76) and the UNESCO Silver Medal for Service (1980).

During the 1980s, he initiated the Appeal by Lawyers against Nuclear War which was jointly sponsored by the International Peace Bureau and the International Progress Organization. In close cooperation with Francis Boyle and Hans Köchler of the International Progress Organization, he lobbied the General Assembly for a resolution demanding an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of nuclear arms. The Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons was eventually handed down by the ICJ in 1996.

In 1982, MacBride was chairman of the International Commission to enquire into reported violations of International Law by Israel during its invasion of the Lebanon. The other members were Richard Falk, Kader Asmal, Brian Bercusson, Géraud de la Pradelle, and Stefan Wild. The commission's report, which concluded that "the government of Israel has committed acts of aggression contrary to international law", was published under the title Israel in Lebanon.

He proposed a plan in 1984, known as the MacBride Principles, which he argued would eliminate discrimination against Roman Catholics by employers in Northern Ireland and received widespread support for it in the United States and from Sinn Féin. However, the MacBride Principles were criticised by the Irish and British Governments and most Northern Ireland parties, including the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), as unworkable and counterproductive.
He was also a keen pan-Celticist.

In his later years, MacBride lived in his mother's home, Roebuck House, that served as a meeting place for many years for Irish nationalists, as well as in the Parisian arrondissement where he grew up with his mother, and enjoyed strolling along boyhood paths. He maintained a soft-spoken, unassuming demeanor despite his fame. While strolling through the Centre Pompidou Museum in 1979, and happening upon an exhibit for Amnesty International, he whispered to a colleague "Amnesty, you know, was one of my children."

Seán MacBride died in Dublin on 15 January 1988, at the age of 83 (11 days before his 84th birthday). MacBride is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery among Irish patriots in a simple grave with his mother, wife, and son.

^{Career Summarized:}

• 1946–1965 Leader of Clann na Poblachta
• 1947–1958 Member of Dáil Éireann
• 1948–1951 Minister for External Affairs of Ireland in Inter-Party Government
• 1948–1951 Vice-President of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC)
• 1950 President, Committee of Ministers of Council of Europe
• 1954 Offered but declined, Ministerial office in Irish Government
• 1963–1971 Secretary-General, International Commission of Jurists
• 1966 Consultant to the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace
• 1961–1975 Chairman Amnesty International Executive
• 1968–1974 Chairman of the Executive International Peace Bureau
• 1975–1985 President of the Executive International Peace Bureau
• 1968–1974 Chairman Special Committee of International NGOs on Human Rights (Geneva)
• 1973 Vice-Chairman, Congress of World Peace Forces (Moscow, October 1973)
• 1973 Vice-President, World Federation of United Nations Associations
• 1973–1977 Elected by the General Assembly of the United Nations to the post of United Nations Commissioner for Namibia with rank of Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations
• 1977–1980 Chairman, Commission on International Communication for UNESCO
• 1982 Chairman of the International Commission to enquire into reported violations of International Law by Israel during its invasion of the Lebanon

 

Members of the Twelfth Dáil - Patrick McGrath

Patrick (Pa) McGrath (died 20 June 1956) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He represented Cork Borough as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD) in Dáil Éireann between 1946 and 1956. He served as Lord Mayor of Cork between 1952 and 1956. In recognition of his active part in the Irish War of Independence, McGrath was made the chairman of the Cork City Old IRA Men's Association.

Members of the Twelfth Dáil - Brendan Corish

Brendan Corish

Brendan Corish (19 November 1918 – 17 February 1990) was an Irish Labour Party politician, and leader of his party from 1960 to 1977. He also served in a number of cabinet positions, most notably as Tánaiste, Minister for Health and Minister for Social Welfare.

Born in Wexford, Corish was the son of Richard Corish, a well-known trade union official and Sinn Féin member. He was elected to the First Dáil shortly after the birth of his son and later joined the Labour Party, serving as a local and national politician until his death in 1945.

Corish was educated locally at Wexford CBS and, in his youth, he was a member of the 1st Wexford Scout troop (Scouting Ireland (CSI)). At the age of nineteen he joined the clerical staff of Wexford County Council.

Corish was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party candidate in the Wexford by-election in 1945, necessitated by the death of Corish's father who was the sitting TD.^[1] He took a seat on the fractured opposition benches, as Fianna Fáil's grip on power continued.

Corish was retained his seat at the 1948 general election. Fianna Fáil returned as the largest party in the Dáil once again, however, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta, Clann na Talmhan and a number of Independent candidates all came together to form the first inter-party government. Corish was not senior enough to join the cabinet, however, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministers for Defence and Local Government.

When the Second Inter-party Government was formed after the 1954 general election, Corish was appointed Minister for Social Welfare.

In 1960, Corish succeeded William Norton as Labour Party leader. He introduced new policies which made the party more socialist in outlook. However, the party moved carefully because 'socialism' was still considered a dirty word in 1960s Ireland. Corish claimed that Ireland would be 'Socialist in the Seventies'. To a certain extent he was right because Fine Gael and the Labour Party formed a coalition government between 1973 and 1977. Corish became Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Social Welfare.

In 1977, the Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave called a general election, and Fianna Fáil was returned to power in a landslide victory. Corish resigned as leader of the Labour Party, having signalled his intent to do so before the election. He was succeeded as party leader by Frank Cluskey. Corish retired from politics completely at the February 1982 general election.

Corish was married to his Phyllis, and they had three sons.

Brendan Corish died on 17 February 1990 in Wexford at the age of 71.

Members of the Twelfth Dáil - Bernard Commons

Bernard Commons (15 May 1913 – 19 April 1965) was an Irish politician. A farmer by profession, he was an unsuccessful candidate at the 1943 and 1944 general elections. He was elected to Dáil Éireann at the Mayo South by-election on 4 December 1945 as a Clann na Talmhan Teachta Dála (TD) for the Mayo South constituency. The by-election was caused by the appointment of Micheál Clery of Fianna Fáil as County Registrar of Dublin. He was re-elected at the 1948 general election but lost his seat at the 1951 general election. He was subsequently elected to 7th Seanad on the Agricultural Panel. He stood unsuccessfully at the 1954 general election but was elected to the 8th Seanad. He was defeated at the 1957 Seanad election.

In the early 1940s, Commons was imprisoned for one month in Sligo Jail for his part in the Mayo land agitation, after which he won a Dáil seat.

Members of the Twelfth Dáil - Honor Crowley

Honor Mary Crowley (née Boland; 19 October 1903 – 18 October 1966) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served for twenty years as Teachta Dála (TD) for the Kerry South constituency.



She was one of five daughters of the MP John Pius Boland who won gold medals in Tennis at the 1896 Olympics in Athens, he was a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party and represented South Kerry from 1900 until 1918.


A social worker before entering politics, Crowley was first elected to the 12th Dáil at the 1945 by-election on 4 December caused by the death of her husband, Fianna Fáil TD Frederick Crowley. She was re-elected at the next six general elections, and died in 1966 while still in office. She was the first woman to represent Ireland on a delegation to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg from 1954–1957.

The 1966 by-election following her death was won by the Fianna Fáil candidate, John O'Leary.
Her sister Bridget Boland was a playwright.