Tag Archives: Louth

Biden in Ireland; McIlroy out of Olympics

As we await the outcome of the Brexit referendum, two other stories are worth a quick look:

  • U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s sentimental state visit to Ireland, and
  • Golfer Rory McIlroy’s decision to skip the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro due to concerns about the Zika virus.

Biden, in Ireland through 26 June, has met with Taoiseach Enda Kenny and President of Ireland Michael Higgins. According to a White House statement, Biden discussed the Brexit with both Irish leaders, as well as “the continuing need for reconciliation in Northern Ireland, particularly the need to deal effectively with the past.”

In addition to numerous stops in Dublin, Biden is also visiting his ancestral roots in counties Louth and Mayo. His maternal great-great-grandfather emigrated from the port of Newry, County Down, in 1849, according to genealogists. That was the middle of an Gorta Mór.

The Irish Times said: “Biden’s gregarious and emotional, garrulous and generous. He’s also, by all accounts, a bit of a spoofer. In other words, he’s a proper Irishman.”

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As for McIlroy, The New York Times reports:

The Olympics were fraught with complications for McIlroy from the start. As a Northern Irishman, he had the choice to compete for Britain or Ireland. In 2012, he earned the animus of people in Ireland, including those in the Golfing Union of Ireland who had shepherded his development, by suggesting that he was leaning toward representing Britain because he had always felt more British than Irish.

In 2013, he said, “If I was a bit more selfish, I think it would be an easier decision.” He later pledged his allegiance to Ireland, and when asked in May about his commitment to competing, he said he was focused on the bigger picture. With golf guaranteed a spot in the Olympics for only the next two Summer Games, he said, it was imperative that the sport put its best foot forward.

Tragedy and triumph in Irish transportation

I’ve come across two historical transportation stories.

This month marks the 125th anniversary of the Armagh train tragedy, which remains Ireland’s largest rail disaster. The Belfast Telegraph explains:

The train was packed as it pulled away from the station at 10:15 am, but around three miles out of the city a nightmare unfolded as the train was trying to pull up the slope out of Armagh, but was pulled back by its weight. A decision was taken to decouple the front four carriages, move them to Hamiltonsbawn, and then to return for the remaining eight carriages. Stones were placed behind the wheels of those carriages, but they rolled backwards, crushed the stones and began to build up speed as they continued back down the slope. The runaway carriages crashed into another train, resulting in the loss of 89 lives. All denominations suffered – Catholic, Church of Ireland, Methodist and Presbyterian.

June 1889 rail disaster at Armagh.

June 1889 rail disaster at Armagh.

This August will mark the centennial of the death of John Phillip Holland, builder of the first successful submarine, known as the Fenian Ram. His experimentation began in Drogheda, County Louth. In America, a later design became the U.S. Navy’s first commissioned submarine, according to this story in The Irish Times.

He died in August 1914, relatively poor, and just weeks before HMS Pathfinder became the first ship to be sunk by a torpedo fired by submarine – and nine months before a German U-boat set its sights on the Lusitania.