McEntee comments on House ‘censorship’ allegations

This post has been revised from our live blog of the Feb. 4 “Bridging the Atlantic VII” conference at Georgetown University. MH

***

Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee, TD, has addressed the House Judiciary Report ​report allegations of “harassment” and “censorship” by the EU and Coimisiún na Meán against tech groups to undermine conservative and populist parties.​

McEntee would not take my question about the matter after her keynote speech at Georgetown’s seventh annual “Bridging the Atlantic” conference. Her press counselor did not return an emailed follow up.

McEntee confirmed to the Irish Times that she discussed the issue with US trade ambassador Jamieson Grier. She stressed Ireland’s position that the regulations are designed to protect young people, according to the Times, which quoted her saying:

“I think there are certain elements of this that we don’t agree on. And for me it’s important that we engage on the areas we disagree on. I think what we all agree on is that, irrespective of whether someone is online or offline, they are protected. It’s about engaging and looking at how we can resolve those differences and I certainly think there is a view from the US that perhaps, you know, we could not deregulate. There is an element of red tape that could be removed and Ireland has been very clear that that’s something we want to see happen.”

During her Georgetown speech, McEntee said US challenges to Greenland’s sovereignty are “unacceptable.” Say said that any framing of Ireland having to decide between the US and EU is “rubbish.”

Ireland will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of this year. McEntee says Ireland has a strong committment to international law and believes in the United Nations.

“There is a risk of looking back with rose-tinted glasses to a past that never reallys existed,” McEntee said, echoing earlier conference panelists.

McEntee is a Fine Gael politician from Meath East. She was first elected in 2013, replacing her father in the constituency. She is also Ireland’s Minister of Defense, the first woman to hold the two ministerial roles.

McEntee said she met earlier today with members of Congress from both US parties on a variety of issues. Despite challenges to the US-Irish relationship, “more unites us than divides us,” she said.

New staff being added to Irish embassies in DC and throughout the US. “The St. Patrick’s Day program this year will be the most ambitious ever,” McEntee said.

“What once felt settled is being fundamentally tested,” she said. “I don’t take lightly the scale of what is going on around us. But our relationship will get us through any challenges.”

(An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Ireland would chair the UN Security Council later this year. That has been corrected to presidency of the Council of the European Union.)

Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee, TD.

***

Here is some of my live coverage from the conference panels.

Carolyn Gallagher and Kimberly Cowell-Meyers, both of American University, discuss Building a Green Wall: Irish America’s Resurgence Post-Brexit. Their 2025 book explores how Irish American interested lobbied to stop a hard border on the island of Ireland resulting from Brexit. Mary Murphy of Boston College says Sinn Fein’s efforts for united Ireland face strong headwinds in the US. Things are much different today compared to the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s or the post-Brexit border issue. … Ireland as a small state is also loosing agency on other issues in the disrupted international order, she said.

“The New Worlds of 21st Century Irish-America’ panel, left to right: moderator Liam Kennedy (University College Dublin); Carolyn Gallagher (American University); Kimberly Cowell-Meyers (American University); and Mary Murphy (Boston College).

***

Discussing United Irishmen and Young Ireland impacts in Ireland and the USA. … Many Irish in America was said to be members of radical and revolutionary groups in Ireland … but they really weren’t, Anbinder says.

The 1912 US election resulted in 43 Irish American congressmen, four Irish American US senators, four Irish American governors, and one Irish American president (Woodrow Wilson), according to Meagher. Only two of the congressmen were native born Irishmen, the rest were second generation Irish Americans. All were generally wary of getting involved in Irish politics. “Tammy Hall doesn’t pay a lot of attention to Irish nationalism,” Meagher said. That changed after the 1916 Rising.

Revolutionary Routes Across the Atlantic: 1776 and Beyond panel: left to right: Moderator Tyler Anbinder (George Washington University); Tim Meagher (Catholic University); Hannah Nolan (University of Maryland); and Chris Morash (Embassy of Ireland).

***

Cian T. McMahon, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, historian noted that most scholarship of the Irish in America is focused on the 19th and 20th century, not the 18th century. New York University historian Marion Casey said Ulster Scots were not the only Irish in colonial America, as typically portrayed. Members of British Army in the colonies included Irish from across the island. The US also was a convict dumping ground for the empire. “The 18th century cannot be pigeon holed as one thing,” Casey said.

McMahon said historians should focus on “stories,” plural, not a single “story” of the Irish in America. “I don’t think that’s what happening on the America 250 website,” he said, which is focused on “our American story,” singular. He said the US commemoration should not be about one national ideal, but a set of debates about multiple ideals.

“America250: American Lives, Irish Legacies” panel, left to right: Cian T. McMahon (University of Nevada, Las Vegas); Marion Casey (New York University); Darragh Gannon (Georgetown University); and moderator Caitríona Perry (BBC News).

***

In opening remarks, Cóilín Parsons, director of Georgetown’s Global Irish Studies program, noted this year’s conference will focus on the past more than contemporary issues. He acknowledged the US-Irish (and EU) relationship is currently “under duress.” That’s all the more reason for an honest exploration of the foundations of the relationship beyond “some gauzy dream of friendship.”

***

I’m at Georgetown University’s “Bridging the Atlantic VII” conference in Washinton, DC. This year’s event will explore 250 years of US-Irish relations. I am live blogging the event throughout the day. Email subscribers should check the website to see the updates. Here’s our coverage of last year’s event.

‘America and Ireland at 250’ focus of Feb. 4 Georgetown conference

Georgetown University’s Global Irish Studies program and other partners will explore 250 years of US-Irish relations during the 7th annual “Bridging the Atlantic” conference. I will live blog the Feb. 4 event from the university’s Capitol Campus in Washington, D.C.

Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee, TD, is scheduled to deliver the keynote address. Panel discussions include “America 250: American Lives, Irish Legacies”, “Revolutionary Routes Across the Atlantic: 1776 and Beyond”, “The New Worlds of 21st Century Irish-America”, and “Re-imagining the ‘Green Wave’: Cultural Visions of Ireland in America.”

Panel participant rosters and registration found here.

Georgetown’s conference partners include the BMW Center for German and European Studies, in association with the Embassy of Ireland, the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast, and the Northern Ireland Bureau.

One of the panels at last year’s Bridging the Atlantic VI conference.

The ‘worst year that was ever remembered’

This post is reprised from January 2021 with minor revisions. The referenced letter is from the Joan Diggin Collection, part of the University of Galway’s ‘Imirce’ project of Irish emigrant letters and life stories from North America. Joan was my aunt. MH

***

On Jan. 24, 1921, widowed farmer John Ware wrote a hand-written letter from Killelton townland, Ballylongford, a rural community in County Kerry where the River Shannon empties into the sea. The letter was addressed to his same-name, bachelor son, a streetcar motorman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a noisy, smokey industrial city of more than a half million people; a hub of Irish immigrants, including two of his sisters, with a brother on the way. The sender was the father of my maternal grandmother, the recipient her older brother.

The 87-year-old father began the letter by thanking his 35-year-old son for an earlier postal order for £3, equivalent to about $175 today.[1]Bank of England Inflation Calculator through November 2025, and XE Corp. GBP to USD conversion on Jan. 20, 2026. Such remittances from immigrants were vital to the Irish economy and perpetuated still more departures.

Your prosperity in America is a great consolation to me. Your generosity and kindness since you left home.

John Ware in US Army uniform, World War 1.

John Ware the younger left home in 1910. Sisters Nora (my grandmother) and Bridget followed him to Pittsburgh in 1912 and 1916, respectively. He was naturalized in 1917, entered the U.S. Army as as private in April 1918, and shipped to France two months later. John survived the Great War and returned to Pittsburgh in February 1919.[2]See: An Irish-American’s most perilous summer, 1918.

The father reported that another son in Ireland had just welcomed a baby girl to his family three weeks earlier. A third son had sailed from Queenstown four days before he wrote the letter, also destined for Pittsburgh.

We all felt so happy he [was] able to get away giving to the present state of the country. That state of the case in Ireland at present is very bad.

War in Ireland

Ireland was in turmoil in January 1921. Two years had passed since Irish separatists established Dáil Éireann in Dublin. The Irish Republican Army’s guerrilla war against the British adminstration in Ireland had escalated steadily since summer 1920. IRA attacks were typically followed by military and police reprisals.

There was a policeman shot in Listowel a week ago. There is a fear there will be great damage done the town of Listowel through envy.

District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan

District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan was shot multiple times at close range mid-afternoon Jan. 20, 1921. He was only a few yards from the Listowel barracks. The victim was accompanied by his 5-year-old son.[3]”Listowel D.I. Shot Dead In Sight of Barracks”, The Kerryman, Jan. 29, 1921.

In Pittsburgh, John Ware may have read the next-day, front-page newspaper coverage of the O’Sullivan killing,[4]”Irish Official, 5 Constables Slain in Trap … Second Inspector Slain”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 21, 1921. which occurred about eight miles from his father in Killelton, Ballylongford. Pittsburgh papers reported several of the shootings and fires deliberately set to houses, creameries, and other businesses that occurred in North Kerry since fall 1920,[5]Dwyer, T. Ryle, Tans, Terror and Troubles: Kerry’s Real Fighting Story 1913-23, Mercer Press, Cork, 2001. See Chronology, pps. 21-29. one episode only a few weeks earlier:

At Listowel, in the marshal law area, crown forces  were fired on by civilians while arresting men wanted. They returned the fire, killing one and wounding two who were captured and sent to a hospital. Five arrests were made.[6]”Three Die In Fighting”, Pittsburgh Daily Post, Jan. 3, 1921.

These and other episodes of violence against civilians, but not IRA attacks on military and police, were cataloged by the Dáil in “The Struggle of the Irish People,” presented in May 1921 to the U.S. Senate.[7]“The Struggle of the Irish People”, Address to Congress of the United States, Adopted January 1921 Session of Dáil Eireann. Attacks on people and property in Listowel and Ballybunion, pps. … Continue reading The burning of Ballylongford “has still not been forgotten locally” a Kerry author wrote nearly a century later.[8]O’Callaghan, Tony, The Kerry Coast, Tony O’Callaghan, Blennerville, Co. Kerry, 2016, p. 31.

Agricultural distress

War violence was not the only trouble John Ware mentioned in his letter from Kerry:

The past year in the country is the worst that was ever remembered. The most of the year was all raining, the farm produce was never before so bad.

Farming in Kerry in the early 1920s.

His assessment is confirmed in Kerry newspapers of autumn 1920, which reported the impacts of a “late spring” and “continuous wet weather” that created a “black outlook not only for the farmers but for the people in the towns as well.”[9]”Kerryisms”, The Liberator (Tralee), Oct. 7, 1920. Government reports also recognized the decline in agricultural activity that year, though quantifying it was complicated by the war and relied on estimates and summaries. “In 1920 it was not found practicable to obtain particulars of either crops or livestock on all farms.”[10]Farming Since the Famine: Irish Farm Statistics 1847-1996, Central Statistics Office, Ireland, 1997, p. 31

John Ware in Kerry did not mention his two daughters in Pittsburgh, who worked as household servants and perhaps also sent remittances. He concluded the letter to his son with wishes for a Happy New Year, a year that would soon bring a truce to the fighting and end with the treaty that created the Irish Free State.

References

References
↑1 Bank of England Inflation Calculator through November 2025, and XE Corp. GBP to USD conversion on Jan. 20, 2026.
↑2 See: An Irish-American’s most perilous summer, 1918.
↑3 ”Listowel D.I. Shot Dead In Sight of Barracks”, The Kerryman, Jan. 29, 1921.
↑4 ”Irish Official, 5 Constables Slain in Trap … Second Inspector Slain”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 21, 1921.
↑5 Dwyer, T. Ryle, Tans, Terror and Troubles: Kerry’s Real Fighting Story 1913-23, Mercer Press, Cork, 2001. See Chronology, pps. 21-29.
↑6 ”Three Die In Fighting”, Pittsburgh Daily Post, Jan. 3, 1921.
↑7 “The Struggle of the Irish People”, Address to Congress of the United States, Adopted January 1921 Session of Dáil Eireann. Attacks on people and property in Listowel and Ballybunion, pps. 15-17, 20, and 28-30. Presented in the U.S. Senate on May 2, 1921, and recorded in Senate Documents, Vol. 9, 67th Congress, First Session, April 11-Nov. 23, 1921, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1921.
↑8 O’Callaghan, Tony, The Kerry Coast, Tony O’Callaghan, Blennerville, Co. Kerry, 2016, p. 31.
↑9 ”Kerryisms”, The Liberator (Tralee), Oct. 7, 1920.
↑10 Farming Since the Famine: Irish Farm Statistics 1847-1996, Central Statistics Office, Ireland, 1997, p. 31

More Americans move to Ireland to flee Trump

Rosie O’Donnell isn’t the only American who has emigrated to Ireland to escape the realm of Mad King Don the Con.

Nearly 100 US citizens (94) sought formal political asylum in Ireland last year, up from 22 in 2024. The figure was 18 in 2023 and 13 in 2022, according to Irish Department of Justice data cited by the Irish Times.

Citizensinformation.ie, an Irish government website, provides this information about applying for asylum.

Another 9,600 US citizens moved to Ireland without seeking asylum protection in the 12 months to April 2025. That’s nearly double the 4,900 who immigrated to Ireland in the previous 12 months, the Times reported, citing data from the Central Statistics Office.

Numerous media outlets have reported surges in the number of US citizens who have applied for Irish passports since President Trump returned to the White House last January. RTÉ appears to have been one of the first to use the term “Trumpugees.”

Of course, it’s difficult to fully escape from Trump. His tariffs and other policy decisions have economic and political consequences in Ireland and the rest of the world. In September the Irish Open will be at held at Trump International Golf Links Ireland, in Doonbeg, County Clare.

The Trump golf and hotel operation has sought planning permission to build-wait for it–a new ballroom. That’s right, why just erect such a gathering place adjacent to the White House in Washington when you could also add one to the Clare coastline. A permit decision from Clare authorities is expected by late February.

The entrance of Trump’s Doonbeg golf course in County Clare during my July 2016 visit, while he was campaigning for his first term as US president.

Massive prehistoric settlement in Co. Wicklow detailed

Archeologists from Queens University Belfast have described an area in County Wicklow as “the largest nucleated settlement identified in prehistoric Ireland and Britain.” Their findings are reshaping the established understanding of Bronze Age and Iron Age social organization in ancient Ireland and challenging assumptions about settlement patterns in prehistoric Europe.

Antiquity magazine first reported the discovery in a Nov. 18, 2025, article. Since the first of the year other scientific journals and the popular press have featured additional stories.

The study area at the south-western edge of the Wicklow Mountains is about 45 miles south of Dublin city. It is known as the Baltinglass hillfort cluster. It includes up to 13 large hilltop enclosures which contain up to 600 suspected house platforms. The site shows signs of continuous settlement from the Early Neolithic through to the Bronze Age, between 3700 to 800 BC.

Fáilte Ireland (the National Tourism Development Authority) in 2015 launched the “Ireland’s Ancient East” tourism initiative to promote “over 5,000 years of history hidden amidst these lush landscapes, winding rivers and glorious gardens” of the region. This finding should add to the mystique.

Aerial photograph with indication of test-trench locations in County Wicklow.            Cambridge University Press.

Best of the Blog, 2025

My thirteenth year of producing this blog was productive and rewarding. Highlights included the publication of several freelance pieces in scholarly journals or the popular press. The University of Galway accepted my family’s letters between the U.S. and Ireland from the 1920s through the 1980s for their digital immigrant archives. I was interviewed for a St. Patrick’s Day television program and gave a presentation about Michael J. O’Brien, my 2024 entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. I made my thirteenth visit to Ireland in 25 years.

This website was on pace for record all-time traffic, then rocketed over the top by a mid-November surge of AI content-scraping bots. Or maybe thousands of readers in China have suddenly become interested in Irish news and history. I object to the unauthorized grab of my intellectual property, but I’m happy if it eventually contributes to global knowledge, especially my work about American journalists in Ireland.

More details and links to some of this year’s best content follow below each of the photos:

The gate between the Museum of Literature Ireland courtyard and the Iveagh Gardens. “MoLI replaced the former Dublin Writer’s Museum.

Freelance pieces

The former London and North Western Hotel seen in April 2025. A group of American journalists watched from the top floor as Irish rebels and British forces fired on each other during the 1916 Rising. The dark glass building at right is part of the Salesforce Tower, which renovated the former hotel as office and meeting space. The red brick structure at left is the former railway and steam packet terminal operated by the L&NW hotel company. It was vacant during my visit. The building faces the River Liffey.

Two blog series:

Revisiting William Brayden’s 1925 ‘survey’ of Ireland

The Irish-born journalist wrote a summer 1925 series for the Chicago Daily News about the state of Ireland on both sides of the partition. His series, later compiled as a book, and follow up reporting about the end of the Irish Boundary Commission served as the conclusion to American newspaper coverage of Ireland’s decade-long revolutionary period.

Leon and Jill Uris in Ireland

The American husband and wife team, author and photographer, respectively, made several visits during the 1970s. They produced photobooks and a bestselling novel that perpetuated notions of “romantic Ireland” before the Republic’s economic modernization and the Good Friday Agreement at the end of the 20th century.

Family letters

Nearly 60 of my family’s letters to and from Ireland were accessioned and digitized in the Imirce (Irish for migration, emigration) project at the University of Galway. The searchable Joan Diggin Collection is named after my aunt, who either authored or was the recipient of most of the letters. The collection also includes a digitized copy of my 2013 book, His Last Trip, about Joan’s father, my grandfather. The letter manuscripts and a print copy of the book may be consulted in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room.

This February 25, 1953, note from Ireland before St. Patrick’s Day is part of the Imirce collection. I kept the shamrocks, which also were included in several other letters.

Television interview

Watch my St. Patrick’s Day interview with FOX 8’s “News Now” in Johnstown, Pa. The conversation covers my Irish ancestry and historical research. Each segment is 5 minutes:

My remote St. Patrick’s Day television appearance for FOX 8 in Johnstown, Pa., included the obligatory bookcase in the background. But they are real books that I’ve actually read and use.

Thanks archivists, librarians, and others

This year’s research included multiple visits to the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, and Catholic University of America here in Washington, D.C. I also spent time at the National Library of Ireland, Dublin, New York Public Library, and the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh Archives and Records Center. I received remote help from the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Catholic Diocese of Gaylord, Mich., and the Paulist Archives in New York City. As always, I am grateful to the professionals at these institutions who assisted my work. … I was delighted to contribute some research and materials to “The Irish Revolution in the African American Press” exhibition at University College Cork. It focused on how the US black press covered De Valera’s tour of America (1919–20), MacSwiney’s hunger strike death (1920), and the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921-22). Dr. Jemima Hodgkinson, a Research Ireland postdoctoral fellow, curated the exhibit. … I enjoyed watching excellent presentations by Irish historians (and friends) Daniel Carey and John Dorney at the “Navigating War and Violence in Twentieth-Century Ireland” conference at Dublin City University in April. … On the same trip I was welcomed to Dungloe, County Donegal, by Patrick J. Dunleavy, chairman of the The Cope’s board of directors, who gave me a detailed driving tour of the Rosses region, and by Mark Sharkey and Emma McGarvey, Cope CEO and business support manager, respectively.

I hope to return to Ireland in 2026, and to visit two new domestic archives I’ve eyed for some time. Meanwhile, happy holidays to the site’s human readers, especially my loyal email subscribers. Sláinte!

Low tide twilight at Dungloe, County Donegal. The pier at left replaced the one constructed during the revolutionary period and detailed in 1922 by American journalist Redfern Mason.

More on Jill and Leon Uris in Ireland

I’m keeping my promise to follow up an earlier post, When Jill and Leon Uris went to Ireland. The couple first visited both sides of the partitioned island from May 1972 to January 1973, then published Ireland: A Terrible Beauty in November 1975. The book featured nearly 400 photographs by Jill and text by Leon, an established author.

Leon released his Irish novel, Trinity, in 1976. It became a best-seller. The couple returned to Ireland at least five more times over the next few years. Jill photographed places that represented the fictional locations in Trinity. She did a piece for the Ladies’ Home Journal magazine headlined “Connor and Shelly,” which illustrated the novel’s main characters. Jill and Leon traveled the River Shannon on a houseboat, “a lovely second honeymoon,” she recalled in a second book of photos, Ireland Revisited, published in 1982.[1]Jill Uris, Ireland Revisited. [Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982], 1-2.

Of her half dozen trips to Ireland, Jill enthused:

I always arrive with anticipation, wanting to be haunted by her mysteries and teased by her fantasies. I travel through her tortured landscape wondering what it is about this place that entices me so. Is it ancient ruins, wild seascapes, the hundred shades of green? Or is it the verbal jousting and continual singsong of stories in a language that is something beyond English …yet not quite foreign? It is all of these and more; it is a people whose goal is only to be themselves, whose spirit retains a dignity which is rare in today’s world. It is the Irish refusal to be servants to anyone but their own minds.[2]Ibid.

The Irish Independent published this advert on Dec. 8, 1982. The image appeared on the book jacket and on an inside page. Titled “Man of Aran,” the figure was Dara Beag Ó Fátharta, the “Bard of Inishmaan,” who died in 2012 at the age of 92.

Revisited received mostly tepid reviews. John M. McGown of Gannett News Service noted the Uris’s first photo book had become “a staple on the shelves of Irish Americans” and the second was “likely to become a companion piece.”[3]”Two authors write varying views of Irish”, St. Cloud (Minn.) Times, Dec. 2, 1982, and other papers. But Doug Wells of the Des Moines (Iowa) Register compared paging through Revisited to sitting through a neighbor’s vacation slides as he rhapsodized about how much he “just loved Ireland.”  Wells continued:

To be sure Jill Uris is a much better photographer than the man next door. Most of her photographs are well done. … She has concentrated on the rural, older Ireland, the romantic image most Americans have of the country. … But just as your neighbor babbles on and on about how beautiful it all was, so Uris carries on about Ireland. Her dullish prose, combined with snips and scraps from Irish writers and poets, upset what flow and balance the pictures provide.[4]”Too much, too little”, Des Moines (Iowa) Register, Oct. 17, 1982.

In Ireland, Frank Miller of the Sunday Press described Revisited as “a headless horse of a book, a book of photographs based on an unreality, lost and wandering somewhere between the myths and mists of romantic Ireland.” He also complained that Dara Beag Ó Fátharta (image above) appeared “no less than four times through the book.”[5]”Lost between myths and mists of romantic Ireland”, Sunday Press, (Dublin), Dec. 5, 1982.

Historical context

Ireland Revisited appeared a decade after Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland. As copies reached American bookshops in autumn 1982, the Troubles’ death toll climbed to 1,794 by year’s end. This turned out to be roughly half the total of number of people killed in the conflict.[6]”Year of the death” in Malcolm Sutton’s Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland, found at cain.ulster.ac.uk. Sutton’s index ranges from 1969 to 2001, three years after … Continue reading

Jill Uris wrote that after each of her trips to Ireland “the headlines from the North became more piercing. The people in the Republic wish the ‘troubles’ would just drift away. After all, they are finally building their own country and who needs the continuing hostility and fanaticism of Ulster?”

In fact, the Republic in the mid-1980s was “crippled by political violence, mass emigration, mass unemployment, political paralysis and a sense of hopelessness,” Michael McDowell, an independent member of Seanad Éireann, wrote at the start of 2025. It would take another decade or so before the Republic began the economic modernization known as the “Celtic Tiger” and citizens confronted abuses by the Catholic Church that resulted in today’s militant secularism. More then 40 years after Ireland Revisited, Ireland faces “very real” new challenges, McDowell concluded, “but very different from the dark past we left behind.”

So, too, “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone. It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”[7]”September 1913” by William Butler Yeats.

References

References
↑1 Jill Uris, Ireland Revisited. [Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982], 1-2.
↑2 Ibid.
↑3 ”Two authors write varying views of Irish”, St. Cloud (Minn.) Times, Dec. 2, 1982, and other papers.
↑4 ”Too much, too little”, Des Moines (Iowa) Register, Oct. 17, 1982.
↑5 ”Lost between myths and mists of romantic Ireland”, Sunday Press, (Dublin), Dec. 5, 1982.
↑6 ”Year of the death” in Malcolm Sutton’s Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland, found at cain.ulster.ac.uk. Sutton’s index ranges from 1969 to 2001, three years after the Good Friday Agreement.
↑7 ”September 1913” by William Butler Yeats.

St. Mary’s, Dublin, no longer ‘Pro-Cathedral’

Pope Leo XIV in November formally designating St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral as the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, ending 200 years of “pro-tempore” or “provisional” status. St. Mary’s, located two blocks off Dublin’s main boulevard, is now the capital’s first official Catholic cathedral since the Reformation.

The history of St. Mary’s is deeply interwoven with Irish religious and political history. As noted on the cathedral’s website:

The rebellion of 1798 and consequent reprisals postponed plans to build a large, central church … .  Catholic Emancipation did not, as hoped, come with the Act of Union passed in 1800.  Even the siting of the new church tells its own tale.  When in 1796, Drogheda Street (later O’Connell Street) was widened on its west side to align it with Sackville Street and become Dublin’s premier thoroughfare, one of the sites on offer was considered for the new St. Mary’s.  However, it was feared that such a bold step might only delay or jeopardize Emancipation, so attention was directed to a less conspicuous spot nearby, leaving the Sackville Street property to become the site of the new general post office.

St. Mary’s opened on November 14, 1825, as the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Chapel. It was the Feast of St. Laurence O’Toole, patron of the Archdiocese of Dublin. Ninety-one years later the 1916 Eastern Rising unfolded a few blocks away at the General Post Office, which had opened a few years before St. Mary’s. There was briefly talk of building a new Catholic cathedral in place of the burned out GPO, but the building instead was restored to its civic purpose.

Much has been written, including on this blog, about the decline of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland over the past several decades. The fall has appeared even more precipitous because of the robust and definitive presence the Church held in Ireland for more than a century.

“There can be a temptation to look to the past with rose-tinted glasses when the churches were full, but as we know not all was well and serious issues needed to be faced,” Auxiliary Bishop Paul Dempsey of Dublin said after the pope’s announcement. “This process has been disconcerting for some who have a nostalgia for the past and want to go back to the way it was. However, nostalgia could be described as a looking into the past with the pain taken away.”

He continued:

So today, as we reflect upon 200 years of St. Mary’s we are left with a choice: Do we lament the past and wish for its return or seek ways of looking forward with hope-filled hearts, responding to the new questions we face in a complex and changing culture? When I reflect upon the life of Jesus in the Gospels, I see someone who was always looking forward! As his disciples we need to do the same, while always learning from the past

Plans are being developed to renovate and restore the 200-year-old St. Mary’s Cathedral. The church appeared a little dingy during my last visit in April, though the Palestrina choir at the 11 a.m. Sunday Mass was lovely.

Dublin now has three cathedrals. Christ Church, the original Catholic cathedral when Protestants broke away from the papacy, is the Church of Ireland cathedral for the Dublin and Glendalough dioceses. St Patrick’s Cathedral is the Church of Ireland’s national cathedral.

A statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus inside St. Mary’s Cathedral, Dublin. April 2025.

Who leaked the 1925 Irish Boundary Commission report?

In early November 1925 the Irish Boundary Commission concluded a months-long review of the partition between the six unionist counties of Northern Ireland and the 26 nationalist counties of the Irish Free State. Before the commission could present its recommendations, however, the Morning Post in London published a detailed report about its work, including a map that purported to show proposed changes to the border.

Joseph R. Fisher

Journalist and lawyer Joseph Robert Fisher (1855–1939), the Northern Ireland representative of the three-member commission, was “head of the suspects” in the leak to the newspaper, historian Geoffrey J. Hand wrote more than four decades later. The County Down-born Fisher had worked for several British papers, including correspondent for The Times in Ireland during the war of independence (1919–1921). It is unknown whether he passed the Boundary Commission’s work product to the Morning Post, or if this was done indirectly through his correspondence with pro-unionist politicians and loose chatter with Tory journalists.[1]See Geoffrey J. Hand, “Introduction” in Report of the Irish Boundary Commission, 1925. [Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1969], xviii. Also, “Fisher, Joseph Robert” … Continue reading

Hand speculated “someone of lesser rank” among the commission staff might have been the source of the leak. Contemporary newspapers suggested the Morning Post obtained the report through the printing firm hired to put the material in final presentation form.[2]”Irish Boundary Crisis Stirred By Newspaper”, Baltimore Sun, Dec. 4, 1925. Regardless of the source, the damage was done. The British and Irish press quickly confirmed the Morning Post’s reporting was substantially correct: the Boundary Commission’s recommendations largely favored unionist.

Notably, the proposed changes did not reassign the border counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh to the Free State, as Irish officials had expected since the Boundary Commission was created as part of the December 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. Free State representative Eoin MacNeill resigned from the commission after the leak, though it is believed he originally agreed with its proposals.

The American press was slower to cover the leak and the border controversary. US big city dailies and wire services had moved on from the drama of the Irish war against Britain and subsequent civil war. London-based John W. Owens (1884-1968) of the Baltimore Sun produced some of the best coverage.[3]Owens later became editor of the Baltimore Sun. He won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. He wrote:

The Irish boundary dispute between the Free State and Ulster now bids fair to become sufficiently complicated and dangerous to satisfy the subtlest Irish combatants or the most inveterate prophets of Irish futility. …

The cause of the latest upheaval is this: On November 7 the Morning Post published a forecast of the Ulster-Free State boundary, which the boundary commission is expected to declare some time before the first of the year (1926). This forecast was favorable to Ulster, which hitherto had been fearing the worst and talking correspondingly at regular intervals.

If one examines the map, as pointed out by the Post, there is nothing in the changes to cause a great row. The space between the old line and the forecast of the new line is seldom really appreciable, often barely perceptible. The net balance of the predicted changes is hardly larger than one good-sized election district in Maryland. But the Free State got the worst of it. More than that, the Post account referred to most of the territory gained by the Free State as wild and sparsely settled.[4]”League Of Nations May Have To Settle Irish Boundary Spat”, Baltimore Sun, Nov. 25, 1925.

This map of the 1921 border between Northern Ireland (Ulster) and the Irish Free State also showed “probable” and “doubtful” changes proposed by the Irish Boundary Commission. It was leaked to the Morning Post, London, which published the map and narrative descriptions on Nov. 7, 1925.

The Irish-born journalist William H. Brayden (1865–1933), correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, also provided American newspaper readers with extensive coverage of the Boundary Commission, before and after the Morning Post’s scoop. See my earlier exploration of his work:

Emergency meetings between the Free State, Northern Ireland, and the British government were held in London through early December. The three parties agreed to keep the existing border in place, making no changes. The Free State’s obligation for World War One debt and pensions was erased in exchange for dropping its counterclaim of over taxation during the period.

The three parties agreed to suppress the public release of the report, with 20 copies stashed in a British government vault. Other copies were destroyed.[5]Cormac Moore, “The Boundary Commission–The Fallout” in History Ireland, Vol 33, No. 6 (November/December 20250), pp. 39-42. The report was finally released to the public in 1969, with the introduction by Hand, the historian. He wrote:

Who was responsible for the Morning Post ‘leak’?’ Was it deliberately calculated and, if so, what was the object ? Perhaps, as the years go by and tongues are loosened and desks unlocked, these questions will be confidently answered. As things stand, only suspicions can be offered.[6]Hand, “Introduction.”

More than 50 years later, the identity of the leaker remains a mystery.

References

References
↑1 See Geoffrey J. Hand, “Introduction” in Report of the Irish Boundary Commission, 1925. [Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1969], xviii. Also, “Fisher, Joseph Robert” in the Dictionary of Irish Biography.
↑2 ”Irish Boundary Crisis Stirred By Newspaper”, Baltimore Sun, Dec. 4, 1925.
↑3 Owens later became editor of the Baltimore Sun. He won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.
↑4 ”League Of Nations May Have To Settle Irish Boundary Spat”, Baltimore Sun, Nov. 25, 1925.
↑5 Cormac Moore, “The Boundary Commission–The Fallout” in History Ireland, Vol 33, No. 6 (November/December 20250), pp. 39-42.
↑6 Hand, “Introduction.”

Catherine Connolly inaugurated Ireland’s 10th president

Catherine Connolly has described her 64 percent election victory as “a powerful mandate” by Irish voters “to articulate their vision for a new Republic”; one that is not, as some critics charged during the campaign, “too far out, too left.”

Catherine Connolly at inaugural.

Connolly’s Nov. 11 inauguration as the tenth president of Ireland took place in St. Patrick’s Hall at Dublin Castle, the seat of the British government in Ireland until 1922. The position of president was created by the national constitution of 1937. Connolly is the third woman to hold to position. She acknowledged Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, who were both in attendance.

Connolly said she and her supporters overcame “insurmountable challenges” to win the Oct. 24 election. She continued:

We were led to believe that it was too great a leap, that our ideas were too far out, too left, at odds with the prevailing narrative. In shared conversations all over the country, however, it became evident that the dominant narrative did not reflect or represent people’s values and concerns. Time and time again, people spoke of how it served to silence, to other, to label, to exclude and to stifle critical thinking.

Along with that however, along with meaningful engagement, we saw the emergence of hope, we saw the emergence of joy, along with the courage and determination of people to use their voices to shape a country that we can be proud of.

Connolly’s vision for the Republic is a place where “diversity is cherished, where sustainable solutions are urgently implemented and where a home is a fundamental human right.” Ireland faces significant challenges regarding immigration (and right-wing opposition to it), climate change, and a shortfall of affordable housing.

Connolly has said she would like her first official visit as president to be to Northern Ireland.

“I would like to see a united Ireland in my term as president. I will use my voice in every way possible for that vision to be a reality,” Connolly said during her campaign, according to the Irish Independent.

In brief comments during her inauguration address, she called for “inclusive and open dialogue across the island in a manner that highlights and recognizes our similarities and respects our differences.”

Northern Ireland Assembly First Minister Michelle O’Neill of the pro-reunification Sinn Féin party, and party president Mary Lou McDonald, attended the ceremony. Their support was critical to Connolly, who campaigned as an independent.

Emma Little-Pengelly, deputy first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly and a member of the Democratic Unionist Party, declined to attend the inaugural. She cited earlier commitments for Remembrance Day, which commemorates the armistice ending the First World War. The DUP declined to send a representative to the inauguration. Ulster Unionist Party assembly member (MLA) Steve Aiken was the only unionist politician who said he would attend.

Connolly acknowledged Ireland’s “large and growing diaspora.” She did not directly reference the United States.

Read Connolly’s full inaugural speech.

Nine and ten: Outgoing Irish President Michael D. Higgins on Nov. 5 welcomed President-elect Catherine Connolly to her new office at Áras an Uachtaráin.  Both photos from president.ie.