References
↑1	“Hurled To Eternity”, Butte (Mont.) Daily Post, November 4, 1891.
↑2	“Falling Of Gate Remains Mystery”, The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, January 9, 1909.
↑3	“Killed Before He Could See Newborn Babe”, The Butte (Mont.) Miner, December 23, 1912, and “Misses His Footing, Plunges To Death” The Anaconda (Mont.) Standard, December 23, 1912.
↑4	Michael Punke, Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917, [New York: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group), 2007]
↑5	“Irish visitor finds grave of friend’s grandfather, who died in Speculator fire” The Montana Standard (Butte), November 12, 2000.
↑6	“Bayonne Man Crushed To Death” Bayonne (NJ) Evening News, April 14, 1928.
↑7	“Whistles Will Blow But No Union Men Will Respond To The Summons”, Buffalo (NY) Courier, April 2, 1906.

Confluences of Law and History, Irish Legal History Society Discourses and Other Papers, 2011-2021 contains 16 essays covering the early modern period to the twentieth century. University College Dublin Associate Professor Niamh Howlin and Dublin historian Felix M. Larkin are co-editors and contributors to the volume. Larkin is a scholar of the press in Ireland and an occasional contributor to this site. Below are highlights of his essay, “The asinine law: Irish legal cartoons.” Confluences is set for September release by Four Courts Press, Dublin. MH

***

Satire, whether in literary form or in cartoons, is generally associated with anti-establishment sentiment. It usually ‘punches up’, a weapon of the powerless against dominant groups and people.^[1]See F.M. Larkin, ‘Satirical journalism’ in M. Conboy and A. Bingham (eds), The Edinburgh history of the British and Irish press, vol. 3: competition and disruption, 1900–2017 (Edinburgh, 2020), … Continue reading Accordingly, lawyers and the law are obvious targets. The arcane and archaic rituals of the law invite ridicule, and so too does the showy – sometimes bombastic – style of many of its successful practitioners. Moreover, the fact that the law often has what seems – at least to an outsider – perverse outcomes makes it fair game for satire, laughter being a way of bridging the gap between common sense and the peculiar logic of the law. My purpose in the Confluences essay is to examine how the law and lawyers have been depicted in a representative selection of Irish cartoons over more than two centuries.

Fig. 1

The oldest of the cartoons that I consider resulted in the imprisonment of the editor of the newspaper in which it appeared, the Volunteer’s Journal. The editor was Mathew Carey, and he published the offending cartoon (Fig. 1, left) on 5 April 1784. Entitled ‘Thus perish all traitors to their country’, the target of the cartoon was John Foster, chancellor of the exchequer in the Irish parliament at College Green, Dublin, which is seen in the background. He was later the last speaker of the Irish parliament before the Union of 1801. Carey was arraigned before the Irish House of Commons on account of this cartoon and held for a time in Newgate prison in Dublin. On his release, but with a libel case still pending against him, he fled to America and had a highly successful career as a publisher in Philadelphia.

Daniel O’Connell is acknowledged as the greatest Irish lawyer of the early nineteenth century. He was the focus of innumerable cartoons produced in Dublin and London, most of them hostile and savagely anti-Catholic. Many were by John Doyle, the most notable caricaturist of the early nineteenth century. He was a Catholic Irishman, but plied his trade exclusively in London. One of Doyle’s cleverest cartoons about O’Connell, published in London in March 1833, borrowed an image from Swift’s Gulliver’s travels. It shows O’Connell as Gulliver brandishing a scroll bearing the word REPEAL – shorthand for his demand for repeal of the Union – and being restrained and attacked ineffectively by his political opponents, who are dismissed as Lilliputians (Fig. 2, below).

Fig. 2

Cartoons in the Weekly Freeman, United Ireland and satirical magazines such as Pat document the land war of the 1880s, and are still often reproduced today in studies of that period.^[2]See L.P. Curtis Jr, Apes and angels: the Irishman in Victorian caricatures (Newton Abbot, 1971), pp 38, 43. This was a truly pioneering study: nobody before Curtis had made use of cartoons as a … Continue reading Gladstone’s second land act – Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881 – was a modest attempt to respond to the agitation. It gave power to civil bill courts to fix rents, with provision for referral to a land commission to appeal the rents. The act was seen as creating endless possibilities for legal wrangling – a ‘cash cow’ for lawyers. Accordingly, Pat in January 1882 looked into the future with a cartoon of Ireland a hundred years later, with the lawyers so rich that they have displaced the old landlords as proprietors of the land and are sitting comfortably on their rents (Fig. 3, below).

Fig. 3

Some areas, such as the law and religion, were out-of-bounds – not fair game for satire – in the early days of the newly-independent Irish state. This reticence about lampooning the law was largely because of the danger of being held in contempt of court. As Mary Kotsonouris has written, contempt of court issues were particularly sensitive at this time. Given the distrust of the legal system under the old regime, it was all the more important that the administration of justice in the new dispensation should be accorded obedience and respect. The courts insisted on that, and this influenced press coverage.^[3]M. Kotsonouris, ‘Criticising judges in Ireland’, Irish Judicial Studies Journal, 2:1 (2002), pp 79–97.

Fig. 4

Nevertheless, Dublin Opinion magazine – arguably Ireland’s most celebrated satirical magazine, published between 1922 and 1968 – did publish from time to time some brilliant cartoons on constitutional questions drawn by C.E. Kelly, its principal cartoonist and joint-editor. One such reflected the widespread criticism of the position of women posited in de Valera’s 1937 constitution – the emphasis on a woman’s ‘life within the home’. A cover cartoon depicted de Valera asleep in bed and dreaming of being attacked by the iconic figures of Queen Maeve and Granuaile, carrying a spear and a sword respectively. The caption reads: ‘Say, big boy, about those articles in the new constitution’ (Fig. 4, right).

Without question, the most impactful Irish cartoon in recent times is that by Martin Turner published on the front page of the Irish Times on 17 February 1992, in response to the government’s efforts to prevent a pregnant 14-year-old girl, Miss ‘X’, travelling to England for an abortion (Fig. 5, below). This cartoon linked the young girl’s predicament with the outrage of internment without trial in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. The depiction of the girl, her hair in a pigtail and carrying a teddy bear, standing on a map of Ireland surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire helped define the subsequent debate in Ireland on the law on abortion. Sometimes cartoons can do more than just make us laugh.

Fig. 5

References[+]

References
↑1	See F.M. Larkin, ‘Satirical journalism’ in M. Conboy and A. Bingham (eds), The Edinburgh history of the British and Irish press, vol. 3: competition and disruption, 1900–2017 (Edinburgh, 2020), pp 556–7.
↑2	See L.P. Curtis Jr, Apes and angels: the Irishman in Victorian caricatures (Newton Abbot, 1971), pp 38, 43. This was a truly pioneering study: nobody before Curtis had made use of cartoons as a source for Irish history.
↑3	M. Kotsonouris, ‘Criticising judges in Ireland’, Irish Judicial Studies Journal, 2:1 (2002), pp 79–97.

Will the Trumpistorians alter Irish American history?

UPDATE:

Read or listen to this Democracy Now! interview with Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard history professor and president of the Organization of American Historians.

ORIGINAL POST:

The Trump administration announced August 12 that it would begin a comprehensive review of current and planned exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution, which describes itself as “the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex.” The administration said that it will examine museum display text and website and social media content “to assess tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals.”

This is part of a broader effort by US President Donald Trump to stamp his gilded, white-washed view of American history on the nation’s 250^th anniversary in 2026, and beyond. Earlier this year the Smithsonian removed, then revised, references to Trump’s two impeachments. Historians are alarmed.

Of course, Ireland and the Irish loom large in American history. Several signatories of the Declaration of Independence were born in Ireland or had Irish roots. Mass Irish immigration in the mid-nineteenth century provided soldiers for the US Civil War and labor for American commerce. Ireland’s struggles for freedom and equality have influenced American politics and culture throughout the twentieth century; from helping to scuttle the League of Nations in 1919 to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, with many St. Patrick’s Day parades in between.

The Smithsonian holds numerous objects and artifacts related to Irish American history. Some have been displayed in public, others featured in institution publications and platforms.

The all-time most viewed post on this site was inspired in 2017 by a display about immigration at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The “Irish radicalism” addressed in the 1889 political cartoon seen below has been widely discussed by other online platforms, which probably has something to do with the digital traffic. I am not sure if the display I viewed eight years ago is still at the museum, and if so, whether it will survive the Trump scrub.

“Irish radicals were seen as too unruly to mix in,” the Smithsonian said in 2017.

Another item from the Smithsonian’s website details an 1882 banner honoring Irish American boxer John L. Sullivan. The April 2018 post notes the history of sports figures who wade into politics, including contemporary athletes who refused “to visit the Obama and Trump White Houses.” How will the Trumpistorians deal with this description:

“The Irish were never held as slaves in America, but into the late 1800s Irish Americans continued to battle long-standing prejudices that led many people to think of them as inferior to other European Americans. British and American writers blamed Irish people themselves rather than imperialism and bigotry for Irish poverty. They cited Irish allegiance to the Catholic Church, unsupported applications of Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the pseudoscience of phrenology—which wrongly claimed a link between people’s intellectual potential and the outline of their heads—to claim that Irish people were less independent and less intelligent than “Anglo-Teutonic” people from Northern Europe. Often, as the illustrations below demonstrate, the alleged differences were described in racial terms, with the Irish either not considered white or considered less human than other whites.”

The post goes on to explore Sullivan’s “empathy for the South in the wake of the Civil War and his desire to see the South and North reconciled in a nation that valued white supremacy.” Will the Trumpistorians remove the references to slavery and phrenology but keep the part about white supremacy?

Here’s a March 2015 post that details “four objects that reveal facets of the Irish American experience.” The opening section about early twentieth century St. Patrick’s Day postcards says that many were based on “unflattering stereotypes of the Irish as drinkers, fighters, or simple country bumpkins.” It says that Irish Americans used “protests, boycotts, and calls for the police to confiscate the ‘indecent literature’” as an example of how “both individuals and groups often use whatever power and resources they have at their disposal to push back.”

Was this “cancel culture?” Will the Trumpistorians allow content that speaks about protesting commercial interests, let alone an unpopular government?

These are just three examples. I imagine content that names Trump, such as the second item in this post (Obama and Trump in the same sentence, oh my!), will receive the most immediate attention. Trump seems to have a conflicted relationship with Ireland. He owns a golf course in Clare and has an affinity for Conor McGregor (both convicted in civil courts of sexual misconduct). But Trump has targeted Ireland’s tax schemes and High Tech and Big Pharma infrastructure in his overhaul of global trade, and he doesn’t care for its support of the Palestinians.

I’ll be watching this story over the coming year. I invite readers to send other examples from the Smithsonian or other institutions that could face Trump’s revisionism on Irish issues. And, of course, you are very welcome to visit the Smithsonian museums here in the city of Washington, D.C., now occupied by Trump’s troops.

Brayden on Irish journalists and state propaganda

Chicago Daily News correspondent William H. Brayden interviewed or mentioned several Irish journalists in his 1925 reporting about the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. His 16-part series, later consolidated as a small book, also discussed propaganda and the press. I’ve linked to Dictionary of Irish Biography profiles of the journalists and other figures of Irish history mentioned in Brayden’s work. Learn more on Brayden in my series introduction.

Desmond FitzGerald

Brayden described Desmond FitzGerald, the Free State’s minister of external affairs as “the best propagandist ever in Ireland.”^[1]William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], … Continue reading In 1919, FitzGerald became director of publicity for Dáil Éireann. In that role, he lobbied international journalists for fair coverage of Ireland and produced the Irish Bulletin to counter anti-Irish narratives published in the London press and British government propaganda.

Desmond FitzGerald

“[The Bulletin’s] offices were raided again and again, and he and his assistants were perpetually ‘on the run,’ ” Brayden recalled. “Yet the little sheet never failed to appear, and when Mr. Fitzgerald was in jail his assistants carried it on.”

The best of those assistants, according to Brayden, were Frank Gallagher and Robert Brennan. They remained ardent republicans after the civil war instead of joining FitzGerald in the Free State government. “I may perhaps be allowed the confession that they are all friends of mine and that I like them all and wish they were not divided,” Brayden revealed in his reporting.

What Brayden declined to disclose to American readers is that he had worked on anti-Sinn Féin propaganda for the British government at Dublin Castle during 1918–1919.

Brayden praised FitzGerald’s influence on the direction of Free State policy. “He has a real sense of the importance to the new state of its world contacts and the ministry could not be in more suitable hands.”^[2]Ibid., 25.

Propaganda and publicity

The Publicity Department was essentially a re-labelling of the Propaganda Department established within the Sinn Féin party for the December 1918 general election campaign.^[3]See John Neary, “Early Public Diplomacy in Ireland” in Public Diplomacy in Ireland and Japan. [Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024], pp. 73-82. In 1925, the three-year-old Irish Free State government continued to mature through the distinctions and differences between revolutionary propaganda and elected state publicity. Brayden continued:

“It was probably the propaganda aspect of the Free State’s ministry of external affairs that led to the attachment to it of a government publicity department. Whether any state should have a publicity department for supplying information to the press is a debatable point. Many states either openly or otherwise find that publicity is an essential. But from the first the Free State publicity department , though conducted by men of the highest skill in journalistic work, was a target for criticism. It proved extremely useful to newspaper men in dealing with the welter of alarming and contradictory statements about Ireland which in the last few years were published in the newspapers of the world. But it was not easy always to distinguish between publications called for in the interests of the state as a state and publications in the interest of the particular political party which at the time is governing the state.

… even amongst Free Staters a distinction was seen. The government had all the press of Ireland behind it. The republicans had nothing but a small weekly sheet. The big battalions of the press did not need the assistance of state publicity. Nor indeed did they welcome it, for the severest critics of the publicity department were always found in the newspapers that were saying the same thing and, if it be not an impertinence to add, were not always saying it so well.”^[4]Brayden, A survey, 24.

Brayden also nodded to the earlier work of journalist Arthur Griffith. The Sinn Féin founder used his writing before the armed struggle of 1919-1921 to emphasize the importance of Ireland’s economic independence. “In one after another of his newspapers–a new one started when the old was suppressed–[Griffith] poured forth articles on Ireland’s economic needs and the natural resources with which they could be met,” Brayden wrote in his 1925 series, three years after Griffith’s death. “One of the first acts of the new state was to establish a ministry of industry and commerce. This is now the busiest of all the Free State government departments.”^[5]Ibid., 17.

Keane in Kilkenny

Braydon called on Edward Thomas Keane, “a veteran among Irish journalists” and editor of The Kilkenny People. Keane helped establish the pro-Parnellite newspaper in 1892, then later became a supporter of Sinn Féin. The paper was suppressed for over two months in 1917, then again in 1919, when Keane was imprisoned. Braydon reported that Keane was unable to claim any compensation for the second episode under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.^[6]Ibid., 28-29.

Nevertheless, the visitor described Keane as “a strong supporter” of the treaty. “He thinks it gives the country a real freedom.” Keane “confessed himself an optimist” about the local economy under the three-year-old Free State government.

During his visit to Kilkenny, Braydon also met the woman manager of “an excellently equipped stationery and news store” that sold several Irish American papers. She “complained bitterly that about £20 worth of an issue of one of them had been seized and confiscated by the Free State police,” Brayden reported. He surmised the state’s objection must have been confined to the one issue, since “the current numbers were prominently displayed in the store.”

Unfortunately, Brayden said he could not learn the reason for the seizure, and he did not name the paper. I was unable to locate the incident in the Irish Newspaper Archives.

Downey in Waterford

Thirty-five miles to the south, Brayden “found somewhat less optimism in Waterford” than in Kilkenny. Poverty and unemployment were high after a series of crippling strikes. Here, Braydon interviewed Edmund Downey, owner of the Waterford News since 1906.

The paper had been suppressed for four months in 1918 by the British military, and “still harder hit under the Free State” as an opponent of the treaty. “His premises were burned out, and, according to his testimony, the national army did the burning,” Brayden wrote.^[7]Ibid., 30.

The fire occurred in August 1923. At the time, the Northern Standard described the Waterford News as “markedly republican.” Damages were estimated at £20,000. The News was later awarded £4,750 after a trail in which Downey testified against the state.^[8]“Extensive Damage To Newspaper Premises”, Freeman’s Journal, August 28, 1923; “Big Fire At Waterford”, Northern Standard, August 31, 1923; and “Waterford Burning”, Freeman’s Journal, … Continue reading

During their conversation, Brayden and Downey debated 1925 changes to the Irish poor law system, which had preceded the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century. Workhouses and similar institutions were abolished, with relief service transferred to new county-level boards. “According to him the new system is more costly than the old and less efficient,” Brayden reported. The correspondent declared that he personally regarded the changes “as one of the important reforms of the latest Free State legislation.”

Finally, Brayden also made a few references to his earlier reporting for the Chicago Daily News. A story about his visit to Cork noted that he had not been to the city since March 1920, to cover the murder of Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain. Brayden also described Patrick J. Hogan, the Free State’s minister of agriculture, as “one of the most effective of the pro-treaty speakers” in his Daily News reporting of the January 1922 Dáil debates on whether to accept the measure.^[9]Brayden, A survey, MacCurtain, 31; Hogan, 7.

***

This is the sixth and final installment of my series about Brayden. See earlier posts and all my work on American Reporting of Irish Independence.

References[+]

References
↑1	William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 24.
↑2	Ibid., 25.
↑3	See John Neary, “Early Public Diplomacy in Ireland” in Public Diplomacy in Ireland and Japan. [Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024], pp. 73-82.
↑4	Brayden, A survey, 24.
↑5	Ibid., 17.
↑6	Ibid., 28-29.
↑7	Ibid., 30.
↑8	“Extensive Damage To Newspaper Premises”, Freeman’s Journal, August 28, 1923; “Big Fire At Waterford”, Northern Standard, August 31, 1923; and “Waterford Burning”, Freeman’s Journal, April 7, 1924.
↑9	Brayden, A survey, MacCurtain, 31; Hogan, 7.

Brayden on American tourists in Ireland, 1925

William Henry Brayden made several references to the Irish tourism industry in his summer 1925 newspaper series, later consolidated into a small book.^[1]See my Brayden series introduction. German U-boats no longer threatened ocean travel. The smoke of more than a decade of world war and revolutionary gunfire and bombings had cleared to reveal Ireland’s verdant beauty and hospitality. Americans and other foreigners once again began to arrive.

Wm. Brayden

“It is now the settled policy of the Free State to attract visitors to holidays in Ireland,” Brayden declared in the opening installment of his 16-part series for the Chicago Daily News.^[2]”Ireland No Longer Distressful Country”, Chicago Daily News, June 16, 1925; and William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing … Continue reading He continued:

“It is thought that the time has at last come when Ireland, besides its natural scenic beauties and facilities for sport, has much that is attractive and hopeful to exhibit. Any visitor will speedily recognize a change in the outlook of the people. Ireland is no longer a distressful country. People are beginning to think of the future over which they have some power of control rather than of the past where effort was so long checked because it seemed hopeless.”

Brayden said visitors would recognize the separation of the 26-county Irish Free State from Great Britain “by the examination of his baggage at the customs. He will note the promptitude and civility of the new officials.”

But Brayden also reported a significant problem with the new system “proved embarrassing to some visitors.” Before boarding eastbound ocean steamers, American travelers were required to buy a $10 visa from the new Irish Free State passport office in New York City. Great Britain offered a visa without charge. Travelers who disembarked in England or Northern Ireland could travel into the Free State without the Irish visa. But those who attempted to land in the Free State without the Irish visa were stopped.

This image is from Wallace Nutting’s 1925 photobook ‘Ireland Beautiful.’ Read my ‘History Ireland’ story, linked below, to learn how this American book helped to boost Irish tourism.

“All this passport business is still in an inchoate and unsatisfactory state,” Brayden reported. “Tourist associations complain of it as a hinderance to the movement for encouraging visitors to Ireland.”^[3]“Ireland Now Deals With Other Nations”, Chicago Daily News, July 2, 1920, and Brayden, A survey, 23.

The correspondent observed many Americans in Cork city. “They were to be seen everywhere in the streets and in the stores.” A few were disappointed there were no “American bars” to offer mixed cocktails and “had to be content with the unmixed native product.”^[4]“Cork Is Recovering From Its War Wounds”, Chicago Daily News, July 11, 1920; and Brayden, A survey, 33. Remember, prohibition had been US law for five years by 1925. Such measures were being discussed on the island of Ireland–more in the north than the south, Brayden reported–but did not pass. Some liquor laws were later tightened, such as sales on Good Friday and Christmas Day.

My article in the July/August issue of History Ireland magazine, Ireland Beautiful–How A 1925 American Photobook Boosted Irish Tourism, explores more about 1925 American tourism in Ireland. American who visit Ireland this summer are encouraged to share your impressions for a future post. Contact me through the blog.

References[+]

References
↑1	See my Brayden series introduction.
↑2	”Ireland No Longer Distressful Country”, Chicago Daily News, June 16, 1925; and William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 4.
↑3	“Ireland Now Deals With Other Nations”, Chicago Daily News, July 2, 1920, and Brayden, A survey, 23.
↑4	“Cork Is Recovering From Its War Wounds”, Chicago Daily News, July 11, 1920; and Brayden, A survey, 33.

Catching up with modern Ireland

While I’m on summer break here’s another of my occasional roundups of external stories about Irish history and contemporary issues. MH

UPDATES:

Abortions have soared in Ireland since a prohibition on the procedure was repealed in 2018.
An American diplomat’s anti-Irish slur has not generated too much blowback in Ireland. Most Irish leader appear to be ignoring “the Huckster” as they wait for Trump tariffs on the EU to be resolved. The Ancient Order of Hibernians has demanded an apology. … More interestingly, EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum has created a unique way to challenge outdated Irish stereotypes: a fake movie trailer that’s intentionally riddled with cliches.

ORIGINAL POST:

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has joined a chorus of pro-Israel Americans who are publicly pressuring Ireland against passing a bill that bans the importation of goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. Huckabee has inflamed the controversy with this slur against the Irish on his X feed:

“Did the Irish fall into a vat of Guinness & propose something so stupid that it would be attributed to act of diplomatic intoxication? It will harm Arabs as much as Israelis. Sober up Ireland! Call (the Israeli foreign affairs ministry) & say you’re sorry!”

The Journal.ie provides all the necessary background. This story will be worth following because:

Ireland is already facing significant economic headwinds as US President Donald Trump threatens to impose 30 percent tariffs on the European Union starting Aug. 1. Passage of the Occupied Territories Bill could make Ireland a target for even higher tariffs. And there’s still more danger: Ireland’s overreliance on US foreign direct investment. Politico.eu offers a compelling analysis of how Trump is testing Ireland’s economic miracle.
The population of the island of Ireland has topped 7 million for the first time since before the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century, according to the Republic of Ireland’s Central Statistics Office and Northern Ireland’s Statistics and Research Agency. Growth in the Republic was more robust and more diverse.
Proposals for the commercial redevelopment of the General Post Office (GPO), site of the 1916 Easter Rising, is generating debate about the past, present and future of the O’Connell Street corridor. Irish Times historian Diarmaid Ferriter calls for an approach that not only respects history but also “improves the perception of a space widely regarded as deficient and devoid of sufficient imagination for the main thoroughfare of a capital city.”
A new survey from the Iona Institute for Religion and Society finds more erosion of Catholic identification in Ireland. First Things columnist John Duggan contends that progressives are trying to speed the erasure of Catholicism from Irish history.
Cross-border, anti-migrant mobilization among ethnonationalist groups in Ireland and Northern Irish Loyalist communities has entered a new, more organized phase. What began as scattered, localized protests in late 2022 have evolved into an increasingly structured and internationally connected movement, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a global nonprofit that monitors extremism and authoritarianism. … An effigy of a boat containing mannequins of migrants was set alight in the village of Moygashel as part of Northern Ireland’s annual 12 July bonfires.
The campaign to succeed Michael D Higgins as president of Ireland is beginning to warm. The election date will be set in late autumn, with the inauguration in early November. Higgins, 84, is concluding his second seven-year term. Fine Gael’s Mairead McGuinness and independent TD Catherine Connolly of Galway have declared to date.

This is Ireland’s only national election. The president’s duties include the appointment of the taoiseach, members of the Government, judges and other officials; summoning and dissolving the Dáil, and convening the Oireachtas; and signing legislation into law and/or referring Bills to the Supreme Court. As important, the president serves as the people’s representative and spokesperson, a super ambassador to the world.

I’ll have more on this election later this fall.

Edward S. Walsh, left, assumed the office of US Ambassador to Ireland after presenting his credentials to President of Ireland Michael D Higgins in a ceremony at Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin on July 1.

Our midsummer’s blogiversary break

This post marks my 13th blogiversary. Thanks to email subscribers as well as regular and occasional visitors. I’m taking off most of July. … Below are four freelance pieces about American journalists in Ireland, all published this year. Also linked below is my ongoing exploration of William Brayden’s 1925 series on partitioned Ireland for the Chicago Daily News. Enjoy. MH

Ireland Beautiful–How A 1925 American Photobook Boosted Irish Tourism
History Ireland (Dublin)

The US Press and the American Commission on Irish Independence, 1919
New Hibernia Review

When three American journalists visited ‘Paddy the Cope’ in Dungloe, 1919-1922
The Irish Story (Dublin)

Richard Lee Strout: A Young American Reporter In Revolutionary Ireland
American Journalism

Revisiting William Brayden’s 1925 ‘survey’ of Ireland
From the blog. More posts coming later this year.

A 1920s map of partitioned Ireland from a US newspaper. Note that Queenstown has not be changed to Cobh, Kings county has not be changed to Offaly.

Brayden on the 1925 launch of the Shannon scheme

Irish-born journalist William H. Brayden in the summer of 1925 wrote a series of articles for US newspapers about the newly partitioned Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. This summer I am revisiting aspects of Brayden’s reporting. New post begins below the photo. MH

Construction on the Shannon scheme in 1928. Photo from siemens.com.

Brayden devoted one of his 16 dispatches to the development of the “Shannon scheme,” a massive civil works project to generate hydroelectric power from Ireland’s largest river. He reported:

It is not too much to say that the determination of the Free State government to proceed with such a scheme startled the public. It was a great idea to use in the perorations of speeches as a vague hope for the future. But to handle it as an immediate necessity and spend millions on it proved alarming to the timid. Everybody warned the government against the dangers of haste. Put it off and think it over, was the advice of every Irish newspaper. The civil war was too recent. Railways and bridges had been attacked and blown up. Was there not a risk that after millions had been spent on the project a charge of dynamite might destroy it? However, the government was fully willing to take the risk, and the work will be begun within the next few months.^[1]Original dispatch: “Power For Ireland From River Shannon”, Chicago Daily News, June 30. Booklet: William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the … Continue reading

Top of Brayden’s story as published in the Evening-World Herald, Omaha, Nebraska, July 18, 1925, three weeks after it ran in the Chicago Daily News. Note the dateline has been changed to make it seem timely.

In October 1924, the German firm Siemens-Schuckert submitted to the Free State government a detailed project plan for building a hydroelectric plant at Ardnacrusha, near Limerick. The company opened an office in Dublin in January 1925. By July, as Brayden’s series appeared in the Chicago Daily News and other papers, the Irish government enacted legislation to support the ambitious project. Contracts were signed in August and work began before the end of the year.^[2]See Siemens celebrates 100 years in Ireland.

Behind the scenes, and likely unknown to Brayden, Irish officials were surprised the project had not attracted proposals from American electrical and engineering firms such as General Electric, Westinghouse, or Stone & Webster.^[3]Lothar Schoen, “The Irish Free State and the Electricity Industry, 1922-1927” in The Shannon Scheme and the electrification of the Irish Free State, Andy Bielenberg, ed. [Dublin: The … Continue reading Brayden did report the completed project would use open air transformer stations “commonly used in America but only recently introduced into Europe.”

Brayden interviewed Dr. Thomas McLaughlin, a Siemens employee and “the real inventor of the scheme.”^[4]Brayden misspelled the surname as MacLaughlin. See “McLaughlin, Thomas Anthony” (1896-1971) in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. The 59-year-old correspondent described the 29-year-old engineer as “a typical Irishman of the new generation” because he was persuasive and able to get things done. Brayden did not quote McLaughlin in the story, as he did with other people he interviewed for other installments of the series.

Brayden nodded to the cultural and environmental impacts of the project:

Fishing for salmon on the Shannon is a popular and profitable practice. It seems to be admitted that to some extent the salmon fishery must suffer, despite all precautions taken. It has been suggested that the salmon may not take kindly to being conveyed in lifts on their way to and from the spawning grounds. But salmon fishing is a sport and electricity is business, and the motto in the new Ireland is that play must give way to work.

But he focused on the scheme’s audaciousness:

It is a daring enterprise, or so Irishmen are told, to spend millions in supplying a demand for electricity which does not yet exist. The hope is that the demand will follow the supply. The government estimates of demand are very conservative. The expectation is that in five years the demand in Ireland may prove half as great as the consumption now is in Denmark, a country of somewhat similar characteristics.

Before the end of 1925, months after his series was completed, Brayden reported from Ireland about disputes over the wage rate for unskilled workers on the project. Éamon de Valera and his followers, still outside government after their defeat in the Irish Civil War, 1922-23, saw the labor issue and the disappointing outcome of the Irish Boundary Commission as “an opportunity to strengthen their position.”^[5]“Irish Labor Fights Cabinet”, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 18, 1925; and “Sinn Fein Conclave Sounds Red Note”, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 21, 1925.

The hydroelectric damn’s sluice gates opened in the summer of 1929. Within eight years the power plant supplied 87 percent of Ireland’s electrical demand. The Shannon scheme was “not only a far-sighted and innovative move, but also the government’s most significant gesture in the direction of industrialization,” Irish historian Diarmaid Ferriter declared in his overview of the country’s twentieth century transformation. “It deservedly received huge media coverage, and became an important symbol of the potential for constructive use of Irish natural resources.”^[6]Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland. [New York: Overlook Press, 2005], 316.

Advertisement in the Sept. 25, 1925, issue of the Irish Independent, Dublin, calls for laborers on the Shannon scheme. The wage rate soon became a matter of political dispute.

References[+]

References
↑1	Original dispatch: “Power For Ireland From River Shannon”, Chicago Daily News, June 30. Booklet: William H. Brayden, The Irish Free State: a survey of the newly constructed institutions of the self-governing Irish people, together with a report on Ulster. [Chicago: Chicago Daily News, 1925], 19-21.
↑2	See Siemens celebrates 100 years in Ireland.
↑3	Lothar Schoen, “The Irish Free State and the Electricity Industry, 1922-1927” in The Shannon Scheme and the electrification of the Irish Free State, Andy Bielenberg, ed. [Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2002], 37.
↑4	Brayden misspelled the surname as MacLaughlin. See “McLaughlin, Thomas Anthony” (1896-1971) in the Dictionary of Irish Biography.
↑5	“Irish Labor Fights Cabinet”, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 18, 1925; and “Sinn Fein Conclave Sounds Red Note”, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 21, 1925.
↑6	Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland. [New York: Overlook Press, 2005], 316.

Mark Holan's Irish American Blog

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Brayden on the 1925 launch of the Shannon scheme

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