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Irish Notables Throughout History
Commodore John Barry, USN Born in County Wexford to a poor farmer, his uncle introduced him to the sea and he became a cabin boy, traveled to America and offered his services during the American Revolution. Known as the Father of the US Navy, Commodore Barry became commander of all American naval forces. He served in numerous engagements, including the land battles of Trenton and Princeton.
Saint Brendan An abbot and the man who, as any Irishman can tell you, discovered America. Said to have been born in County Kerry in 484 he became a churchman and founded many monasteries but is most famous for his voyages of exploration. Scholars mostly assume that his travels in a skin and whicker boat got him no farther than the outer islands surrounding Britain and Ireland, others claim he reached as far as Iceland, Canada and even the Bahamas. The main work describing his voyage speaks of a Land of Promise beyond anything seen before and a famous tale about landing on a gigantic fish or whale after mistaking it for an island.
High King Brian Boru (Brian Boroimhe) Born in Munster in 940 Brian Boru lead a patriotic war against the Viking invaders of Ireland. He united the country and became High King of Ireland in 1002 and did a great deal to build up a strong and advanced Gaelic, Catholic Ireland. So great was his influence that some period pieces describe him as Emperor of the Irish. Further trouble by the Vikings brought him to battle again in 1014. The Viking power in Ireland was crushed forever but the High King was murdered in his tent while praying for victory.
Saint Brigid The abbess of Kildare, Brigid was a very beautiful girl who wanted to devote her life to God. When her father pledged her to marry a shallow nobleman she prayed for an escape and lost her beauty which caused her would be husband to no longer desire her. She entered the religious life and became so famous for her piety and holiness that she has since been known as Mary of the Gael and is probably second only to St Patrick among the canon of famous Irish saints.
Edward Bruce, King of Ireland The brother of King Robert I of Scotland, Edward Bruce landed in Ireland in 1315 and was declared king the following year. His intention was to drive out the Anglo-Normans and build an independent Scots-Irish kingdom. For two years he was quite successful thanks to the help of many local Irish leaders as well as his brother Robert of Scotland. However, he was less successful at nation building than he was on the battlefield and no real unity was established. Momentum was lost when Robert left and the death of King Edward in 1318 left Ireland in chaos.
General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA Born on St Patrick's Day in County Cork, Cleburne served in the British army before coming to America and settling in Arkansas. When the American Civil War broke out he joined the Confederate army and soon gained a reputation as an excellent commander. He fought throughout the campaigns in Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia and has been hailed as the finest divisional commander of the war. His lack of a higher command has been blamed on his advocacy of enlisting slaves into the army in return for their freedom. He was killed leading a gallant charge at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee in 1864.
General Michael Collins, IRA Born in 1890, Collins participated in the Easter Rising of 1916 and in the succeeding period became director of intelligence for the Irish Republican Army. He was very successful in infiltrating the British command and was unhappy playing the part of negotiator with the British in 1921 as assigned by de Valera. He led the forces of the Irish Free State in support of the treaty in the Irish Civil War though as an old IRA man he wanted peace with the Republicans and was working toward that end when he was killed in an ambush in 1922.
Saint Columba (Colm Cille) The most influential churchman in Ireland after St Patrick he did much to continue the spread of Christianity in Ireland, converting pagans and founding monasteries and even opening the way for the faith in Scotland. His work proved vital in laying a strong foundation for the Church in Ireland which allowed it to survive the attacks of the Vikings. He was a strong and dynamic leader with a confrontational style that impressed the pagans and the centers of devotion he established allowed the Church to continue to grow and flourish in Ireland, further building on the works of St Patrick.
President Eamon De Valera A native of New York, born to Irish and Spanish parents in 1882, de Valera was raised by family in County Limerick from an early age. A math teacher by profession he joined the Gaelic League and the Volunteers and was the last republican leader to surrender following the Easter Rising in 1916. Sentenced to death by the British he was spared because of his American birth and was released from prison despite accusations that he had plotted with the Germans. He rejected the Anglo-Irish Treaty and was imprisoned again for a time following the defeat of the Republicans in the Civil War. He left Sinn Fein and founded the Fianna Fail in 1926. In 1932 he became Prime Minister of the Irish Free State and carried out the transition to the Republic of Ireland becoming the first President. A devout Catholic, the new Ireland reflected the principles of its founder though much of this was undone following his death in 1975.
Bernadette Devlin, MP Born in 1947 Devlin became a leader in the Catholic civil rights struggle at an early age and was elected MP for Mid-Ulster in 1969 where she gained even more fame for punching the home secretary in the House of Commons. Her private life caused a scandal among many of the Catholic supporters though British attacks on her, including a raid on her home, kept her prominent. She became a socialist activist and increasingly liberal throughout her career. In 2003 she made news again for being refused entry into the United States under anti-terrorism legislation of the George W. Bush administration.
Robert Emmet One of the most famous Irish nationalist figures, Emmet was born in 1778 and while in college became a leader in the United Irishmen movement. In 1802 he and his brother held talks on Irish independence with Napoleon and Prince Talleyrand before going back to Ireland to organize a rebellion which was meant to coincide with a French invasion of England. British mastery of the seas prevented this; no French invasion came, and the rebellion collapsed due to lack of widespread support and disunity among the leadership. He planned to escape to America with his fianc� but was arrested by the British and hanged and beheaded for treason in 1803.
Arthur Griffith Notable but often overlooked republican politician, Griffith founded Sinn Fein in 1905. Despite his personal feelings he campaigned for an independent Kingdom of Ireland sharing the Crown with Great Britain in a personal rather than political union. He took no part in the Easter Rising of 1916 but was arrested anyway several times in the following years. Released again in 1921 he led the Irish delegation to London to negotiate the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which he signed. He was elected president of the lower parliament in 1922 but died the same year.
Sean MacBride Born in 1904 to Major John and Maud MacBride, Sean was raised to be a revolutionary. He fought in the War of Independence and in the Civil War as a republican opponent of the pro-Treaty forces. Because of this he was imprisoned by the Irish Free State from 1923 to 1924 and from 1936 to 1938 served as chief of staff of the IRA. In 1946 he founded Clann Na Poblachta, a coalition of socialists, anti-partitionists, opponents of the de Valera government and others though MacBride himself was a staunch Catholic with a conservative outlook to rival even that of President de Valera. He joined Archbishop MacQuaid in the crusade against atheistic communism and worked with Amnesty International.
Countess Constance Markievicz Born in London in 1868 as Constance Gore-Booth she became a noble woman by her marriage to Count Casimir Markievicz of the Ukraine in 1900. Their marriage did not last as he left her to return to the Ukraine in 1913. The Countess joined Sinn Fein in 1908 and fought in the Easter Rising of 1916 as a member of the Citizen Army of James Connolly. She was arrested and sentenced to death but was saved from execution because of her sex. Elected in 1918 as a Sinn Fein candidate for Dublin she became the first female MP in the British Parliament though, of course, she never took her seat. She later served in the Irish Parliament.
Archbishop John McHale A giant figure in the Church in Ireland, Archbishop McHale was known as the Lion of Tuam and was not afraid to confront the difficult political questions of his day. He opposed the requirement that Catholics pay tithes to the Protestant Church of Ireland and supported the great Catholic Daniel O'Connell in his effort to repeal the Act of Union and win emancipation for Catholics. He opposed the oppressive policies of Great Britain and was a strong supporter of Irish culture and especially the Gaelic language. He died in 1881.
Bishop Heber McMahon One of the bold fighting priests of a very dangerous era, McMahon went to seminary on the continent and gave his blessing to the Ulster Rising of 1641 as a pious effort to resist the Plantation campaign and enforced Protestantism. In 1643 he was made Bishop of Clogher and was an advisor to Eoghan Rua O'Neill, a Catholic leader in the rebellion against Protestant rule, before his death in 1649. This was a matter of faith, not politics, since, as a member of the Monaghan Gaelic aristocracy, McMahon was certainly no revolutionary in a political sense. When the Puritan Cromwell invaded Ireland Bishop McMahon was chosen to lead the Irish forces in his area. In 1650 he was captured by the Protestants and beheaded.
General Thomas Francis Meagher, USA A native of Waterford, Meagher was educated by the Jesuits and became a noted debater. Unlike O'Connell he favored revolution to secure Irish freedom and he joined the Young Ireland movement. The French inspired him to design a green, white, orange tricolor flag for the Irish resistance. Sentenced to death for his part in a rebellion, this was downgraded to exile but Meagher escaped to America. When war broke out he sided with the North and formed the famous Irish Brigade in New York which he led into battle. After the war he was a leader in the Montana territory and died in 1867.
John Mitchel A gifted writer and noted rebel on two continents, John Mitchel was born in Derry in 1815 to a Presbyterian minister. Trained as a lawyer he soon got into trouble for his newspaper writings on Irish liberty and later founded his own paper called The United Irishman. The Potato Famine pushed him to call for outright revolution and in a rigged trial he was sentenced to exile to Australia which prompted his most famous literary work the Jail Journal. He escaped and made his way to America where he was an outspoken supporter of the Confederate States in the American Civil War, 3 of his own sons serving in the Confederate army. He worked for the Fenians in Paris before parting ways with them and was elected MP for Tipperary though his past conviction prevented him from a political career. He died in 1875.
General Richard Mulcahy A soldier and politician, General Mulcahy was born in 1886 and fought in the Easter Rising of 1916 before becoming chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence. He had to part ways with some of his comrades when he came out in support of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. In the Civil War he commanded the forces of the provisional government and was called on to serve as defense minister for the Irish Free State from 1923 to 1924. Giving up the military for politics he served as leader of Fine Gael from 1944 to 1959 and was education minister from 1948 to 1951 and again from 1954 to 1957.
Father John Murphy The parish priest of Boolavogue in County Wexford, Fr Murphy became one of the heroes of the 1798 Rebellion. Most of the leaders of this rebellion were Protestants and indeed Fr Murphy was a reluctant revolutionary. Despite the terrible situation he advocated peace and even called on his parish to cooperate, disarm and declare their loyalty to the British monarch. However, when British retaliation came down on them anyway, he declared it would be better to die in battle than be murdered at home. He joined the rebellion at the head of his own motley army of outraged Catholics but was finally captured and hanged by the British.
Daniel O'Connell Known as the Liberator and as the uncrowned King of Ireland, Dan O'Connell was a lawyer and gifted orator who led the campaign for Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the Act of Union. A conservative, he advocated social fairness rather than revolution and wanted an independent Ireland under the Crown to be obtained peacefully. The French Revolution and the attacks there on the Church sickened him and he wanted nothing like that for his people. Though popular, restrictions on Catholics prevented his sitting in government and in 1824 he formed the Catholic Association to push his goals. Imprisoned for a time his efforts were largely ended by the Potato Famine but he nevertheless made the drive for Catholic rights and Irish freedom a popular and united movement.
Red Hugh O'Donnell One of the great Irish Catholic leaders of the rebellion against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, or Red Hugh, was Lord of Tyrconnell and was imprisoned by the lord deputy of Ireland around 1587. He escaped in 1592 and with Donegal Monastery as his base succeeded in driving out the Protestant English forces from Connacht. Later he joined with Hugh O'Neill in the Tyrone rebellion, a Catholic rebellion against the English effort to enforce Protestantism on the country. He was instrumental in the great Irish Catholic victory at Yellow Ford in 1598; the worst defeat suffered by Elizabeth during her long reign. He tried to help the Spanish and O'Neill at Kinsale in 1601 but the fight ended in disaster and he was forced to flee to Spain where he was assassinated by an English agent.
General Eoin O'Duffy Born in 1892, O'Duffy fought in the War of Independence and was chief of staff of the forces supportive of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in the Civil War. Following that victory he served as chief of the police forces for the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1933 when he was dismissed by de Valera. He founded the Army Comrades Association or Blueshirts which was a nationalist, corporatist, Catholic organization, immediately labeled as fascist. He supported General Franco in the Spanish Civil War but never found a widespread following in Ireland where de Valera was considered conservative enough by most Catholic voters. He died in 1944.
Msgr. Hugh O'Flaherty Known as the Pimpernel of the Vatican, O'Flaherty was born in County Kerry in 1898 and studied in Ireland and Rome before being ordained priest. His early work involved diplomatic missions to numerous countries on behalf of the Holy See and he became known for his charm, wit and love of golf. During World War II, at extreme risk to himself, he organized and managed a secret network to rescue and harbor escaped Allied POW's under the very noses of the Germans. A very patriotic Irishman it is notable that most of the men he helped were British soldiers. He would often travel in disguise to slip past the German troops who kept a constant watch on the Vatican. For his efforts to save Jews and Allied POW's he was given numerous honors after the war and eventually even converted his former Gestapo tormentor SS Colonel Herbert Kappler.
General Bernardo O'Higgins An Irishman who had quite an impact on the New World, Bernardo was the son of Irish immigrants to Chile and was educated in Peru and England. In the Americas, talent was well utilized and his father became the Spanish Viceroy of Chile (the last Viceroy of New Spain -modern Mexico- was also Irish) and Bernardo soon made friends with many of the revolutionary crowd. Returning to Chile after the death of his father he joined the rebellion but was forced to flee when the new Spanish Viceroy crushed the uprising. However, in 1817 he returned and defeated the Spanish, earning himself the title of Liberator of Chile. Yet, he was accused by many of being a monarchist and was forced to resign in 1823 after which he went into exile in Peru.
Grace O'Malley One of the most legendary names in Irish history, Grace O'Malley was born around 1530 into a sea faring family which traded with Scotland and Spain. Grace was soon on her way to becoming the most famous Irish pirate. Around 1546 she married Donal O'Flaherty, chief of Ballinahinch and quickly surpassed her husband thanks to her political savy and use of piracy to coerce traders. Upon his death she married Richard-an-Irainn, chief of the Burkes of County Mayo. Though she paid lip service to the lord deputy of Ireland she continued her business as before and was captured while on a sea raid in 1577 by the Earl of Desmond. Good behavior granted her release in 1578 she went back to her regular profession and was the chief torment of the governor of Connacht Sir Richard Bingham. He was a tireless pursuer and Grace was eventually forced to ask Queen Elizabeth I of England for a pardon.
Owen Roe O'Neill A great leader in the Irish Catholic rebellion against Protestant English rule, O'Neill was a talented soldier having been a veteran of 30 years service in the royal army of Spain. In 1642 he took command of Irish Catholic forces in the north when rebellion broke out and soon proved his brilliance as a military leader. In 1646, during the Confederate War, at the battle of Benburb, he routed the Scots of General Hector Munro (who were fighting with the English) and he worked with the papal nuncio to reject the peace treaty with England and call for a rebellion against Protestant rule. When civil war broke out in England he sided with the Royalists against the Puritan Parliamentarians. Even during the Confederate War he had never been a radical, fighting simply for Irish freedom and rights under the existing monarchy.
Saint Patrick No list of notable Irish would be complete without naming St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland and the man who, in many ways, influenced Irish culture and history more than any other. Of Roman British birth he first came to Ireland as a captive and was held as a slave. He later escaped and became a priest and later a bishop. The Pope sent him to convert Ireland from paganism to Christianity as he had long wished to do. Many legends and stories abound about St Patrick confronting the pagans, such as the story that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland; symbolic of the eradication of heathenism in preference to Christianity or teaching the Irish about the Holy Trinity using a shamrock. Nonetheless, what we do know is that St Patrick was a very devout and orthodox Catholic bishop and that he converted many, laying the foundation for others to follow in building the Church there and making Ireland a Catholic country.
Padraig Pearse One of the great names in Irish history, Padraig or Patrick Pearse will forever be linked to the glorious but doomed Easter Uprising of 1916. Born in 1879, Pearse was a leader in the Gaelic League from 1896 and pushed hard for a major rebirth of Irish culture through the ancient native language of the land. Later he was a founding member of the Irish volunteers though as a poet and playwright he was a scholarly rather than military man. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and took for his political inspiration men like Tone and Emmet though Pearse was a devout Catholic. In 1915 he became director of military operations for the IRB and was named as president of the Irish republic during the Easter Rising. In his very Catholic way he held to the symbolism of Easter Week and wrote of the blood sacrifice Ireland had to endure to achieve peace and freedom. He viewed the military defeat of 1916 as a moral victory.
Saint Oliver Plunkett A member of one of the Old English families, St Oliver Plunkett is considered the last of the rebel martyrs following the Protestant takeover of the British Isles. He was educated in Rome and worked there before being sent to Ireland as Archbishop of Armagh. At the outset he enjoyed the tolerance of King Charles II who was not a zealous Protestant (he would become a death bed convert to Catholicism) but this changed after 1679 thanks to Titus Oates and his fabricated Popish Plot as it was called. Persecution again came down on the Church and St Oliver Plunkett had to take on the role of religious renegade like so many since the Protestant ascendancy. He was finally captured and although Oates and his supposed plot were totally discredited, the Protestants cried for blood. Charles II was too politically compromising to take a principled stand and St Oliver Plunkett was martyred in 1681 with over 20 other Catholics.
General Patrick Sarsfield Irish leader in the War of English Succession, Patrick Sarsfield was the Earl of Lucan and loyal to the legitimate Catholic King of Great Britain and Ireland, James II. He followed him into exile in 1688 when he was deposed by his son-in-law William of Orange from Holland. He also accompanied King James II to Ireland where he landed, declared independence and attempted to restore the House of Stuart to the throne. A talented man, Sarsfield was under utilized and James II was defeated at the Boyne in 1690 after which he returned to France. Nonetheless, Sarsfield stayed to fight on for the Jacobite cause and Irish freedom. In 1691 James II made him Earl of Aughrim and General Sarsfield led a masterful campaign against the Dutch and English despite hopeless odds. When the war reached a stalemate he signed the Treaty of Limerick (which his enemies did not honor) and returned to France to be at the side of his rightful king. He fought against William of Orange again at Landen in 1692 where he was mortally wounded and died in 1693.
Matt Talbot Born in 1856 into poverty in Dublin, Matt Talbot started drinking at age 12 and soon became a full blown alcoholic. With the help of a local priest he was rehabilitated and became a devout Christian. As an adult he took the early Irish monks for his example and modeled his life as a layman after them. He worked with the Transport and General Workers Union, lived ascetically and gave away most of his salary to help others. In 1973 he was declared Venerable by the Church and many Catholics remain devoted to his cause for canonization.
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