8 July 1981: The death of Joe McDonnell on Hunger Strike on this day. He died after 61 days without food. He was the fifth Republican prisoner to die that year in the ongoing campaign to gain Special Status for political prisoners.

Joe McDonnell was born in Belfast in 1950. He married his wife Goretti in 1970 and they had two children together. When the conflict erupted in the North Joe took sides and ended up in the IRA. He had joined up soon after the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971. He was himself interned on the prison ship Maidstone in 1972 and in Long Kesh from 1973 to 1974. He was captured in 1976 when the car he was in was stopped by the RUC and he and three other men (one of whom was Bobby Sands) were given long terms of imprisonment for a gun being found in the car. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

McDonnell and many of the other Republican prisoners did not accept that they were criminals for fighting against the British Crown - something Irishmen had been doing for centuries. But in 1976 the British Government had abolished Special Category Status for political prisoners. From then on it could only be a matter of time till things escalated. By the Summer of 1981 a Hunger Strike was under way and a number of prisoners had died and others were in danger of dying.

Following the success of Bobby Sands being elected for Fermanagh South Tyrone prior to his death on 5 May it was decided by the Anti H Block campaign to contest the General Election in the 26 Counties that fell on 11 June that year. McDonnell was selected to contest the Constituency of Sligo-Leitrim. Veteran local republican John Joe McGirl was his election agent and Joe’s wife Goretti was conspicuous in her presence to help get him elected there. On the day of the election he received 5,639 1st preference votes - narrowingly missing being elected by a small margin.

When Joe McDonnell died on 8 July 1981 tensions were at razor point in the North. From Wednesday evening through to the Friday morning, Joe’s body had lain in state in the family home. During this time, thousands of people filed past the coffin to pay their respects to the fallen Volunteer. When his funeral was held in Belfast some days later thousands of people followed the cortege on it way to Milltown Cemetery. Along the way the mourners were under close observation by the British Military. The British Army and RUC opened up on the cortege with a hail of plastic bullets amidst scenes of pandemonium and panic. The head of the funeral cortege had moved off a few minutes before the attack and was making its way towards Milltown. Six IRA Volunteers took the coffin on their shoulders for the last leg of the journey to the Republican Plot. When they spotted an IRA Guard of Honour returning to a house after firing the final shots they swooped.

Today next to Bobby Sands he is one of the best known of the Hungers Strikers of 1981. He is the subject of a famous Republican Ballad written by Brian Warfield of The Wolfe Tones. It begins:

Oh my name is Joe McDonnell 

From Belfast town I came 

That city I will never see again...

 

6 July 1958 Sir John Lymbrick Esmonde, 14th Baronet died on this day. Born on 5 February 1893 he was an Irish nationalist politician who unusually served as both Member of Parliament (MP) in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London and later as a Teachta Dála (TD) in Dáil Éireann in Dublin. 

Born on 5 February 1893 Salop (Shropshire), England he was the son of Dr John Joseph Esmonde MP (1862–1915), of Drominagh, Borrisokane, County Tipperary. They were a junior branch of a landed and titled Irish catholic family. On the death of his father in 1915, he was elected in his place (opposed by two nationalist contenders) as Irish Parliamentary Party MP for North Tipperary. He  served  in World War I with the Leinster Regiment then as Captain in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers with the Intelligence Corps.

He was one of five Irish MPs who served with Irish regiments in World War I, the others Stephen Gwynn, William Redmond and D. D. Sheehan as well as former MP Tom Kettle. John Lymbrick Esmonde served with the forces that put down the Easter Rising. He withdrew without defending his seat in the 1918 general election. After studying law at the King's Inns, Dublin (1919–21), he was called to the bar (1921). 

He subsequently served as a Fine Gael TD for Wexford, where he won a seat at the 1937 general election. He was re- elected in 1938 and 1943, but lost his Dáil seat in the 1944 election. He became a barrister at the King's Inns, Dublin, called to the inner Bar as Senior Counsel in 1942 and bencher of the King's Inns in 1948. He inherited the Esmonde Baronetcy when the senior male line died out in 1943. He was re-elected TD for Wexford in the 1948 general election serving until the 1951 general election, when he retired from politics. In 1948 he was suggested as possible Taoiseach by Seán MacBride, on the grounds that he had no link to either side in the Civil War!

As a barrister he was in a number of notable cases: he was senior counsel for Eric Dorman O'Gowan  in his action against Winston Churchill, and for Patrick Kavanagh in his action against the Leader. In 1954 he defended Michael Manning, the last person to be hanged for murder in the Irish Republic. 

https://www.dib.ie/biography/esmonde-sir-john-lymbrick-a2946

His younger brother Lt. Geoffrey Esmonde (1897–1916) aged 19 was killed in action in World War I serving with the 4th Tyneside Irish Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. His second younger brother was Sir Anthony Esmonde, 15th Baronet (1899–1981). His half-brother Eugene Esmonde was awarded a VC posthumously for in February 1942 leading the air attack on the German battleships Scharnhorst & Gneisenau as they made their dash through the English Channel.

 

5‭ July 1828: Daniel O’Connell won the Parliamentary seat of County Clare in a bye –election. His Victory marked a triumph for his organisation the Catholic Association. O’Connell became the first Catholic to be returned for a Constituency since the 1690’s. This campaign was the culmination of a series of electoral contests conducted by the Association and threw down the gauntlet to the British Government to either remove the Laws barring Catholics from the Parliament in London or possibly face a Revolution in Ireland. 

O’Connell had decided some months before to put his name forward at the first available opportunity.‭ Instead of using surrogate candidates of Protestant background who were sympathetic to Catholic Emancipation he wanted to have himself elected in a direct challenge to the Penal Laws against Catholics. The current MP for Clare, William Vesey-Fitzgerald, had to stand for re-election because he had been appointed as President of the Board of Trade, which carried a salary.

Some days previously O’Connell had addressed the electors of Clare:

The oath at present required by law is‭—‘That the sacrifice of the Mass and the Invocation of the blessed Virgin Mary and other Saints, as now practiced in the Church of Rome, arc impious and idolatrous’. Of course I never will stain my soul with such an oath; I leave that to my honourable opponent, Mr Vesey-Fitzgerald. He has often taken that horrible oath…

If you return me to Parliament,‭ ‬I pledge myself to vote for every measure which can strengthen the right of every human being to unrestricted and unqualified freedom of conscience. To vote for every measure favourable to radical reform in the representative system, so that the House of Commons may truly, as our Catholic ancestors intended it should do, represent all the people. To vote for every measure of retrenchment and reduction of the national expenditure, so as to relieve the people from the burthen of taxation.

Ironically‭ Vesey-Fitzgerald claimed he was a moderate who supported a relaxation of the Penal Laws. In the event O’Connell won handsomely by 2,057 votes to 982. This triggered a serious political crisis because as an elected representative of the People he was barred from taking his seat- solely on account of his Religion.  

The defeated candidate was none too happy with the result,‭ writing to the Lord Lieutenant the Marquis Anglesey that very night: 

The priests have triumphed,‭ and through them and their brethren, the Catholic parliament will dictate the representatives of every county in the south of Ireland…The poll closed tonight. ‬It was hopeless from the first day…What a convulsion for any man to throw the county into, to satisfy his own vanity and to obtain what he cannot use… 

The following year Catholic Emancipation was reluctantly passed through both Houses of the British Parliament and this Constitutional climb down opened the door for other Catholic politicians to follow in O’Connell’s footsteps.‭ For his efforts in leading the campaign to emancipate his fellow co-religionists from the odious Anti Catholic Penal Laws Daniel O’Connell was subsequently known as ‘The Liberator’.

 

4 July 1776: The 2nd Continental Congress in the city of Philadelphia voted to declare the independence of the USA OTD. They had 200 copies of their Declaration  printed  & distributed across the States & abroad. The 1st newspaper outside America to publish the text was the Belfast News Letter in its edition of August 23-27, 1776.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

The document set out the rights that should be enjoyed by all citizens of the New Republic. It is one of the most important political documents that modern history has produced. There was a strong Irish input into its drafting and wording that reflected the experience of life under Monarchical and Aristocratic rule back in 18th century America and Ireland. Nine men who were either born in Ireland or whose parents or grandparents were from Ireland signed that day.

Thomas McKean (March 19, 1734 – June 24, 1817) was the son of William McKean from County Antrim. He would become an American lawyer and politician, serving as President of Delaware, Chief Justice and then Governor of Pennsylvania.

Charles Carroll of Carrollton in Maryland (September 19, 1737 – November 14, 1832). Though born in America his parents were Irish and he was the only Catholic signatory and also the longest-lived signatory of the Declaration of Independence, dying at age 95.

James Smith was born in Ireland in c.1719 and was forced with his family to emigrate to the American colonies as a boy due to abuse by landlords. The name "Smith" in Ireland is oftentimes a translation of MacGabhann, which is an older Irish name meaning "son of Goibhniu," who was the Celtic deity of metallurgy.

George Taylor was born in Antrim, Ireland in 1716 and emigrated to America in 1736 at the age of 20. Taylor operated a furnace and was an iron manufacturer in Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Committee of Correspondence, 1774-1776, and of the Continental Congress, 1776-1777.

Matthew Thornton was born in Ireland in 1714 and went out to America as a four-year-old child. He would practice medicine and become active in pre-revolutionary agitation before being elected to become a member of the Continental Congress in 1776. He was a Colonel of New Hampshire Militia, 1775-1783.

Edward Rutledge (November 23, 1749 – January 23, 1800) was the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence. His father Dr. John Rutledge left Co. Tyrone, Ireland in 1735, and would raise a son to be 39th Governor of South Carolina.

Thomas Lynch Jr. (August 5, 1749 – 1779) stood in for his father Thomas Lynch Sr. who was unable to represent South Carolina due to illness. His grandfather was Jonas Lynch of the Galway who were exiled following the defeats at Aughrim and the Boyne. At the close of 1776 he and his wife sailed for the West Indies. The ship disappeared and there is no record of his life after.

George Read was born in Maryland in 1733. He was the son of John Read and Mary Howell Read. John Read was a wealthy resident of Dublin who emigrated to Maryland. When George Read was an infant the family moved to Delaware.

John Dunlap was born in Strabane, County Tyrone. In 1757, when he was ten years old, he went to work as an apprentice to his uncle, William Dunlap, a printer and bookseller in Philadelphia.

During the American Revolutionary War, Dunlap became an officer in the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, and saw action with George Washington at the battles of Trenton and Princeton.

 

3 July 1863: The 69th Pennsylvania Regiment of the Union Army helped to defend Cemetery Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg on this day. Most of the men were drawn from the Irish population of the City and environs of Philadelphia and were volunteers who had fought hard already the previous day and were  now called again to stop the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia from overwhelming the Union defenses and breaking the fighting spirit of the Army of the Potomac. During the early morning hours Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered General Longstreet to prepare General Pickett’s troops for the assault .The attack, commonly known as Pickett’s Charge or Longstreet’s Assault, was an attempt to penetrate the centre of Union forces on Cemetery Ridge.

The morning had been relatively quite for the 69th but around 1pm Confederate artillery began to pound the Union positions along Cemetery Ridge and it soon became obvious that a major attack was being prepared. The troops were told to lay flat to escape the tremendous fire being directed upon them. The air filled with the ‘whirring, shrieking, hissing sounds of  the solid shot and the bursting shell… striking the ground in front and ricocheting over us, to be imbedded in some object to the rear; others strike the wall, scattering the stones around.’ After about an hour it lifted and then the men of the 69th witnessed a spectacle of awe and fear and some 15,000 Confederates emerged from cover and began their fateful advance across open ground. They took severe casualties as the Union artillery pounded them but they kept on coming.  

Colonel Dennis O’Kane was in command of the 69th that day, and he ordered his men to hold their fire until they could see the whites of their enemies eyes. He reminded them that they were fighting on Pennsylvania soil, telling the men ‘let your work this day be for victory or to the death’. As the rebel soldiers reached their lines a bloody melee developed as men fought hand to hand but the 69th grimly held on to their position. Eventually their attackers fell back and ‘Pickett’s Charge’ turned out to be a bloody fiasco for the Confederates. The cost was high however for the 69th and  Colonel O’Kane fell mortally wounded while Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Tschudy went down while rallying the right of their line. 4 officers were killed, 6 wounded and 2 captured while 39 of the other ranks were killed, with 80 wounded and 16 made prisoners of War. 

https://irishamericancivilwar.com/2011/07/03/we-thought-we-were-all-gone-the-69th-pennsylvania-at-gettysburg/

Postscript: In 1887 veterans from both sides met again at the site of this bloody encounter but this time as companions who shook hands and shared their tales of that terrible day 24 years before.

 

2 July 1863: The Irish Brigade of the Army of the Potomac fought at Gettysburg on this day. It consisted of men from the - 63rd, 69th and 88th New York Infantry and 14th New York Independent Battery Artillery - though much depleted in numbers by the time they arrived there. It was officially the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 2nd Corps of the United States Army. In one of the most famous incidents of the American Civil War they were blessed and granted general absolution by Father William Corby, the Brigade Chaplain, in front of thousands of their comrades in arms who witnessed this awe inspiring spectacle.

Little more than 500 men remained of the original 3,000 veterans of the brigade, but they were to be sent to the rescue of the crumbling Union flank in a vicious maelstrom that would become known to history as The Wheatfield. Father Corby donned his stole and mounted a large rock as the men of the brigade knelt, Catholic and Protestant alike. He offered absolution to the whole brigade, reminding them of their duties and warning them not to waver and to uphold the flag. Their attack bought precious time for the Union defenses but cost them dearly, with over one third of the brigade becoming casualties.

www.gettysburg.stonesentinels.com

The monument is a Celtic cross supported by a granite base, standing 19’ 6” tall. It was sculpted by William R. O’Donovan, a former Confederate soldier who fought at Gettysburg. The front of the cross is an ornate bronze ornamented by a 2nd Corps trefoil, the numbers of the three New York regiments, the Seal of the State of New York, and a harp flanked by eagles. At the foot of the cross lies a life sized Irish wolfhound, symbol of honour and fidelity. The monument was dedicated on July 2nd, 1888.

Father William Corby, a chaplain to the Irish Brigade, attended the dedication, held a mass for the veterans and blessed the monument. “We have unveiled this pile, and it will stand to perpetuate the fame of those heroes. To keep their memory green in the American heart, this Celtic Cross has been erected. It is an emblem of Ireland, typical of faith and devotion, and the most appropriate that could be raised to hand down to posterity the bravery of our race in the great cause of American liberty.”

https://gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/union-monuments/new-york/new-york-infantry/irish-brigade/

 

1 July 1916: The Battle of the Somme began on this day. After an immense bombardment lasting a week the British Army launched its Summer Offensive at precisely 7.30 am that morning. General Rawlinson commanded the British 4th Army, which contained 15 Divisions earmarked for the Offensive.

Rawlinson’s tactical plan was to see the infantry advance across no man’s land at a walking pace, carrying a full load of equipment (66 lbs. per man), to take possession of the German trenches from a demoralised and shaken foe. However during the bombardments most of the German troops took refuge in deep bunkers. Once the artillery had stopped firing on the front line trenches and the attack was imminent these men rushed to the surface and manned their posts. It was the failure of the British to anticipate the speed of the Germans reaction to the lifting of the barrage that led to their defeat on the 1 July. The casualties suffered by the attacking forces numbered almost 60,000 men incl about 20,000 dead. Many of these men were from Ireland.

The men of the 36th Ulster Division carried out the most famous attack of the day. They took the German stronghold of the Schwaben Redoubt by storm and overwhelmed the defenders. However due to the almost universal failure of the other attacking battalions on their flanks to take their objectives the Ulstermen were left dangerously exposed. They were out in a salient that the Germans were able to enfilade with devastating results. Despite a grim determination to hold their positions the 36th was forced back and the order was given to withdraw to their start lines. Given that they had suffered thousands of casualties that day this was a bitter pill to swallow - but a legend was born that day that still resonates down to our own times.

Captain (later Lieutenant-Colonel Sir) Wilfrid Spender, of the Ulster Division’s HQ staff, commenced his famous account that was widely carried by the British press, with the following words:  ‘I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, July 1, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world.’

The other great attack that day that had strong Irish connections was the series of assaults carried out by the 34th Division. This included the 103rd Tyneside Irish Brigade from Northumberland, in the main consisting of the descendants of Irish immigrants in the 19th Century to the coalfields there. However the connections with Ireland were still extant and these men were proud of their ancestry. That day they met the full force of the German machine-guns as they went over the top and were slaughtered in great numbers. For them there was no success to match the sacrifice made and thousands lay dead and wounded upon the field of battle for no great purpose.

There were also Irish battalions engaged this day within other Divisions and some 14 battalions with definite Irish identities took part in the day’s battle. In addition thousands more served in an individual capacity in various units like those raised in Liverpool, Manchester and London as well as in units with no particular connections to Ireland like the 1st South Staffordshire’s. Thus on 1st July 1916 many men from Ireland met their end in one of the bloodiest days in Military History. The survivors too never forgot that terrible day when so many from this island fought and suffered on the bloody fields of Picardy.