Politician
Born in Shrone Hill, County Tipperary and educated at Clongowes Wood College, Sadleir was originally a solicitor, but he turned to business speculation, including involvement in a joint-stock bank and a number of railway companies. He was elected a member of parliament for Carlow from 1847 to 1853 and was one of the Irish Brigade, a group whose members were committed to preserving their independence and their collective power by not taking office in any government, After the government of Lord Derby had been brought down, he broke his pledge and helped bring about the demise of the brigade by accepting office as a junior lord of the Treasury in the Aberdeen government. He was subsequently returned for Sligo. However, when speculation with the funds of investors in a bank he had started failed, he committed suicide in 1856.
St. Edna's
This was the school for boys started by Patrick Pearse in Ranelagh, Dublin, in 1908 as an alternative to the "murder machine," as he labeled the Irish educational system with its emphasis on examinations and rote learning. Irish folklore and mythology served as the guiding inspiration of the school, in which the Irish language was taught. The school was continually beset with financial difficulties, although it did draw well over 100 students and boasted as either teachers or occasional lecturers such notables as Pearse himself, his brother William, Thomas MacDon-
AGH, William Butler Yeats, Eoin MacNeill, and Douglas Hyde. In 1910 the school moved to 50-acre site, the Hermitage, Rathfarnham, and survived on contributions, many of which came from Irish-American sources, especially from Clan na Gael. Some of the preparations for the Easter Rising took place in the school, which was kept open by Pearse's mother and sister after he and his brother were executed following the rising. The school closed permanently in 1935. It was bequeathed to the Irish state in 1969 by Pearse's sister upon her death.
Sands, Bobby (1954-1981)
Revolutionary, hunger striker Born in Rathcoole, Belfast, Sands became active in the IRA soon after his own family had been forced from their home by loyalists. He was arrested and imprisoned twice for IRA activities. on the second imprisonment he quickly joined the protest for special status as political prisoner. He was the leader of the imprisoned IRA members who had called off an earlier hunger strike on the mistaken impression that their demands had been met. Accordingly, when the second strike was begun on March 1, 1981, he insisted on being the first striker in a protest that was deliberately designed so that individual strikes would begin periodically to enable the strike to continue following the death of any one participant. While on strike his name was placed in nomination to fill a parliamentary vacancy in a by-election for the parliamentary seat for Fermanagh-South Tyrone. The Social Democratic and Labour Party did not run a candidate for the seat and Sands was elected in April, although a prisoner. His death on May 5, 1981, was followed by extensive disturbances during which many from both Northern Ireland communities were killed. Several others hunger strikers would follow him to the their deaths before the strike was called off in September. The strike probably brought more international sympathy to the IRA than any other action during the three decades of campaign that marked the modern troubles. Probably his electoral success was one of the major factors in prompting Sinn Fein's resort to electoral politics in subsequent elections, although the organization did not reject the use of violence until its cease-fire in 1994.
Saunderson, Edward (1837-1906)
Politician
Born in Ballinmallard, County Cavan, Saunder-son was a Liberal member of parliament for Cavan from 1865 to 1874. He became disillusioned with the Irish program of William Gladstone as prime minister. He joined the Orange Order and was elected as a Conservative for North Armagh in 1885 and he held his seat until his death. Saunderson was the leader who brought Ulster members of parliament who opposed Home Rule into a single group known as the unionist Party, which subsequently affiliated with the Conservative Party.
Saor Eire
Saor Eire was a movement formed by left-wing members of the IRA in 1931 to combine the nationalist objective with the class objective of combating capitalism. Leading figures in the movement included Peadar O'Donnell, Frank Ryan, and Sean MacBride. The movement was condemned by the Catholic hierarchical and the CuMANN NA nGaedheal government succeeded in outlawing it. The organizations subsequently collapsed, although its memory was invoked by some in the 1960s.
Sarsfield, Patrick (c. 1655-1693)
Soldier
Born in Kildare, Sarsfield served in the army of Louis XIV, but advanced in the British army when James II enabled Catholics to do so. He remained supportive of James after the Glorious Revolution and became a brigadier in the JACO BITE forces in Ireland. His attack on the cavalry of the forces of William II at Ballyneety, County Limerick, in 1690 prevented an earlier siege of Limerick. However, the following year Sarsfield capitulated and negotiated the Treaty of Limerick, which confirmed the defeat of the Jacobites and of Gaelic Ireland and whose conciliatory terms were disregarded with the passage of the Penal Laws.
Saurin, Wdllam (1757-1839)
Politician
Born in Belfast and educated at Trinity College Dublin, Saurin was a barrister and a member of the Irish parliament for Blessington, County Wicklow. He opposed Catholic relief and served as a prosecutor of United Irishmen. He also opposed the Act of Union, but he did accept the post of solicitor general for Ireland, which he held from 1807 to 1822. He was the particular object of scorn of Daniel O'Connell in his harangues against the judicial and political system, especially in delivering a four-hour closing statement in the trial of publisher John Magee whose conviction for sedition was a foregone conclusion. After he was removed from his post by Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington, because of his intemperate attitudes, Saurin returned to private practice, although continuing in opposition to Catholic emancipation and to O'Connell.
Sayers, Peig (1873-1958)
Storyteller
Born in Dunquin, County Kerry, Sayers married and lived on Great Blaskett Island off the coast of Kerry. She had 10 children, six of whom died in childhood and another as an adult. She was not literate in Irish, but told a remarkable number of Irish stories and was visited by numerous scholars and Irish language revivalists. She dictated her memoirs to her son, which were published as Peig: A Sceal Fein (1936) and Machnamh Seana-Mhna (1939). She left the island in her later years.
Scarampi, Pietro
Papal envoy
Scarampi served as the papal envoy to the CONFEDERATION OF KILKENNY from 1643 to 1645. He brought money and stores to assist the cause. He argued against a truce with the royalist forces led by the duke of Ormond, but the confederation agreed to such. He was succeeded by Giovanni Battista Rinuccini.
Schomberg, Friedrich Herman, duke of (1615-1690)
General
Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Schomberg was a Protestant and became a celebrated mercenary soldier having served in the Dutch, Swedish, and French military. He resigned from the rank of Marshall of France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the ending of religious freedom for non-Catholics in 1685. William III named him general of his army in 1688. He led an army of 14,000 to Ireland and captured Carrickfergus. He moved south as far as Dundalk, where he camped. The damp conditions in the area resulted in 6,000 of his men dying from disease. Schomberg rallied the Huguenot regiments in the Battle of the Boyne, at which he lost his own life.
Scots-Irish
The term refers to the tens of thousands of Ulster Protestants who immigrated to America in the 18th century and who settled primarily in the Appalachian Mountains region. The term Scots-Irish developed in the 19th century as a means by which to distinguish these individuals from those arriving in a later immigration from Ireland, who were primarily Catholics, especially before and during the Great Famine.
Scullabogue
Scullabogue, County Wexford, was the site of an atrocity committed on June 6 during the Rising of 1798 when about 100 loyalists, many of them children and noncombatants, were burned to death by rebels on their way to the battle at New Ross.
Seanad Eireann
The upper house in the Irish legislature with a limited power in delaying legislation, the Seanad was first established by the constitution of the Irish Free State in part to guarantee the participation and inclusion of the unionist minority in the new state. Half of the membership was to be named by the president of the Executive Council with the express purpose of including groups or parties not represented in the Dail Aireann. The other half was to be selected by the Dail according to proportional representation. The entire membership, by lot, were to be given terms of either three, six, nine or 12 years to insure that a quarter of the membership would be up for reelection every three years. All elected in subsequent elections were to serve 12 years. Those nominated to the first Seanad included Oliver St. John Gogarty, Andrew Jameson, the earl of Dunraven, and William Butler Yeats. In subsequent elections, all citizens of 30 years of age and over could vote from a panel of candidates, one-third nominated by the incumbent Seanad and two-thirds by the Dail, that would consist of three times the number as there were seats open. The turnout was at first poor and nominations were of those less distinguished. In subsequent years the Seanad and the Dail were to each nominate as many candidates as there were places to fill and the election was to be by a joint vote of both bodies. The Fianna Fail Party was always antagonistic to the Seanad, especially because it included a number of unionists. When Eamon de Valera came to power in 1932 one of his objectives was to abolish the Seanad, especially since the body delayed other legislation he was promoting in his efforts to undo much of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He moved for its abolition in 1934 and the enabling legislation was passed in 1936. De Valera reestablished a Seanad in the 1937 constitution, which continues today. The term of the Seanad runs concurrent with the term of the Dail. It has 60 members, 11 of whom are named by the Taoiseach, three are elected by the alumni of the National University of Ireland, three by the alumni of Trinity College Dublin, and the remainder are elected by county councils from five panels: cultural and education, agricultural, labor, industrial and commercial, and administrative. The panels marked a concession to the corporatist thinking of the 1930s, but in fact the nominees are invariably regular politicians, usually recently defeated candidates or candidates aspiring to eventual election to the Dail. The Seanad has a very restricted suspensive veto power.
Services, Industrial, Professional, and Technical Union
The largest trade union in Ireland with more than 200,000 members, it was formed in 1990 with the amalgamation of the Irish Transport and Gen eral Workers' Union and the smaller Federated Workers' Union of Ireland. James Larkin had formed the former in 1909. When he returned from America in the 1920s, he was dissatisfied with the conservatism of the union under William O'Brien and started the rival workers' union. However, by the 1970s and 1980s, the ideological clashes had disappeared and rationalization prevailed in union organization.
Settlement Act
The settlement Act passed by parliament in 1652 gave effect to the legislation of the Long Parliament in 1642 calling for Adventurers to help finance the parliamentary cause with compensation to come from confiscation. The 1652 legislation determined those individuals in Ireland who were to be subjected to forfeiture of their landed estates. Exempt from any pardon were participants in the early rebellion, Roman
Catholic hierarchy who had supported the rebellion, and all who had killed civilians or all civilians who had killed English soldiers, and any still in arms who had not submitted. To make sure no one would escape, 104 individuals were specifically named in the act to be ineligible for pardon. Others, who had shown "constant good affection to the commonwealth of England" during the rebellion, would suffer partial forfeiture of between one-fifth and one-third of their estate depending on their degree of delinquency, and might be required to accept alternate property in other sections of Ireland in exchange for those portions of their estate still left to them. This is the origin of the celebrated "To Hell or to Connacht" policy. Obviously the legislation applied to the landed classes among the Catholics, not to the rank and file of the population. But many of those who were tenants invariably followed their lords when they were expelled from their property. A subsequent "Act of Satisfaction" was passed by the parliament in 1653 to regularize the policy of distributing forfeited property that Oliver Cromwell had dictated. That policy was to use forfeited land in 10 counties to be divided, half to compensate Adventurers and half to compensate soldiers. Forfeited lands in other counties were placed at the government's disposal to meet public debts, to make grants to leaders, and to meet deficiencies in the compensation of Adventurers and soldiers. A later Act of settlement, passed in 1662, after the restoration of the monarchy, confirmed a body of commissioners established by Charles II to allow restoration of land to those who fought on the side of the Confederation of Kilkenny and who had abided by the treaties with the royalists in 1646 and 1649, to those who had served the king abroad while he was in exile, and to those who had been innocent of involvement in the rebellion. At the same time the lands conferred to Adventurers and soldiers were confirmed. obviously there was not enough land left to be distributed equitably, and, in 1663, an Act of Explanation put a stop to any additional claims by the dispossessed from being heard and one-third of the property of soldiers and Adventurers was surrendered to meet the valid restoration claims. The effect of the whole process, in spite of the amelioration offered by the Act of Settlement in 1662, was to change the proportion of land owned by Catholics in Ireland from three-fifths in 1641 to one-fifth in 1663.
Priate a revenue surplus for the exchequer. He was one of the Undertakers, who the lord lieutenant was required to rely upon to manage the government's business through the parliament. He was speaker of the house from 1733 to 1753. He was rewarded with a pension for life and was created the earl of Shannon in 1756.
Shackleton, Ernest (1874-1922)
Explorer
Born in Kilkea, County Kildare, Shackleton's family moved to Dublin when he was six and four years later permanently to London. He was educated at Dulwich College. He joined the merchant service rather than the Royal Navy because of limitations on his family's finances. He accompanied Captain Robert Scott on an Antarctic expedition in 1901. In 1907 he led his own expedition that came within 100 miles of reaching the actual South Pole, although he did reach the magnetic pole. He was knighted in 1909. In 1914, after the First World War had started, Shackleton led another expedition to Antarctica. He failed to achieve his goal of crossing the continent, but photographs taken of the expedition gained him worldwide fame. Even more extraordinary was the rescue he achieved of his crew of 28 after their ship Endurance was trapped in ice. He and five of the crew, including Thomas Crean, set out in a small boat on a treacherous 800-mile trip to the island of South Georgia seeking aid. They returned and successfully rescued the entire crew. After serving in an expeditionary force to northern Russia in 1918 and 1919, he returned on another expedition to the Antarctic, but he died in South Georgia, where he is buried.
Shannon, Henry Boyle, earl of (1682-1764)
Politician
Born in Castlemartyr, County Cork, he was a member of the Irish parliament for Midleton from 1707 to 1713, for Kilmallock from 1713 to 1715, and for Cork from 1715 to 1753. He successfully resisted government efforts to appro-
Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
Playwriter, man of letters
Born in Dublin, the son of a grain merchant father and an artistically inclined mother, Shaw left school at 16 and worked as a clerk in a land agent's office. He went to London in 1876 and made that his permanent residence. He tried his hand unsuccessfully at writing novels, but turned to journalism and reviewing. Accepting socialism, he became a member of the Fabian Society, which sought to advance socialism gradually by slowly converting the leaders of society
George Bernard Shaw (Library of Congress)
To individual aspects of the program. He then began writing plays with a political message, as he was influenced by the work of Henrik Ibsen. The objects of his criticism included middle-class hypocrisy, economic exploitation, and the military. Among his then controversial titles were Widowers’ Houses (1892), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1894), and Arms and the Man (1894). He married an independently wealthy Irish woman, Charlotte Payne-Townsend, in 1898, and turned exclusively to playwriting. Among his plays in the beginning of the 20th century were Man and Superman (1903), John Bull’s Other Island (1904), and Major Barbara (1905). He usually wrote a lengthy introduction to his plays in which he espoused his notions of societal responsibility for hardship and progressive human evolution. Beginning with The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), his plays began to appear at the Abbey Theatre, even his John Bull’s Other Island that had originally been refused. From 1905 on he began to spend his summer holidays at Park-nasilla, County Kerry. He approved the Easter Rising, opposed the execution of Roger Case ment, opposed British involvement in the First World War, but also opposed Irish separatism, as he though nationalist sentiment worked against progressive evolution. Later plays included Back to Methuselah (1921) and Saint Joan (1923). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1925. Like many talented writers he was uncritical in his judgment of some foreign leaders, as he wrote and spoke approvingly at times of Mussolini, stalin, and Hitler. He also wrote political tracts such as Fabianism and the Empire (1900) and The Intelligent Women’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928) and took part in frequent public debates with English controversialists Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton.
Don (1868-74) and then for County Cork (1874-85). a member of the Irish Parliamen tary Party, he succeeded Issac Butt when the latter died in 1879, but was defeated by Charles Stewart Parnell for the leadership the following year. He and 11 other members left the party. However, he continued to support William Gladstone and Home Rule.
Shee, Sir Martin Archer (1769-1850)
Portrait painter
Born in Dublin to an impoverished Catholic gentry family, Shee studied at the Dublin Society and began at a young age to make a living doing portrait paintings. In 1788 he went to London and attended the Royal Academy. He came under the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gilbert Stuart. By 1800 he had established himself as a portrait painter and was elected president of the Royal Academy in 1830.
Sheehy, Nicholas (1728-1766)
Priest
Born in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Sheehy was educated at Santiago and at Salamanca and ordained a priest in 1750. He served first in the city of Waterford and then in the parishes of Shanraghen and Templetenny. Siding with his parishioners in disputes over rents and tithes, he was accused of involvement in Whiteboy crimes. Successfully petitioning for a change of venue from a suspected packed jury in the Clonmel court, he was acquitted in a trial before the King's Bench in Dublin. However he was rearrested and charged with murder in the Clonmel court, convicted, and hung on March 15, 1766.
Shaw, William (1823-1895)
Politician
Born in Cork, Shaw was a minister in the Congregational Church from 1846 to 1850. Then he turned to business as a bank director and finally was elected to parliament as a member for Ban-
Sheehy Skeffington, Francis (1878-1916)
Journalist, socialist, pacifist Born in Bailieborough, County Cavan, Sheehy was educated at University College Dublin and served as its registrar from 1902 to 1904 until he resigned in a dispute over female academics. A committed feminist, he added his wife's surname, Sheehy, to his own upon marriage in 1903. He had been a friend of James Joyce while a student. He edited the suffragist paper the Irish Citizen, and was an editor of the Nationalist. He also published a biography of Michael Davitt in 1908. He was a pacifist, although he was for a while a member of the Irish Citizen Army, but was a close friend of many involved in the nationalist struggle and was even hosted by Clan na Gael while on a lecture tour of the United States in 1915. He disapproved of the Easter Rising and ironically was arrested while attempting to discourage looting. The arresting officer, a Captain J. C. Bowen-Colthurst, held an arbitrary court-martial and had him executed. The same captain was subsequently convicted of murder for the action, but escaped penalty on grounds of insanity.
Sheehy Skeffington, Hannah (1877-1946)
Feminist, political radical
Born in Loughmore, County Tipperary, Sheehy was the daughter of David Sheehy, an Irish Par liamentary Party member of parliament. She was married to Francis Sheehy Skeffington and was supported by him in founding the Irish Women's Suffrage League. She was imprisoned for destructive behavior in suffrage protests in 1912. During the war of independence she supported Sinn Fbin and made international appeals for their cause, including a meeting with President Woodrow Wilson. She also served on the revolutionary Dail Aireann courts that had replaced the regular judiciary in Ireland during the war. She opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and visited the United States campaigning on behalf of its republican opponents. She visited the Soviet Union and was imprisoned for a month for republican activism in Newry, Northern Ireland, in 1933. Her sister, Mary, was married to Thomas Kettle, and her sister, Kathleen, was married to Cruise O'Brien. The latter were the parents of Conor Cruise O'Brien.
Sheil, Richard Lalor (1791-1851)
Politician
Born in Drumdowney, County Kilkenny, Sheil was educated at Stonyhurst and at Trinity Col lege Dublin. Although called to the bar in 1814, he supported himself at first by writing plays until his practice improved. He clashed with Daniel O'Connell as he was willing to accept the veto by the government on hierarchical appointments in return for Catholic emancipation. However, he later supported him in his campaign for the same and was himself elected to parliament in 1830 for a constituency in England and subsequently sat for County Louth from 1831 to 1833, County Tipperary from 1833 to 1841, and for Dungarvan from 1841 on. He helped bring about the Lichfield House Compact between O'Connell and the Whigs in 1835. From then on he secured for himself a number of sinecures, such as vice president of the Board of Trade in 1839, judge advocate in 1841, and master of the Mint from 1846 to 1850, and became ambassador to Tuscany in 1851. He died in Florence.
Sheridan, Jim (1949- )
Film director, writer
Born in Dublin and educated at University College Dublin, Sheridan had several plays produced in Dublin before becoming the director of the irish Arts Center in New York, where he also studied at New York University. His adaptation of the Christy Brown autobiography My Left Foot into a film in 1989 won several Academy Award nominations and Oscars for two of the actors. Other successful films were The Field (1990) with Richard Harris and In the Name of the Father (1993), about the falsely imprisoned Guildford Four, which won a Berlin Film Festival award and several Oscar nominations. Other films he helped write include Into the West (1992) and Some Mother's Son (1996), about the hunger strike of 1981.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816)
Playwright, politician
Born in Dublin, Sheridan's family settled in Bath, England. He eloped in 1771 with the beautiful and musically talented Elizabeth Lin-ney. Instead of allowing her to sing professionally, he turned to playwriting to make a living and to support an extravagant lifestyle. He achieved remarkable success with plays such as The Rivals (1775) based on his elopement, The School for Scandal (1777), and The Critic (1779). His success enabled him to buy the Drury Lane theatre. In 1780 he was elected to parliament for Stafford and was associated with the Whigs, particularly Charles James Fox and Edmund Burke, and delivered remarkable orations in support of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the governor-general of the East India Company. He was also supportive of American grievances at the time of the American Revolution. He opposed the Act of Union. Sheridan lost his seat in 1811. The theatre he owned burned in 1809, which, coupled with enormous debts incurred by his lavish spending, subjected him to arrest for debt. He died in 1816 and was given an impressive funeral by his friends in Westminster Cathedral.
Sheridan, Thomas (1719-1788)
Actor
Born in Quilca, County Cavan, Sheridan's father was an educator and his godfather was Jonathan Swift. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin. He performed at the Smock Alley Theatre in 1743 and soon became its manager. He also appeared in Drury Lane and in Covent Garden. He taught elocution, wrote a volume on the educational system, British Education: Source of Disorder (1756), compiled A General Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (1780), and edited The Works of Swift, with Life, 18 vols. (1784). He was the father of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
Shields, Arthur (1896-1970)
Actor
Born in Dublin, Shields acted at the Abbey Theatre. He served in the Irish Volunteers and took part in the Easter Rising, after which he was interned at Frongoch for several months.
Upon release he resumed acting. His brother, William, was more famous, performing under the stage name of Barry Fitzgerald. He went to America in 1936 to play in a film version of the Sean O'Casey play The Plough and the Stars. Shields remained in California for the rest of life, believing that the dry climate was more appropriate for his health, and he continued to act in movies and on television.
Silken Thomas See Kildare, Thomas (Silken Thomas) Fitzgerald, the 10th earl of.
Simnel, Lambert (1475-1522)
Pretender to the English throne Lambert Simnel was trained to impersonate the Earl of Warwick, the nephew of the late Edward iV, in a challenge to Henry Vii. He went to ireland in 1487 where the Anglo-Irish community supported his cause and recognized him as king. When he led an expeditionary force to England he was defeated and spent the rest of his life as a servant in the court of Henry Vii.
Sinn Fein
Arthur Griffith proposed Sinn Fein as a national policy in 1905 and started a newspaper with the same name in 1906. In 1907 a number of distinct political groups, including the Dun-cannon Clubs and Cumann na nGaedheal joined with Griffith's National Council to form Sinn Fein as a political party. The strategy of the movement was to elect members to the Westminster parliament who would refuse to attend and instead meet in ireland and proclaim a distinct Irish parliament without waiting for Home Rule legislation. Griffith's ultimate strategy aimed to secure a self-governing Ireland that would retain as its king the ruling monarch is Britain, much like the same monarch ruled as emperor in Austria and king in Hungary. His policy called for economic protection and self-sufficiency. The party did not do well in by-elections or in the general elections of 1910, but it did gain some places in local governmental bodies. Many members of the movement were also members of other nationalist political and cultural movements of the time ranging from the Gaelic League through the Irish Republican Brother hood, although Sinn Fein from the beginning was neither violent nor entirely separatist or republican. a common misconception among British commentators was to regard the 1916 Easter Rising as a Sinn Fein effort. In 1917 the character of the movement changed when Eamon de Valera was elected its president and replaced Griffith. It went from success to success in a series of by-elections in 1917 and 1918 and virtually eliminated the Irish Parliamentary
Propaganda poster for Sinn Fein (Library of Congress)
Party in the 1918 general election. Its elected members, who were neither in jail nor on the run, gathered in Dublin's Mansion House to form the Dail Aireann as the government of Ireland. Soon clashes between the Irish Volun teers and the Royal Irish Constabulary intensified into the war of independence as the Dail considered the Irish Volunteers to be the Army of the Irish Republic, or the IRA. The Sinn Fein movement split over acceptance or rejection of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the split eventually resulted in the civil war. The supporters of the treaty, who formed the Provisional Govern ment and what would soon be the Irish Free State, formed a new party called Cumann na nGaedheal in order to attract support from the many in ireland who had never supported sinn Fein, whereas the opponents of the treaty and supporters of the Irregulars in the civil war retained the name of sinn Fein. its successful candidates in elections to the third and fourth Dails refused to take their seats, as they regard those and all subsequent Dails as illegitimate for having been created by authority of the British and in violation of the original Dail oath to uphold the Irish Republic. By 1926 the leader of Sinn Fein, de Valera, broke with his own party on the issue of abstention, as he supported a willingness to serve in the Dail if the offensive oath to the king was removed. Most of the leading figures in sinn Fein followed him into a new party, Fianna Fail, and they took their seats in 1927 when threatened with legislation that would have deprived them of their seats if they did not take the oath and enter the chamber. A minority remained in the Sinn Fein Party and the few elected continued to abstain from their places in the legislature. The party was also closely linked with the IRA, which it supported in occasional violent campaigns, particularly during the late 1930s and in the late 1950s and early 1960s. When the leadership of the party began to emphasize social more than national questions in the late 1960s and turned more to intellectual debate than to military organization, a split developed. The more nationalist and militarist members, disappointed at the movement's lack of preparedness for the violent community confrontations in Northern Ireland in 1969, started a separate organization called the Provisional Sinn Fbin and also a Provisional IRA. The organization itself called itself the Offi cial Sinn Fbin and the Official IRA. It did not at first foreswear the use of violence, but soon abandoned it, and within a few years called itself Sinn Fein the Workers' Party, and later the Workers' Party. A further split saw a majority form the democratic left, which later merged with the Labour Party. Provisional Sinn Fein soon called itself simply Sinn Fein. Tasting political success with the election of Bobby Sands, while on hunger strike, to parliament in 1981, the movement, led by Gerry Adams, began to take electoral politics in Northern ireland more seriously, while not rejecting the continued use of violence. Its success in Northern Ireland Assembly elections, local government elections, and ultimately Adams's own election to parliament in 1983, created a major shift in attitudes. At first the slogan was "the ballot box and the armalite," but by the mid-1990s the IRA agreed to proclaim a cease-fire, although it did not cease to exist. In this period elected Sinn Fein-ers have refused to take their seats in the Westminster parliament, although insisting on and receiving compensation and expense money, as well as office space. However, they have taken their places in local governmental bodies, in the European Parliament, and in the Northern Ireland Assembly formed as part of the Good Fri day Agreement. The willingness of Sinn Fein candidates to take their seats in the Dail fiireann caused a further split as a small minority of more traditional members, calling themselves Republican Sinn Fein, refused to abandon the generations' held view of the Dail as constituting the so-called government of Ireland. Later, others dissatisfied with the cease-fire formed a 32 County Sovereignty Movement. However, Sinn Fein has gone on to achieve considerable success, including having held seats in a powersharing government in Northern ireland, surpassing the Social Democratic and Labour Party, as the largest non-UNioNisT party in
Northern ireland, electing several members to Dail fiireann and increasing its presence in a number of local government bodies in the irish Republic, especially in urban areas. However, at this writing, the reestablishment of a powersharing executive in Northern ireland is being held up by Unionist distrust of its abandonment of violence. Also, parties in the Republic of Ireland refuse to accept Sinn Fein as a coalition partner so long as it retains its ties with the IRA.
Sirr, Henry Charles (1764-1841)
Army officer, police official
Born in Dublin, Sirr served in the British army from 1778 to 1791. In 1796 he obtained the same post his father had held as town-major head of the police, which gave him a residence in Dublin Castle. He was central to the counterinsurgency efforts of the government, particularly in the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 1798 and Robert Emmet in 1803. He retired in 1826. Sirr was also an art and antique collector.
Sisters of Mercy See McAuley, Catherine.
Skeffington, William (died 1535)
Lord deputy of Ireland
He was lord deputy from 1530 to 1532 and from 1534 to 1535. He defeated the forces of "Silken Thomas" or Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, the 10th earl of Kildare at Maynooth and who accepted his surrender in 1535. He had earlier obtained the acquiescence of the o'Neills and the o'Donnells in ulster.
Skelligs, the
Two islands about seven miles off the coast of County Kerry, one of which had been the site of an early Irish monastery, until Viking raids forced the relocation to the mainland. The ruins of its beehive huts still exist. The larger island, which rises about 700 feet above the sea, is also the site of a lighthouse. Both are important bird sanctuaries, especially for gannets.
Sligo
A maritime county of Connacht bounded by the counties of Leitrim, Roscommon, and Mayo, Sligo has a population of over 58,000 and an area of 695 square miles. The county's farms are small and feature primarily beef and sheep but with some dairy cattle in the south of the county. Its natural beauty, particularly the mountain Benbulbin served as a source of inspiration for William Butler Yeats, who is buried nearby, and his artist brother, Jack B. Yeats. Near the west Sligo town of Carrowmore is the largest Megalithic cemetery in Ireland, which predates Newgrange. Inishmurray Island, six miles off the northwest coast, features the ruins of an ancient Christian monastery destroyed by the Vikings. The county is replete with sites connected to ancient folklore, including the burial place of Queen Maeve. The name comes from the Irish Sligeach, meaning river of shells, possibly connected to the shellfish of Sligo Bay. The largest town, Sligo Town, has a population of over 18,000 serves as the cathedral town of the diocese of Elphin. It lies near lands granted in the 13th century to the Anglo-Norman Maurice Fitzgerald, who built a castle and a Dominican friary. In the far north is the seaside resort of Mullaghmore where Lord Mountbatten was assassinated in 1979. Celebrated natives of Sligo, in addition to the Yeats brothers, include the fiddler Michael Coleman, Countess Constance Markievicz, and poet Tadhg Dall 6 hUiginn.
Sloane, Sir Hans (1660-1753)
Physician
Born at Killyleagh Castle, County Down, Sloane studied medicine at Paris, Montpelier, and at the University of Orange. He served as physician to the governor of Jamaica between 1687 and 1689. He collected 800 plant species there and published a catalogue. Sloane became a successful doctor in
London, was appointed physician to King George II, and was president of the Royal Society in 1727. He accumulated a library of over 50,000 volumes and thousands of manuscripts, which he left to the British nation and which became the nucleus of what would become the British Museum.
Smiddy, Timothy A. (1875-1962)
Economist, diplomat
Born in Cork and educated at Queen's College Cork, at Paris and in Cologne, Smiddy was professor of Economics at University College Cork for 1909 to 1924. He was the envoy and fiscal agent of the Irish Free State to the United States from 1922 to 1924, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary in Washington from 1924 to 1929, and high commissioner in London from 1929 to 1930. Other positions he held included chairman of the Free State Tariff Commission from 1931 to 1933, director of the Central Bank of Ireland from 1943 to 1955, and chairman of the Commission on PostEmergency Agricultural Policy in 1947.
Social Democratic and Labour Party
(SDLP)
Various activists in the civil rights campaign of the preceding years formed this political party on August 27, 1970. The first leader was the republican Labour Party member of parliament for West Belfast, Gerry FITT. other figures included John Hume, Austin Currie, and Ivan Cooper. Although not limited to Catholics, the party became in fact the major constitutional and political voice of the Catholic minority population, and replaced the older Nationalist Party led by Eddie McAteer. It withdrew from the Northern Ireland Parliament in August 1971 in protest at the policy of internment. It joined in the powersharing government formed in 1973 and confirmed by the Sunningdale Agreement, but which collapsed after the loyalist general strike the following May. In 1979 Fitt withdrew from the party because of its increasing nationalist or "Green" line and John Hume became the leader. The party held its position as the leading nationalist party in the 1980s despite Sinn Fein's entry into electoral politics. It cooperated closely with the British and Irish governments in the preliminaries to the Hillsborough Agreement of 1985. Leader John Hume engaged in a series of conversations with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams that helped bring Sinn Fein and the IRA to agree to a cessation of violence and proclaim a ceasefire in 1994. Since then, Sinn Fein continued to gain electorally at the expense of the SDLP, a price Hume was willing to pay to advance the prospects for peace. Seamus Mallon, a SDLP member of parliament for Armagh, served as the minister in the power-sharing government headed by David Trimble of the unionist Party as called for by the Good Friday Agreement. Mark Durkan replaced Hume as leader in 2001. In the 2002 general election Sinn Fein increased its numbers elected to the Westminster parliament, and in the 2003 elections for the Northern Ire land Assembly surpassed the SDLP in the number of seats gained. In 2004 a Sinn Fein candidate also was elected to the European Parliament seat that John Hume had held.
Social Partnership
The term refers to the ongoing agreements reached, starting in the mid-1980s, between the Irish government and major economic interests in society, including management and labor, and later, in 1997, voluntary and community organizations, regarding pay, welfare, and tax issues, with the purpose of minimizing labor disputes and similar confrontations at a time of needed government retrenchment. Fewer labor disputes and lower taxes, plus the inclusion of a number of social policy issues, such as extension of paternal benefits, contributed to creating the atmosphere in which the economic boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s flourished.
Somerville and Ross (Edith Somerville and Violet Martin [Martin Ross]) (1858-1949 and 1862-1915)
Writers
These were the pen names of second cousins from an Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy background. They collaborated in writing a number of travelogues, essays, and novels that gave a fascinating picture of rural Ireland and its gentry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Major titles include The Real Charlotte (1894) and Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. (1899). Edith Somerville, who was born in Corfu but educated at home in castletownshend, county cork, was an activist for women's rights and a sportswoman. She continued to write and used the dual pen name even after the death of her cousin in 1915. Her cousin, Violet Martin, was born in County Galway, and was a descendant of an Anglo-Norman family, but lived for a while in Dublin and then in London, where she met her cousin. She combined sympathy for unionism with an interest in women's suffrage.
Souperism
The term refers to the willingness of some Catholics during the Great Famine to agree to convert to Protestantism in return for food and other assistance offered by Protestant groups. It was not a condition for aid from most Protestant agencies, but may have been imposed by some. Also, some Catholic recipients might have been inclined to convert as a means to enhance their prospects of receiving aid.
Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland refers to the parliament and government that were to be created by the GoVernment of Ireland Act of 1920 that gave Home Rule to both sections of Ireland and created partition. All of the 128 members elected to the parliament of Southern Ireland except for the four elected for Trinity College Dublin refused to sit and met instead as the second Dail fiiREANN. However, those who supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 did agree to meet with those four and, as the parliament of Southern Ireland, approve the treaty and select the Provisional Government to which power was transferred from the British.
Special Powers Legislation See Emer gency Powers legislation.
Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599)
Poet, political administrator Born in London and educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Spenser was a secretary to Lord Leonard Grey, lord deputy of Ireland, and was a witness to the brutal massacre of continental supporters of the Munster Irish at Smerwick, County Kerry, in 1580. He was rewarded with 3,000 acres of land at Kilcolman, County Cork, as part of the plantation of Munster. His poem TheFairie Queen (1590-96) earned him repute as a leading Elizabethan poet. However, he also wrote A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596) that was quite critical of Irish society and culture and that argued that the irish must be subdued "by the sword, for all evils must first be cut away with a strong hand before any good can be planted." Not surprisingly his own estate was destroyed in 1598 during the O'Neillite rebellion, and he fled to England.
Spring, Dick (1950- )
Politician
Born in Tralee and educated at the Cistercian College, Roscrea, County Tipperary, at Trinity College Dublin, and at the King's Inn, Spring qualified as a barrister. He was a celebrated rugby player. Elected to the Dail Aireann in 1981 for North Kerry as a member of the Labour Party, he succeeded his father who had held the seat since 1943. The following year he was elected as the party leader in succeeding Michael o'Leary in a contest in which the party was divided between supporters of Barry Desmond and Michael D. Higgins. In the coalition government led by Garret FitzGerald, he served as Tanaiste and minister for the environment and for energy. He was closely involved with the New Ireland Forum and the negotiations leading to the Hillsborough Agreement. His opposition to the budget led to his party's departure from the coalition government, necessitating a general election in 1987. In opposition he promoted the Labour Party's selection of former member Mary Robinson as its successful presidential candidate and he led his party to its greatest-ever electoral success in the 1992 general election, when it gained 33 seats in the Dail. Spring led his party into a coalition with the Fianna Fail Party led by Albert Reynolds and became Tanaiste again, as well as minister for foreign affairs. Within two years his party split with Reynolds over the issue of a judicial appointment and the resulting vote of no confidence was followed by the creation of the Rain bow Coalition government headed by John Bruton of Fine Gael in which Spring was again Tanaiste and minister for foreign affairs until the government was defeated in the 1997 general election. He resigned as party leader subsequent to the election and in the 2002 general election lost his own seat in the Dail for North Kerry.
Stack, Austin (1880-1929)
Republican politician
Born in Tralee, County Kerry, Stack was a member of the Irish Volunteers and was a member of the mission that ought have met Roger Case ment and weaponry at the time of the Easter Rising. He was imprisoned afterward for over a year. He was returned for West Kerry to the first Dail Aireann and was made substitute minister for home affairs in 1920. He was returned to the second Dail for Kerry and Limerick West in 1921 and became minister for home affairs. He was closely associated with Cathal Brugha in hostility to Michael Collins and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, believing in a more clear-cut revolutionary approach in contrast to Collins's guerrilla warfare tactics. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, was reelected to the third Dail Aire-ann in 1922, but did not take his seat as he supported the Irregulars in the civil war. He was captured in April 1923 and went on hunger strike for several weeks while imprisoned. He was returned as an abstentionist member of Sinn Fain in the 1923 and the June 1927 elections, but did not run in the September 1927 election.
Stalker, John (1939- )
Police officer
Born in Manchester and educated locally, he joined the Manchester Police Force and became its deputy chief constable in 1984. The same year he was appointed to conduct an investigation into alleged illegal killings by the Royal Ulster Con STABULARY. Shortly after he submitted his interim report, he himself became the subject of an investigation regarded allegations of corruption and was suspended as director of the Northern Ireland investigation. An investigation undertaken by a West Yorkshire chief constable, Colin Sampson, ultimately exonerated him, but he resigned from the police force nevertheless in 1987. Sampson assumed the direction of the investigation of the RUC and arrived at much the same conclusion as had Stalker, namely, that some members of the RUC were involved in a "shoot to kill" policy. Official reluctance to allow immediate release of the reports was attributed to a desire to maintain morale in the force, which was confronted with the task of restraining loyalist and Orange protests against the Hillsborough Agreement and the new phase of cooperation between the British and irish governments that had ensued.
Statute of Westminster
This statute, passed in 1931 by the Westminster parliament, gave legal status to the 1926 British Commonwealth Conference recommendations that the dominions possessed legal autonomy from Britain and that they have the power to void Westminster legislation which effected them. it essentially gave the Irish Free State the right to void parts of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which the British regarded as deriving its legitimacy from having been legislatively sanctioned by the Westminster parliament, if it chose. Paradoxically, Cumann na nGaedheal took the position that alterations to the treaty, as an international agreement, required the consent of both signing parties. The party subsequently opposed Eamon DE Valera's successful attempts to eliminate offensive treaty provisions from the Free State constitution.
Steele, Richard (1672-1729)
Writer
Born in Dublin, Steele was educated at Oxford and earned a commission in the Coldstream Guards. He wrote the devotional manual The Christian Hero (1701) out of remorse for having seriously wounded a fellow officer in a duel. He turned to playwriting and in 1705 married a wealthy widow who died two years later. He left the army, remarried, and began editing the Gazette in 1707. In 1709 he and his close friend, Joseph Addison, founded the periodical the Tatler. In 1711 they founded the Spectator and in 1713 the Guardian.
Stephens, James (1825-1901)
Founder of the Fenians
Born in Kilkenny and educated at St. Kieran's College, Stephens took part and was wounded in the rising in 1848 by members of Young Ire land. He fled to Paris. He returned to Ireland and in 1858, with Thomas Clarke Luby, founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or the FENIAN movement. Going about Ireland he successfully recruited thousands in a secret organization formed into "Circles" of 820 men, whose setup followed a formula by which there was one sergeant for every nine men and nine sergeants reported to nine captains, who in turn reported to a colonel, with theoretically no single member having direct contact with or knowledge of anyone other than those of his own rank, his immediate superior, or those under him. He also founded a supporting newspaper the Irish People, along with Luby, Thomas Kickham and John O'Leary. He fell out with American supporters because of his delay in calling for a rising. Stephens himself was arrested in Ireland the same year, but he escaped to France and later to America. The hostility of American Fenians drove him back to Paris, where he lived by writing until a final return and settlement in Ireland in Blackrock, Dublin, in 1886.
Stephenson, Sam (1933- )
Architect
Born in Dublin and educated at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Stephenson designed the
ESB offices in Fitzwilliam Street (1968). The construction required the destruction of a row of Georgian houses, the Central Bank (1976), and the Civic Offices at Wood Quay (1982), which incurred great outrage on the part of archaeologists and medievalists.
Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Novelist
Born in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Sterne's mother was Irish and his father was a British army officer. He spent only his childhood in Ireland and became an Anglican clergyman in Yorkshire. Sterne wrote the classic comic novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67) and A Sentimental Journey (1768), which were noted for their depictions of rural life.
Stewart, Robert, Viscount Castlereagh and second marquis of Londonderry
See Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, second MARQUIS OF Londonderry and Viscount.
Stoker, Abraham (Bram Stoker) (1847-1911)
Novelist
Born in Dublin, Stoker was educated at Trinity College Dublin and entered the civil service. He also wrote unpaid theatre reviews for the Evening Standard. He moved to London in 1878 to become the manager of an actor friend, Henry Irving, until the later died in 1905. Stoker wrote a number of novels, the most famous of which was Dracula (1897), which was inspired by a tale of vampirism by Sheridan Le Fanu, and which inspired plays, movies, and even comic strips.
Stokes, George Gabriel (1819-1903)
Mathematical physicist
Born in Skreen, County Sligo, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, Stokes was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took a first in mathematics and where he became professor of mathematics. His work included deriving the equations of motion for the internal friction of fluids and the motion for the behavior of waves in electric solids. He formulated what became known as Stokes law, about the movement of a body through viscous fluids of various densities. He provided an explanation of fluorescence. His work on elliptically polarized light provided the standard way of describing light emitted in experiments in modern atomic and optical physics.
Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, first earl of (1593-1641)
Politician
Born in London, Wentworth was a supporter of King Charles I in his struggles with parliament. He was made lord deputy in Ireland in 1632 and pursued a policy of "thorough," which sought to assert royal power against various local interests, increase revenue, and impose an Anglican religious orthodoxy on the church in Ireland. He played off the hostilities of the Old English Catholics and the New English Protestants against each other and alienated both, in spite of promises of concessions, such as the Graces, which were never completely granted. Calvinist influences in the established Church of Ireland were inhibited and many Catholic landowners, especially in Connacht, lost land because of judicial "discovery" of title weaknesses. Wentworth personally enriched himself while lord deputy. His downfall began with his support of the war against Scotland in 1639. Granted the title of earl in reward for his service to the king, he pursued policies, especially recruitment of an army in Ireland for future use against Scotland and, the parliamentarians feared, against parliament, which resulted in his impeachment and execution under a bill of attainder in 1641, to which the king, out of fear for himself and his family, assented.
Stuart, Francis (1902-2000)
Novelist
Born in Australia of Ulster parents, Stuart was educated at Rugby School, Warwickshire. He married Iseult Gonne, the daughter of Maud Gonne. Stuart supported the Irish war of inde pendence and the anti-treaty side in the Irish CIVIL war. He wrote a book of poetry, We Have Kept the Faith (1924), and a number of novels such as Pigeon Irish (1932), The White Hare (1936), and The Coloured Dome (1936), which received some acclaim. He converted to Catholicism and, in 1939, accepted a position as lecturer at a university in Berlin. During the war his broadcasts on German radio were interpreted as pro-Axis propaganda and he was interned for a year by the English after the war and declared "outside the diplomatic protection of his own government" by the Irish Department of External Affairs. He only returned to Ireland in 1959. He wrote a number of novels after the war, including The Pillar of Cloud (1948), Redemption (1949), and the autobiographical Blacklist, Section H (1971).
Stuart, Henry Villiers, first baron (1803-1874)
Landlord, politician
Stuart was educated at Eton. He was a landlord who agreed to run for parliament as a champion of Catholic emancipation in a by-election in County Waterford in 1826, where, with support from Daniel O'Connell and the Catholic Asso ciation he defeated the incumbent candidate, Lord George Beresford, several of whose own tenants deserted him.
Sullivan, Alexander Martin (A. M. Sullivan) (1830-1884)
Journalist, politician
Born in Bantry, County Cork, Sullivan was educated locally and joined the staff of the Nation, which he began editing in 1855 and of which he became sole proprietor in 1858 following Charles Gavan Duffy's departure for Australia. He was a constitutional nationalist and met the opprobrium of the Fenians whose council called for his assassination, but the high regard in which he was held by the rank and file inhibited such. He was actually imprisoned for six months by the authorities for writing an article about the Manchester Martyrs. Upon release he insisted that a 400-pound tribute raised for him be used instead to erect a statue of Henry Grattan in College Green, Dublin. One of the founders of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sullivan was a member of parliament for County Louth from 1874 to 1880 and for County Meath from 1880 to 1881. Called to the Irish bar in 1876 and the English bar in 1877, he gave over the editorship of the Nation to his brother, Timothy Daniel Sullivan. When his health broke in 1881 he resigned from parliament and died in Dublin in 1884. His History of Ireland (1870) was widely read.
Sullivan, Timothy Daniel (T. D.
Sullivan) (1827-1914)
World History
