Barry McCall looks back on some of
the key events at home and abroad
which shaped the news during CPA
Ireland’s foundation year.
BARRY MC CALL
JOURNALIST
CPA Ireland’s foundation occurred against
the backdrop of a newly founded state
attempting to recover from a War of
Independence and a Civil War which had
wrought incalculable damage to the very
fabric of the country’s economy. While the
1920s roared in America things were a good
deal quieter here.
But progress was being made. 1926 saw
work continuing at what was then Europe’s
hydroelectric scheme at Ardnacrusha. This
was a gleaming technological statement of
what the nation could achieve with its own
resources. The same applied to agriculture
with the Irish Sugar Company being founded
in Carlow that year in order to provide the
country with a home produced source of
sugar and farmers with a highly profitable
tillage crop in the form of sugar beet.
Looking back to the Ireland of 1926 it was
a smaller place population wise and quite
different yet still very familiar in many
ways. A census was held north and south
of the border that year and it showed that
population of the Irish Free State was below
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90 YEARS OF CPA
3 million at just 2,972,000 while Northern
Ireland’s stood at 1,257,000. The depressed
southern population was the result of
decades of emigration and the lack of a real
industrial base. The changed balance in the
ensuing years tells its own story in relation to
this country’s improved economic fortunes.
The government of the day featured names
which are still familiar today. The Taoiseach,
or president of the executive council of the
Irish Free State as he was formally known,
was WT Cosgrave, father of subsequent
Fine Gael Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave. The
minister for education at the start of the
year was Eoin McNeill, who had issued the
countermanding order to the Volunteers on
the eve of the 1916 rising and is now also
remembered as the grandfather of former
attorney general and Progressive Democrat
Leader Michael McDowell.
The minister for external affairs was one
Desmond FitzGerald who that same year
had a son called Garrett who would go on to
succeed him in the Iveagh House department
and later become Taoiseach.
It was quite a momentous year for Irish
politics, yet few probably realised it at the
time. Eamon de Valera resigned as leader
of Sinn Fein in March having lost a vote on
the party’s continued refusal to take seats in
the Dail due to continued objections to the
Oath of Allegiance to the king. Calling the
oath “an empty formula” de Valera called on
his colleagues to enter the Dail to achieve
their wider political objectives. Two months
later he and Sean Lemass unveiled their new
political party, Fianna Fail, at a rally in La
Scala theatre in Dublin. And the rest, as they
say, is history.
1926 was seen as a significant year for the
still nascent state as it marked the tenth
anniversary of the Rising. The Dublin City
Commissioners decided that the event
should be commemorated by the removal
of Nelson’s Pillar from O’Connell Street.
However, the decision required the approval
of the Oireachtas which never got around to
debating it. Forty years later the pillar was
removed without going through the niceties
of seeking permission.
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“Another event of note in
Ireland that year occurred on
New Year’s Day when future
President of Ireland Douglas
Hyde officially opened the
Irish Free State broadcasting
service, 2RN, in the GPO. This
later went on to become RTÉ”.
The sporting landscape was quite familiar
– Cork were All-Ireland senior hurling
champions while Kerry took the football
honours. Shelbourne were League of Ireland
football champions and perennial cup
specialists Shamrock Rovers reached the FAI
cup final but lost to a club called Fordsons –
the works team of the Ford Motor Company
in Cork which went on to become known as
Cork City FC.
Another event of note in Ireland that year
occurred on New Year’s Day when future
President of Ireland Douglas Hyde officially
opened the Irish Free State broadcasting
service, 2RN, in the GPO. This later went on to
become RTÉ.
To put this in context, later that same month
in London, Scottish inventor John Logie
Baird gave the first public demonstration of
his television system in. Baird’s invention
was the first to be able to show live moving
images while maintaining realistic black and
white images. Unfortunately for Baird his
invention was soon surpassed by those of
other innovators and later that year NBC
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was founded in the United States to provide
a TV service using one of those systems. It
would take 2RN another 35 years to add a TV
service.
‘February saw a little known Spanish soldier
named Francisco Franco take his first steps
on the road to power with his promotion to
the rank of general.’
It was an interesting year culturally as well.
On February 8th Sean O’Casey’s Plough
and the Stars opened at the Abbey Theatre.
History doesn’t record if the two events are
linked but four days later the then minister
for justice, Kevin O’Higgins, appointed the
country’s first Committee on Evil Literature.
March was a month for scientific
breakthroughs with the first ever
transatlantic telephone call being made
between London and New York while Robert
Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fuel
rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.
Some other significant things were happening
in the world that year. The Lufthansa airline
was founded in Berlin and the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia came into existence in January.
One Theodorus Pangulos made a little bit of
history for himself when he enjoyed possibly
the shortest ever term as a European head of
government having named himself dictator
of Greece on January 2nd only to resign two
days later.
Far more significant in historical terms was
the birth on January 3rd of George Martin
record producer to The Beatles.
Mayday saw the beginning of one of the
key events in modern British history. Coal
miners went on strike for shorter hours and
higher pay. Two days later the British Trades
Union Congress ordered a general strike of
workers in support of the miners. The general
strike lasted just nine days but ended in
defeat for the unions while the miners’ strike
dragged on for several months ending in
effective stalemate. Bitterness arising from
the conflict was to colour British politics for
decades.
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“August 1926 remains for many movie buffs the
month which marked the beginning of the end of
the silent era and the dawn of talkies”.
Interestingly, at the same time in American
the Ford Motor Company was announcing
the creation of a 40-hour work week for
factory workers without any rancorous labour
disputes.
Another future world leader made his debut
in the news that month when Chiang Kaishek was appointed supreme warlord in
Canton, China.
August 1926 remains for many movie buffs
the month which marked the beginning of
the end of the silent era and the dawn of
talkies. That month in New York, the Warner
Brothers premiered the world’s first talking
picture, Don Juan, starring John Barrymore.
This was followed within a few weeks by
the sudden death of the pre-eminent silent
movie star of the time and Hollywood’s first
genuine male sex symbol Rudolph Valentino.
News of the 31 year old’s passing caused
mass grief and hysteria among fans around
the world.
October saw the debut of a future star of
a very different kind with the publication
of AA Milne’s children’s book Winnie-thePooh in London. That month brought news
of the death of magician Harry Houdini of
complications following a ruptured appendix.
The year closed with a genuine mystery
from the greatest mystery writer of them
all. Detective novelist Agatha Christie
disappeared from her home in Surrey on
December 3 was found safe and well at a
Harrogate hotel 11 days later. To this day
there has been no explanation for this
strange episode.
Finally, before concluding our whistlestop
tour of domestic and international events
during CPA Ireland’s foundation year we
should spare a thought for Turkish auditors
and what they made of it. On December
18 1926 Turkey converted to the Gregorian
calendar, making the next day January 1
1927. How they explained away the missing
13 days nobody knows…