X-Nico

5 unusual facts about W. T. Cosgrave


Fáinne

The President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, W. T. Cosgrave acknowledged the Fáinne on 8 February 1924 as an indicator of Irish Language proficiency.

Marrowbone Lane

His second-in-command was Cathal Brugha, and other participants who achieved later prominence in one way or another were W. T. Cosgrave, Joseph McGrath and Dennis O'Brien.

W. T. Cosgrave

Its manifesto promised abstentionism from the House of Commons in Westminster.

In all 77 republicans were executed by the Free State between November 1922 and the end of the war in May 1923, including Robert Erskine Childers, Liam Mellowes and Rory O'Connor, far more than the 14 IRA Volunteers the British executed in the War of Independence.

W.T.'s grandson, also called Liam also served as a TD and as Senator and his granddaughter Louise Cosgrave served as a Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Councillor from 1999 to 2009.


Irish National War Memorial Gardens

W.T. Cosgrave, president of the Irish Free State Executive Council then appointed Cecil Lavery to set up a "War Memorial Committee" to advance the memorial process.

James McNeill

When the first governor-general of the Free State, Timothy Michael Healy retired in December 1927, James McNeill was proposed as his replacement by the Irish government of W. T. Cosgrave and duly appointed by King George V as Governor-General of the Irish Free State.

James O'Mara

After the death in 1923 of Philip Cosgrave, the Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Dublin South and brother of W. T. Cosgrave, O'Mara stood as the Cumann na nGaedheal candidate in the resulting by-election.

John B. Cosgrave

Educated at Royal Holloway College, London, he lectured in Carysfort College(Blackrock, Dublin) and St Patrick's College of Education(Drumcondra).

William X. O'Brien

W. T. Cosgrave while President of the Executive Council of the Free State government notably turned down a plea for asylum in Ireland for Leon Trotsky made by O'Brien.


see also