MÁIRT -- On January 20, 1771, Don Hugo O'Conor (left) was named Commandant Inspector of New Spain. O'Conor was born into a Jacobite family in Dublin in December 1734. The family name was most likely originally spelled O'Connor and changed as the result of frequent misspellings by Spanish speakers. One of Hugo's grandfathers had been forced to flee to Spain in 1652 and Hugo's father was also an Irish nationalist. By the time of Hugo O'Conor, Spain had a long tradition of taking in Irish exiles. The O'Conor family was related to two officers in the Spanish army, Colonel Don Domingo O'Reilly and Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly. In 1751 young Hugo followed his two cousins to Spain. He immediately joined the Irish Hibernia Regiment. Hugo served in Spain's war against Portugal in the early 1760's and then was sent to the New World, serving in Cuba under his cousin, Field Marshal O'Reilly. Hugo rose steadily through the ranks and in 1763 was made a knight of the Order of Calatrava. In 1765 he was transferred to Mexico and served on the staff of Don Juan de Villalba.

DeGolyer Library The signature of Hugo O'Conor from a report to his successor, July 22, 1777.

Shortly thereafter O'Conor was sent to temporarily command the northern presidio of San Sabá. He was then assigned to investigate a violent dispute between the governor of Texas and an army officer. The Viceroy of Mexico, Marqués de Cruillas, was so pleased with his handling of this assignment – which ended with the governor's removal – that this eventually led to O'Conor's promotion to the position of Commandant Inspector of New Spain. Utilizing a system of frontier presidios – one he built became the foundation of Tucson, Arizona -- Don Hugo fought a constant battle with numerous Indian tribes while helping reorganize and unify New Spain's northern borders. His most frequent opposition came from a tribe the U.S. Army would one day come to know well -- the Apaches. The Spanish had been fighting the Apaches since 1748 and O'Conor estimated they had killed over 4,000 Spanish subjects. In October 1776, O'Conor returned from the frontier and was appointed governor of the Yucatán. But at his station in Mérida his health began to fail. On March 8, 1779, Don Hugo O'Conor died at Quinta de Miraflores, just east of Mérida. O'Conor was only 44 years old when he died and had already risen to the rank of brigadier general. Had he lived to old age, Don Hugo O'Conor may well have risen to the highest ranks of Spain's army or government.

Hulton Picture Library 'Big Jim' Larkin in his prime.

MÁIRT -- On January 21, 1876, James 'Big Jim' Larkin, one of the greatest labor leaders of the 20th century, was born in Liverpool, England, the second son of a poor Irish couple. At 5 he was sent back to Newry, County Down, to live with his grandparents. He returned to Liverpool in 1885 and began to work as a laborer on the docks. After some time as a seaman he returned to the dock and rose to be a foreman. When Larkin joined a strike by the men under him, he was fired from that position. He had lost a job, but he had found a calling. Larkin became an organizer for the National Union of Dockers Laborers. He was sent to Belfast in 1907 and organized a strike there, managing to get Catholic and Protestant workers to cooperate, rather than let those above them exploit their ancient animosities. So persuasive was Larkin that he even got the police to support his strike. But he was making enemies in high places, including the leadership of NUDL. They transferred him to Dublin, but his militancy caused him to be suspended from the NUDL.

In December 1908, he organized his own union, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, the ITGWU, and through the force of his personality and oratory the Union grew quickly. Most of the dock and factory workers he organized lived in some of the worst slums in all of Europe. In 1913 Larkin's successful organizing caused Dublin employers to move against him. They demanded that all employees quit Larkin's union. The workers refused, and, in August 1913, employers all over Dublin locked them out of their jobs. When other Unions supported them, over 100,000 workers ended up locked out. The employers ended the lockout at the end of January 1914. Many saw little if any gain for the workers as a result of the bitter fight, but others noted that with 'Big Jim's' leadership the workers had a solidarity not seen before. In August 1914, the British suppressed Larkin's paper, The Irish Worker, and he traveled to America to raise funds. He would not return for nine years, much of that time spent behind bars. Larkin found an America which was even more antagonistic to organized labor than Britain. In New York, in 1920, he was jailed and sentenced to 10 years for criminal syndicalism.' In 1923, Governor Al Smith had him released and he returned to Ireland. The Ireland he returned to had changed – for one, the British were gone from the Free State – and the tempestuous Larkin, still a committed Marxist, had not. He was expelled from the ITGWU after a bitter power struggle with the more moderate leaders who had rebuilt it in his absence. Nevertheless, 'Big Jim' continued to be active in the fight for workers rights until his death on January 30, 1947. The world has seen many corrupt labor leaders whose only real agenda was lining their own pockets, but when 'Big Jim' Larkin died his estate consisted of a few personal items and £4.50 in cash.

Thomas Arthur Comte de Lally

CÉADAOIN - January 22, 1760, at Wandewash, India, General Thomas Arthur Comte de Lally's French army, including his regiment of the Irish Brigade, was defeated by Irish-born Sir Eyre Coote's English army. Coote was born in Limerick in 1726; his father's side of the family had come over during the reign of Elizabeth I, and intermarried with the Irish. Lally was second generation Wild Geese, born in France in 1701. His father was Sir Gerard Lally of County Galway. Lally's military career began early and rose ever upward. He first served with the regiment of his uncle, Arthur Dillon. At Dettingen, in 1743, he saved the life of his father and the following year he was promoted to Colonel and given command of his own regiment in the Brigade.

Commanding his regiment at Fontenoy in 1745, the most famous action in the history of the Irish Brigade, his actions in deploying several cannons against the flank of the English advance may have been the turning point in the battle. Lally was involved in the planning of 'Bonnie' Prince Charlie's rising in England later that year, but did not accompany him to Scotland. By 1756, when Lally was selected as commander-in-chief of the French expedition to India, he was one of the greatest living soldiers of France. Lally's force was delayed and did not leave France until May 1757. Further delays occurred on route and he finally landed at Pondicherry, India, on April 28, 1758. In less than two months, Lally cleared the English forces from a huge area around Pondicherry and captured almost 300 pieces of artillery. Lally next laid siege to Madras, but his naval support abandoned him and, in January 1759, the English were reinforced, forcing Lally to retire toward Pondicherry. Forces away from India were conspiring against Lally now, as the merchant fleets of the French had been rendered useless by England's navy. Thus in January 1760, as Lally made his stand at Wandewash, his troops had not been paid in six months, he had few supplies, and no hope of help from France. The morale of his troops could not have been high; still, they gave a good account of themselves until finally they were driven from the field by Coote's army. Lally probably should have sought terms from Coote then, but he held out in Pondicherry for another year until finally, with the garrison facing starvation, he surrendered. Lally had done all a mortal man could do with the forces available to him, now he was on his way back to Europe in a British ship. There were more tribulations ahead for this tragic figure.

VOICES

'The narrative of the destruction, robberies, deaths and other types of damage that I then reported would seem at first glance too exaggerated either as the result of fear or of special purposes of the informants, but besides being based on their reality, they are all evident in very trustworthy documents that I have left in the Archive of Chihuahua.'
        -- From the report of Hugo O'Conor to Teodoro de Criox, his successor in northern New Spain, dated July 22, 1777.

'I would like to know . . . what Orangeism or Protestantism has got to do with men fighting for their just rights, when the issue lies not in religion but is a question of bread and butter, and shorter hours and better working conditions, which we should have had 20 years ago.'
        -- A Protestant supporter of Jim Larkin's in Belfast, 1906

Sir Eyre Coote

'Nobody has a higher idea than I have of General Lally, who, to my knowledge, has struggled against obstacles which I believe unconquerable, and has conquered them. There is certainly not a second man, in all India, who could have managed to keep on foot for so long a period an army without pay, and without any kind of assistance.'
        -- A written statement found in the papers of General Eyre Coote after Coote's death in 1783.

January - Eanáir

BIRTHS

19, 1787 - Mary Aikenhead (Mother Mary Augustine - Founder of Sisters of Charity - Cork City)
20, 1841 - James Armour (Presbyterian minister - Political activist - Ballymoney, Co Antirm)
20, 1902 - Kevin Barry (Irish Republican) Dublin.
21, 1876 - James Larkin (Labor leader - Liverpool.)

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

19, 1920 - IRA attacks Drombrane barracks, Co. Tipperary.
20, 1772 - Don Hugo O'Conor named Commandant Inspector of New Spain.
20, 1897 - American Irish Historical Society established.
20, 1961 - John F. Kennedy inaugurated, first Irish Catholic US president.
21, 1919 - First Dial Eireann meets, De Valera proclaimed Prime Minister though still in Lincoln Jail.
21, 1919 - War of Independence begins, 3rd Tipperary Brigade ambushes RIC patrol.
22, 1760 - Gen. Lally's French army, including his regiment of the Irish Brigade, is defeated by Irish-born Sir Eyre Coote's English army at Wandewash, India.
22, 1972 - Éammon Broy, revolutionary, Police Commissioner, dies.
23, 1898 - United Irish League founded by William O'Brien.
23, 1803 - Arthur Guinness, founder of the famous brewery, dies in Dublin.
23, 1875 – Irish-born John Dempsey wins the US Medal of Honor for saving a shipmate who fell
24, 1862 - Miles Byrne, United Irishmen and soldier in Napoleon's Irish Legion, dies in Paris.
25, 1925 - Nellie Cashman "Frontier Angel" of western US miners, dies in Victoria, BC, Canada.